The roles of personality traits in individual and social informal learning.

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27 September 2013

Gergely Voros

10390804

Supervisor: Dr. Flore Bridoux

MSc Thesis Business Studies

Strategy Track

The roles of personality traits in

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Abstract

Informal learning is an unheeded subject of employee development at the workplace. New research streams emphasize that informal learning accounts for the majority of workplace learning, therefore organizations must take precautions about the way they build their cultures.

This study is built on the assumption that personality traits are able to influence the individual’s choice about learning alone or through social interaction. Our findings show that certain personality traits play an important role in influencing individual learning choices. More precisely, low self-esteem was found to act as a barrier to learning socially and zest showed to be a strong driver of learning alone. Learning goal orientation was found to be an important antecedent for both the individual and the social forms of informal learning. In sum, our findings show that both zest and learning goal orientation are significant personality traits, which promote employee engagement in informal learning activities.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Dr. Flore Bridoux, who supervised me during my thesis. Her helpfulness, feedbacks, comments, guidance and advices were indispensable. I would like to thank all the professors at the department Behavioral Foundations of Strategy who contributed to my master studies at the University of Amsterdam.

Finally, I would like to thank the organization, who aided and allowed me to collect data from their employees.

Keywords: informal learning, self-directed, peer-to-peer, zest, self-esteem, learning goal orientation, extraversion, agreeableness, emotional stability.

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Introduction

„The workhorse of the knowledge economy has been, and continues to be, informal learning.”

(Cross, 2007, p. XIII)

Learning plays an important role as a key antecedent of creating knowledge, which is a critical input of organizational processes, and consequently, competitive advantage (Grant, 1996; Eisenhardt and Santos, 2000). Learning is a crucial factor of organizational and personal development. The workplace is increasingly recognized as a legitimate environment, where employees do not only learn through formal training programs, but also informally, through everyday work activities (Le Clus, 2011).

Informal learning often occurs through social interactions but also individually, through the learner’s self-education (Eraut, 2004). This study refers to the social form of informal learning as peer-to-peer informal learning, and to the individual form of informal learning as self-directed learning. Informal learning scholars emphasize the significance of informal learning at the workplace by the ‘70 to 90 percent rule’, claiming that seventy to ninety percent of learning at the workplace occurs informally (Michaels et al., 1997; Chivers, 2011; Eraut, 2011; Jeon and Kim, 2012).

Several research projects aimed to reveal what workplace attributes can foster informal learning and found that contextual and organizational factors play important roles in promoting peer-to-peer and self-directed learning (Ellinger and Cseh, 2007; Jeon and Kim, 2012). Although organizational and contectual attributes can be changed, personality traits are relatively stable and difficult to change over time, therefore attention must be dedicated to how personality influences informal learning.

Despite the long researched area of informal learning, there is only one study which investigates the relationship between informal learning and personality traits (Noe, Tews and Marand, 2013). In consequence, this study aims to extend our knowledge in this domain by revealing whether personality traits play a role in the individual’s choice to engage in either peer-to-peer or self-directed informal learning. Reviewing the literature has enabled us to identify six dispositional personality traits likely to affect informal learning. These six traits were tested in the formal

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organizational settings of a Dutch firm using a survey method. A quantitative analysis was carried out on a sample of 95 respondents to provide findings.

This study contributes to the literature in several ways. First, it extends our knowledge about the relationship between informal learning and personality traits. Second, it investigates according to a new classification –peer-to-peer and self-directed informal learning- informal learning activities and their relations with personality traits. Third, the study examines the validity of Noe et al’s (2013) findings and fine-tunes them for the new classification framework.

The thesis first reviews the literature then presents the theoretical background of peer-to-peer and self-directed learning. The following theoretical framework unravels those dispositional personality traits, which are hypothesized to play a role in individual choices for social or individual informal learning. The section afterwards elaborates the methodology of the research, then findings of the study are presented and discussed.

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I. Literature Review

1. Defining informal learning in the workplace

Employees today are constantly confronted with challenges in modifying and updating their work practices. They do so in order to sustain their competitive advantage to perform well and thus, to remain employable (Le Clus, 2011).

The workplace is increasingly recognized as the environment where obtaining new knowledge and competences contributes to the better performance of employees. Learning at the workplace can include formal, informal and incidental learning (Marsick and Watkins, 2001; Marsick and Volpe, 1999; Foley, 1999).

Marsick and Watkins (1990, p. 12) defined informal learning as “a category that includes incidental learning, which may occur in institutions, but it is not typically classroom-based or highly structured, and the control of learning rests primarily in the hands of the learner”. The scholars also introduced the term incidental learning, that they defined as “a byproduct of some other activity, such as task accomplishment, interpersonal interaction, sensing the organizational culture, trial and error experimentation, or even formal learning”.

The key differentiating element between incidental and informal learning is that “incidental learning is never planned or intentional, whereas informal learning can be planned or intentional” (Marsick and Watkins, 1990, p. 7). Despite the long definition, key characteristics of informal learning can be summarized as such: “learning that is predominantly unstructured, experiential, and non-institutionalized” (Watkins and Marsick, 1992, p. 287).

Another definition by Livingstone (2000, p. 2) is very similar to that of Marsick and Watkins, and it states that “informal learning is generally any learning activity related to the pursuit of understanding, knowledge or skills that is outside the curricula of educational institutions or the courses or workshops offered by educational or training agencies. It is informal in that people choose to engage in and undertake the activity on one’s own either individually or with others and usually where the criteria are not imposed or defined by an external instructor”. The definition of Livingstone (2000) introduces the concept of explicit informal learning to distinguish from incidental learning. Researchers however are aware that learning may often occur during the process of performing other activities and may be more incidental than informal (Foley, 2004) and therefore do not distinguish between incidental and informal learning in their research projects.

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They do so, because informal learning is sometimes unintentional, therefore harder to observe, describe and research. This is why researchers suggested that studies conducted about informal learning often make up only a small proportion of what is really taking place (Marsick & Volpe, 1999).

To further deepen the confusion about informal learning, OECD (1996) stated that “informal learning is an “experience” or unintentional learning that occurs throughout life without the learner necessarily being aware of the knowledge or skill that they have gained” (p. 5). Moreover, OECD (1996) introduced the concept of non-formal learning, which is “achieved when an individual follows an organized program of instruction” (p. 7). Among researchers there has been a misunderstanding regarding a clear differentiation between informal and non-formal learning. This study will follow the recommendations of Hodkinson, Colley and Malcom (2003) according to whom, non-formal and informal learning are not significantly different, thus researchers may use them interchangeably.

The majority of empirical research on the subject uses the definition of Marsick and Watkins (e.g. Ellstrom, Ekolm and Ellström, 2008; Jacobs and Park, 2009) and characterizes informal learning as “unstructured, experiential and noninstitutional” (Marsick & Volpe, 1999, p. 4) learning that can be planned but is often spontaneous (Le Clus, 2011) and progresses at the learners desired pace (Cunningham & Hillier, 2012). This study uses the theoretical informal learning model of Marsick and Watkins, as well as the majority of scholars (Marsick and Volpe, 1999), because it has been empirically tested in numerous studies (Ellinger and Cseh, 2007; Berg et al., 2010).

The following section gives an overview of the historical antecedents of the concept of informal learning presented before.

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2. Theoretical foundations of informal learning

Several researchers dedicated attention to the subject of informal learning (Lindemann, 1926; Dewey, 1938), but no explicit writings emerged about the subject until the 1980s. The term ‘informal learning’ was first used in the academic literature in the 1950s, in the book of Michael Knowles “Informal Adult Education” (1950). Knowles (1950) did not distinguish between informal and formal learning, but classified all learning activities as informal. Despite the new, interesting concept and Knowles’ classification, scholars did not develop an interest in informal learning for decades, but rather focused on the improvement of formal training procedures.

The popularity of formal training was largely due to the production structure in industrialized economies (Harp, 2012). The dominant management thinking of the early industrial era, known as Taylorism, saw the worker as a resource trained for a specific task, where informal learning was not needed for better executing on-the-job activities: “in Taylorist work organizations, work is intentionally designed with a minimum of learning opportunities for shop-floor workers because learning implies running the risk of a loss of routine, stability and efficiency, therefore such opportunities might lead to lower productivity and higher costs” (Niewuenhuis & Van Woerkom, 2007, p. 66).

The popularity of formal training literature was augmented by the traditional instructional design model (Goldstein, 1974), which developed a framework that enabled firms to develop learning interventions and to assess their effectiveness. The systematic approach provided significant contributions to formal training literature, because it stimulated researchers to study academically and practically significant research questions (Salas & Cannon-Bowers, 2001). “The traditional model however, is a double edged sword” (Noe et al., 2010 p. 280): the model placed the instructor in the center of research even though there was a growing realization that the learner is an equally, if not more important member in the learning process.

New schools of thoughts emphasize the need to change workplace education: “companies offering their workforce excellent training programs are losing competitive advantage” (Chivers, 2011, p. 169).

Additionally, the view on knowledge generation and sharing began to change (Marsick & Watkins, 1992) and learning outside formal settings gained popularity for being perceived as a growingly

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influential factor of organizational and personal development. Skule (2004, p. 9) claims that “new strategies to improve organizational learning capabilities increasingly favour approaches emphasizing experiential, informal and self-directed learning, thus facilitating personal as well as organizational development”.

The increase in interest towards examining informal learning in the workplace context started in the 1980s (Paivi, 2008) and the interest of academics grew largely towards informal learning by the introduction of frameworks which popularized organizational learning, such as the learning organization concept (Senge, 1990).

Peter Senge (p. 3, 1990) introduced and popularized the concept of the learning organization, where the workplace is an environment, in which “people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free and where people are continually learning how to learn together.”

The concept of the learning organization contributed largely to the development of the informal learning literature, because Senge put the bug into scholars’ ears, by concluding that the center of learning research can not only be the instructor but the learner or the group of learners itself. Senge claims that during the development of a learning organization, three levels of learning can be distinguished. First, the organizational level describes learning as a collective experience and results from responses to environmental influences (Marsick and Watkins, 2001). Second, group level learning is described as “the mutual construction of new knowledge, including the capacity for concerted, collaborative action” (Marsick & Watkins, 2001, p.31). Lastly, at the individual level, learning is the way in which people obtain knowledge and skills (Marsick & Watkins, 2001). The increased interest in informal learning is well explained by the fact that during the process of building a learning organization, it is important to ensure knowledge generation, management and sharing at the individual level, but only a few studies approached the learning organization concept starting from individual informal learning. Even today, the connection between the learning organization concept and informal learning receives little attention and only one study attempted to establish a connection between the two concepts, but with no significant results (Berg, 2008).

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The concept of the learning organization provided significant contributions in understanding that continuous individual learning is indispensable for sustaining a learning organization, but only aided informal learning research moderately.

Senge’s learning organization concept (1990) made scholars realize that learning at the individual level has important implications on organizational levels. This realization, coupled with the increased significance attributed to the learning in informal setting, lead Marsick and Watkins (1992) to create the most commonly used conceptual framework for assessing informal learning in the workplace. This framework has been empirically tested in numerous studies (e.g. Ellinger and Cseh, 2007; Berg et al., 2010) and the majority of studies on informal learning uses this model (Marsick, 1990, 1999). The work of Marsick and Watkins provides the best framework to understand informal learning processes and also offers a clear distinction among differing concepts of informal learning. In consequence, the framework of Marsick and Watkins (1992) serves as the theoretical foundation of this study and will be elaborated in the Chapter III.

Further research revealed that informal learning occurs in various settings such as schools and the workplace, during social interaction (Livingstone, 2011; Le Clus, 2011). Learning in the workplace is thus partly situated in the context of social practice (Lave and Wenger, 1991), but the workplace also provides opportunities for engaging in individual, self-directed learning activities (Foley, 2004). Learning within the workplace context of social practice can either be deliberate in which “workers initiate and structure their learning” (Schulz and Stamov Rossnagel, 2010, p. 383 in Harp, 2012) or incidental, where learning is viewed as a byproduct of work-related acitivites (Le Clus, 2011). Self-directed learning is always deliberate, initiated by the learner and progresses at the learner’s own pace (Foley, 2004).

This study separates learner-initiated informal learning into peer-to-peer informal learning and self-directed learning. The study hypothesizes that these two methods are seen as two ends of a continuum, one cannot engage in both of them simultaneously.

Thus, this study introduces a new classification to the informal learning domain because ealier research by Doornbos, Simons and Denessen (2008) found that informal learning included self-focused and other self-focused cognitive activities and behaviours. However, they categorized these informal learning activities into three principal domains: learning from oneself, learning from others and learning from non-interpersonal sources. Learning from oneself includes experimenting

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with new ways of working, using trial and error strategies or reflecting about how to improve performance. Learning from non-interpersonal sources includes using fingertip knowledge (Google), reading management books or professional magazines. Learning from oneself includes all informal learning activities which require social itneraction: interacting with peers, mentors, superiors.

This study argues that personality factors only play a role when the individual chooses to either engage in social interaction or to learn alone, therefore we divide the informal learning domain to self-directed learning and peer-to-peer informal learning.

3. Self-directed learning

The definition of informal learning emphasizes the individual’s intent as a major contributor to the initiation of the informal learning process, and this intent also projects whether the employee decides to seek help from peers or attempts to learn alone. The domain of informal learning without social interaction has been intensively researched, but there is confusion about the definitions of various concepts that we attempt to relieve in the next section.

Competing concepts in self-directed learning

Self-directed learning is undertaken by the learner alone, without reliance on an instructor or an external curriculum (Livingstone, 2001). The label self-directed learning is a source of confusion, because several concepts are used interchangeably in the informal learning literature. In the literature, this body of informal learning has been commonly referred to as self-planned learning (Tough, 1979), self-education (Ruvinsky, 1986), learning by doing via own task (Gibbs, 1979) and as autodidaxy (Candy, 1991).

Self-directed informal learning has been acknowledged in several studies (Foley, 2004; Noe et al., 2010; Le Clus, 2011), but in formal, legitimate workplace settings, it was only investigated by Jeon and Kim (2012). Jeon and Kim investigated the factors that influence the effectiveness of

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informal learning, and found that self-directed learning is enhanced by top management leadership in human resource development and by open communication among employees.

Past empirical research (Marsick & Watkins, 1990; Tannenbaum, 1997; Lohman, 2005; Bear et al., 2008; Cunningham & Hillier, 2012) identified the following self-directed learning activities: fingertip knowledge (e.g. Google), self-learning facilities to access learning models, personal reflection, trial and error, journals, observing others, wikis, blogs and useful information on the intranet. The majority of individual learning is experience-based and it occurs while carrying out work-related tasks (Le Clus, 2011). This study refers to self-directed learning interchangeably with individidual informal learning in the following chapters of the paper.

4. Peer-to-peer informal learning

Informal education is distinguished from self-directed informal learning by the presence of some form of institutionally-recognized instructor (Livingstone, 2001). This type of informal learning received no more attention from researchers than self-directed learning did. Recent research attempted to define informal education in the following way: “When teachers or mentors take responsibility for instructing others without sustained reference to an intentionally-organized body of knowledge in more incidental and spontaneous learning situations, such as guiding them in acquiring job skills or in community development activities” we talk about informal education (Cunningham & Hillier, 2012, p. 39).

Peer-to-peer informal learning is more structured and more easily observable than self-directed learning, therefore several researchers dedicate higher significance to the former, than the latter (e.g. Le Clus, 2011). Le Clus (2011) refers to informal education as situated learning, and declares that “informal learning involves interaction between people and is not limited to a predefined body of knowledge” (p. 360), even though self-directed learning has been found to be significant in workplace contexts (Foley, 2004).

A number of studies identified informal learning to take place in learning activities of mentoring (Conlon, 2004), networking, asking questions (Eraut, 2004), and receiving feedback (Eraut, 2004;

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Marsick & Watking, 2001). The success of informal learning is highly dependent on the quality of human relationships, because social interaction is required during the execution of everyday tasks (Eraut, 2004).

Besides mentoring and networking, other informal education activities were also highlighted by empirical research (Marsick & Watkins, 1990; Tannenbaum, 1997; Lohman, 2005; Bear et al., 2008; Cunningham & Hillier, 2012): coaching, informal peer relationships, informal lunch-and-learn sessions, emailing, instant messaging, social media research and cooperative lunch-and-learning.

Unlike in the case of self-directed learning, the above, identified peer-to-peer learning activities cannot be used interchangeably. Mentoring, coaching and even social media research present a large part of informal learning and knowledge sharing literature (e.g Davison et al., 2011) with sufficient observations to theory building.

This study dedicates attention to those informal learning activities, which require social interaction, including interacting with a mentor, a supervisor or a colleague.

5. Empirical research on informal learning

Conducting a research about informal learning has several difficulties: the informal learning process has no well-defined beginning or ending points, the outcomes are hard to measure (Jeon and Kim, 2012), therefore “the majority of modern research on informal learning in the workplace stays qualitative in nature” (Harp, 2012, p. 21). Data in research papers are mostly collected with open-ended interviews, critical incidents or document analysis (Marsick, 1999). Despite the larger number of research projects, “to date no attempts have been made to assess their findings” (Marsick, 1999).

The exploratory, qualitative studies primarily aimed to determine organizational processes and strategies that underline informal learning (Cseh, 1999; Marsick and Watkins 2001; Berg and Chung, 2008). The preference towards qualitative studies (e.g. Eraut, 2004; Doornbos et al., 2008) was due to the relative novelty and intangibility of the concept. Workplace informal learning is also extremely hard to conceptualize, because “any kind of paid or unpaid work is a source of

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learning, but since what is learned intuitively and collaterally spills over from one human activity to another, there can be no clear evidence of when or where or how a given ability, attitude or value was first learned and subsequently developed” (Pankhurst, 2010, p. 118). Additionally, it has been pointed out that learners often think that an acquired skill is a result of formal training (Eraut, 2004), even though learning through on-the-job experiences is more common (Le Clus, 2011).

Skule (2004, p. 10) pointed out that “informal learning cannot be measured by means of indicators traditionally used in the field of education and training, such as participation rates, training hours, expenditures or level of qualification. Neither can indicators to measure informal learning be extracted directly from existing theories of learning”. Only later did researchers recognize the need to conduct quantitative, empirical studies, because “to date no attempts have been made to assess their findings” (Marsick and Watkins, 1999 p. 33). However, “the majority of modern research on informal learning in the workplace stays qualitative in nature” (Harp, 2012, p. 21).

The number of informal learning-related research projects in which quantitative methods are used is slowly increasing (e.g. Jeon and Kim, 2012; Ellinger and Cseh 2007), attempting to relieve the contradiction pointed out earlier by Marsick (1999).

The development of informal learning literature happened through well-documented steps. At first, interest in the field increased due to the utility of the framework proposed by Marsick and Watkins (1990, 1999). Another large step to raise researchers’ interest in the subject was the observation of Michaels, Hanfield and Axelrod (1997), who revealed that 70% of learning occurs in informal settings through on-the job experiences. Even among today’s researchers, the 70 to 90 percent rule is dominant in underlying the overweight of informal learning over formal settings (Chivers, 2011; Eraut, 2011; Lewis, 2011; Jeon & Kim, 2012).

The introduction of the framework enabled scholars to concentrate on determining underlying processes and strategies of the informal learning learning process (Cseh, 1999; Marsick and Watkins, 2001).

As it became clear how and through what activities learners engage in informal education, determining the catalysts of informal learning became the subject of research (Ellinger 2005; Lohman 2003). In particular, researchers turned their attention to the contextual factors that

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influence informal learning. Cseh suggested that “context permeates every phase of the learning process- from how the learner will understand the situation to what is being learned, what solutions are available and how the existing resources will be used” (Cseh, Watkins and Marsick, 1999, p. 352). Ellinger’s work on informal learning revealed what factors contribute to the augmentation of informal learning in the workplace, and discovered that context is a great contributor to workplace learning. Elinger’s study revealed that there are positive and negative contributor’s, and pieces of the culture such as management commitment to learning or communication are positive factors of informal learning. Ellinger (2005) concluded that culture can be debunked into several factors- organizational, industrial, or even to smaller levels such as promotion criterias and job security- and among these factors, learning-commited leadership and the internal culture are the strongest positive contributors to informal learning.

However, other organizational factors must be taken into account as well, because the context of the workplace is vast. Empirical research grouped the context into four broad categories: organizational, task-related, organizational situational and individual factors. Several projects dedicated attention to quantitative and qualitative studies about the first three categories of context (e.g. Ellinger, 2005; Ellinger and Cseh, 2007; Berg and Chyung, 2008; Misko, 2008; Jeon and Kim, 2012), but individual factors received little to no attention. This thesis addresses this gap in the literature on informal learning.

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II. Theoretical framework

The following chapter summarizes why individual factors are important in the process of informal learning and identify important personality traits which may have implications for informal learning.

Individual Factors

The theoretical foundation of this is study is provided by the work of Marsick, Volpe and Watkins (1999). They claim that informal learning begins by the individual’s intent to learn, which is followed by action and obtaining experience, feedback seeking and reflection. Intent means the individual’s recognition about the need to acquire knowledge in order to successfully perform (Noe et al., 2013). Based on the intent to learn, individuals engage in activities to acquire skills, knowledge and mastery to determine rules and strategies for effective performance (Bell and Kozlowski, 2008). Feedback and reflection provide the opportunity for the individual to determine which action was successful and what strategies they would apply when meeting a similar learning need in the future (Sonnentag and Kleine, 2000).

The intent to learn implies that informal learning is largely under the learner’s control. The findings of Goldstein (1974) also support this observation, as even in formal learning settings, learning is more the responsibility of the learner than of the instructor.

It took however years for researchers to realize that the way people behave, make decisions and communicate, is largely influenced by their personality characteristics (Gregorc, 1982). For decades, researchers did not study the role of individual characteristics in training developments, but by the introduction of new personality dimensions, such as the Big Five, research became possible.

The first study to measure the influence the Big Five domain was carried out in a formal learning contexts (Chen, Gully, Whiteman and Kilcullen, 2000), but informal learning scholars began to realize that personality may play a role in informal learning too. For example, Lohman (2005) conducted his research among educators, where he found that personal characteristics influence

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participation in informal learning more substantially than either organizational or task-related factors.

Morover, the study of Berg and Chung (2008) identified personality as the third most important factor in informal learning engagement after ‘interest in the current field’ and ‘computer access’. Thus, individual differences have been shown to be important antecedents of motivation to learn both formally and in voluntary development activities (Colquit, LePine and Noe, 2000). Noe et al. (2013) suggest two reasons why personality may be a stronger influencer in informal learning activities than in formal trainings. First, formal training is usually built on human workforce-development needs by the organization and doesn’t take into consideration what employees perceive as their lacking knowledge. Employees would be more motivated to learn what is needed and not what they are told to learn. Second, informal learning is based on individual intent and motivation, and task priorities are created by job pressure and task demands, all based on the individual’s perceptions and personality. Concluding, personality plays a role in altering the intent, detemining how motivated individuals are and in the choice of informal activities.

The only study concerned about the role of personality traits in informal learning is that of of Noe, Tews and Marand (2013), carried out among restaurant managers. Besides utilizing the elements of the Big Five personality dimensions (Park, Peterson, & Seligman, 2004), the researchers also identified zest and general self-efficacy as potential antecedents of informal learning (Noe, Tews, Marand, 2013). Although the study suffered from several limitations, its findings point out that significant correlation can be explored among agreeableness, extraversion, emotional stability, zest and informal learning (Noe, Tews, Marand, 2013). The regression analysis revealed that only zest significantly predicts variance in informal learning (Noe, Tews and Marand, 2013).

Our suspicion is that the findings of Noe et al. (2013) can be fine-tuned by investigating the influence of personality traits on the individual and the social forms of informal learning. In consequence, in the next paragraphs, this study will investigate the role of zest and three of the Big Five personality dimensions, because there is theoretical foundation to show that these traits will be influential in choosing among peer-to-peer and self-directed learning. Moreover, dispositional traits of self-esteem and learning goal orientation will be added to the research, because they are hypothesized to influence the informal learning activities employes choose.

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Ultimately, this study aims to close the gap on how personality affects social or informal workplace learning. The outcomes of this research can contribute to the research of Jeon and Kim (2012) who found that open communication and management leadership are strong influencers of self-directed and peer-to-peer informal learning. Furthermore, the study intends to contribute to the literature with a quantitative study, which is able to measure the influence of personality in informal learning. Earlier studies mostly used qualitative methods, and identified factors which affect informal learning, but were not able to determine to what extent those factors explain informal learning. By quantifying personality effects, researchers have the opportunity to create a comprehensive model to determine the importance of organizational factors, personality or task-factors.

Thus, this study is built on the following research question:

How do dispositional personality traits influence engagement in social or individual informal learning?

The following section reveals the theoretical justification of the selecting the variables zest, learning goal orientation, self-esteem, extraversion, agreeableness, and emotional stability.

1. Zest

The relatively new research area of the positivist psychology, Positive Organizational Behaviour (POB), is broadly defined as “the study and application of positively oriented human resource strengths and psychological capacities that can be measured, developed and effectively managed for performance improvement” (Luthans and Church, 2002, p. 59).

The concept of positivist psychology is based on its mission to foster factors that allow individuals and societies to flourish (Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, 2000) and thus also attempts to understand the role of positive traits in the workplace, which allow employees to perform better. It has been theoretized that positive character strengths contribute to the individual’s well-being (Diener, Sandvik, & Pavot, 1991) and life satisfaction (Littman-Ovadia and Steger, 2009).

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The character trait this study focuses on is zest, the individual’s approach to life with eagerness, energy and anticipation (Peterson and Seligman, 2004). Zest is a positive character strength reflected in feelings and positive behavior (Park, Peterson and Seligman, 2004) and is often referred to as energy (Thayer, 1996), liveliness (McNair, Lorr, & Droppleman, 1971), vitality (Ryan & Frederick, 1997), or exuberance (Jamison, 2004). Zest has also been discussed in the organizational literature as (work specific) vigor (Shirom, 2003).

A significant contribution of the project of Noe, Tews and Marand (2013) is linked to the role of zest. The researchers found that zest is positively and significantly related to engagement in informal learning activities, but did not investigate whether zest can be linked to either individual or social informal learning. The findings of Noe, Tews and Marand (2013) empirically support the theory by their finding that zest, a positive personality trait, is strongly related to informal learning.

To better understand the significance and effects of character strengths in the workplace, Fredrickson (1998) developed the broaden-and-build theory. The theory proposes that positive character strengths, such as zest “have the ability to broaden people's momentary thought-action repertoires and build their enduring personal resources, ranging from physical and intellectual resources to social resources” (Fredrickson, 1998, p. 219). Empirical evidence supports the theory (e.g. Chad and King, 2004) and points out that positive traits broaden the scopes of attention, cognition and action. More importantly, positive personality traits contribute to building up intellectual and social resources. Thus, from the perspective of the broaden-and-build theory, positive traits are vehicles for individual growth and more importantly, social connection. Fredrickson (2003) also showed that people with positive emotions help build creativity, people become wiser and more socially integrated.

Noe, Tews and Marand (2013) did not investigate whether informal learning is more connected to the individual or the social form of informal learning, but theory suggest that individuals high in zest choose an informal learning method, which increases their social resources and cognitive resources, such as peer-to-peer informal learning. Positive effects of zest have been shown in empirical studies, which pointed out that zest aids the individual to view their work as a calling, and zest has been shown to increase engagement in organizational citizenship behaviours, which is also linked to social interaction (Little, Nelson, Wallace, & Johnson, 2011; Peterson et al., 2009). Thus, those individuals, who are high in zest, are likely to engage in social informal learning,

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because zest broadens their social resources which in turn motivate individuals to explore and seek new information (Fredrickson, 2003).

The role of zest thus leads us to the belief that individuals high in zest are more likely to engage in peer to peer informal learning. Such individuals seek to enlarge their social resources, which drives them to create human relationships.

H1. Zest is positively related peer-to-peer informal learning.

2. Self-esteem

An overall affective assessment of one’s worth as an individual is often referred to as self-esteem (Rosenberg, 1965). Self-self-esteem defines how much value people place on themselves and is an evaluative component of self-knowledge (Baumeister et al., 2003). Self-esteem is thus the way individuals see themselves, rather than reality, often shaped by perceptions of the society. In their study Pygmalion in the Classroom, Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) revealed that false assumptions of teachers later became reality in the performance of their students. The interrelatedness of the individual’s global self-esteem and the assumption-based influences lead researchers to believe that self-esteem is not only an individual, but also a societal issue, which has implications in the workplace.

The recent literature on the self acknowledges that self-esteem is a multi-faceted personality trait, and can develop around several dimensions, such as moral, physical, and academic self (e.g., Korman, 1970; Shavelson, Hubner & Stanton, 1976). To date, most research on workplace self-esteem stems from the individual’s global perception of the self (Brockner, 1988), but new research streams of organization-based self-esteem have received growing attention (e.g. Pierce and Gardner, 1993).

This study examines the individual’s global self-perceptions for the reason that global self-esteem is ultimately influenced by societal expectations (Rosenthal and Jacobson, 1968) and therefore

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employee-perceptions emerge not only in organization-based self-esteem, but in global self-esteem too. The other reason why this study prefers the global self-esteem facet is that organization-based self-esteem is malleable and is subject to change with the work-environment (Pierce and Gardner, 1993). This changeability effect is also influenced by tenure, therefore by using the global self-esteem concept, tenure and organizational environment fluctuations can be extracted from the individual’s self-esteem perceptions.

Many people intuitively recognize the importance of high self-esteem, and not surprisingly, many psychological theories emphasize the need to enhance the individuals’s self-esteem. High self-esteem has been theoretized to be important in many areas of everyday life: “Virtually every social problem we have can be traced to people’s lack of self-love: alcohol and drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, crime, child abuse, chronic welfare, dependency and poor educational performance” (Davis 2001, p. 889) and it is generally accepted that self-esteem plays an important role in human relationships. The social embeddedness of the individual’s global self-esteem raises the question how this personality trait is able to influence engagement in social activities, such as peer-to-peer informal learning in the workplace.

The congruence theory of participation (Boshier, 1973) theoretized that participation in development activities was influenced by congruence between the individual’s perception of the self and the nature of learning within the learning environment, including relationships with the other learner. The theory proposed the terms “expectancy” to express the individual’s expectation of success in learning, and “valence”, the negative and positive values that are assigned with learning activities (Boshier, 1973).

The congruence theory of participation suggests that esteem is an important factor in self-perception and in expectations about positive-negative values of the learning activity, and consequently, a significant influencer of learning. Besides, self-esteem brings more implications in terms of valence if the social informal learning activity is attributed with negative feedback, which may contribute to a reduction of the individual’s self-esteem. Empirical evidence shows that the congruence theory is valid in formal learning settings, because McGivney (1990), in his study among adults, found that low self-esteem acts as a dispositional barrier to learning. By extending the scope of congruence theory to informal learning, the individual may be deterred from engaging in peer to peer informal learning because of the negative values, such as negative feedback,

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potentially associatable with the learning experience. Moreover, the individual’s low expectations about the learning outcomes may serve as further barriers to social informal learning. Our study theoretizes that self-directed and peer-to-peer informal learning are seen complementaries, therefore social congruence theory suggests that low self-esteem individuals will choose to engage in self-directed learning. These findings are supported by the observations of Ashford (1986), who suggested that low self-esteem individuals have low egos and therefore do not engage in feedback-providing activities, such as peer-to-peer informal learning. The individual’s urge to avoid negative feedback is hypothesized to make the individual to learn informally alone.

Consequently, it is suggested that:

H2. Self-esteem is negatively related to self-directed informal learning.

Individuals with high self-esteem have a “sense of personal adequacy and a sense of faving achieved need satisfaction in the past” (Korman, 1966, p. 479). Pelham and Swann (1989) note that self-esteem consists of a liking/disliking component, so high self-esteem people like who they are. Thus, high self-esteem people tend to agree with the statements in the Rosenberg scale (1965) such as “I am satisfied with myself”. People with high self-esteem claim to be more likeable, to make better impressions on others and to have better relationships, but these findings may be distorted by the self-reporting nature of the self-esteem measurements (Baumeister et al., 2004). It is often the case that people high in self-esteem present narcissistic behaviors, which are perceived negatively by other people. Having high self-esteem is thus a precursor towards being able to initiate human contact and starting conversations, which pertain to informal learning. It has also been suggested that self-esteem positively influences interpersonal relationships, and therefore self-esteem should be positively related to social activities, such as peer-to-peer informal learning (Baumeister et al., 2003). Congruence theory also supports the notion that individuals high in the belief that they will have positive outcomes, in the learning process have higher expectancy. Moreover, the theory also suggests that individuals who associate positive values with learning socially are more likely to engage in social learning.

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Based on the theoretized relationships, high self-esteem individuals are expected to engage more in peer to peer informal learning, because of their own perception of being liked, and their perceived ability to create human relationships easily. Therefore, this study proposes that:

H3. Self-esteem is positively related to peer-to-peer informal learning.

3. Learning goal orientation

Learning goal orientation is a relatively stable, individual personality trait that describes the individual’s attitude towards challenging tasks. People with a learning goal orientation believe that abilities required to complete a task can be developed, therefore they seek to improve their abilities through acquiring new skills (VandeWalle et al., 2001). “Learning goals create a concern with increasing one’s ability and extending one’s mastery and would lead individuals to pose the question ’What is the best way to increase my ability or achieve mastery?’ “(Dweck ad Leggett, 1988, p. 260).

Learning oriented individuals are optimistic, cheerful and value challenging tasks (Dweck and Leggett, 1988). Failure in the current strategy does not disappoint the learner, but rather reinforces their belief that with more effort, the desired goal can be achieved. Learning goal orientation is generally perceived as a positive personality trait, because the learning process results in positive affect in the learner, and “exerting effort in the service of learning or mastery, may bring intrinsic rewards, pleasure or pride. (Deci and Ryan, 1980 as cited in Dweck and Leggett, 1988, p. 261). For learning goal oriented individuals the optimal task is one that provides maximal growth of ability and pride and pleasure, which derives from increased mastery (Dweck and Leggett, 1988). Learning goals thus characterize the individual who strives for challenging learning situations which provide them with the ability to improve mastery, therefore learning goal orientation is hypothesized to have a strong influence on informal learning. By definition, informal learning is different from formal training by the distinctive features that informal learning is discretionary and

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includes cognitive and behavioral components (Noe et al., 2013). Learning goal orientation sets in motion cognitive and affective processes that promote adaptive challenge seeking (Dweck and Leggett, 1988). Informal learning activities thus create the perfect opportunity for individuals to pursuit their goals, when there are no formal training activities available. Thus, informal learning provides an ideal opportunity for increasing one’s skillset on-the-job, and therefore learning goal oriented individuals are theoretized to be strongly engaged in informal learning activities.

H4 : Learning goal orientation is positively related to informal learning.

To determine how learning goal orientation relates to the individuals’ decision to engage in self-directed or peer-to-peer informal learning, this study relies on the work of Bandura (1986). The Social Cognitive Career Theory based on the work of Bandura (1986) and developed further by Lent et al. (1994) provides the theoretical framework to understand the role of learning goal orientation in interpersonal developmental relationships, such as peer-to-peer informal learning. “Specifically, this framework proposes that personal and extra-personal characteristics of a learning relationship influence the learning relationship, which in turn influences the learner’s beliefs about his or her abilities and expected outcomes” (Sosik et al., 2004, p. 243). At its core, the SCCT is a motivational model influenced by the individual’s expectations about learning and how to better perform their jobs.

The SCCT theory in sum means that goals are important for the motivation of behavior in terms of better performance and career development (Lent et al., 1994). According to the theory, individuals who want to benefit from the positive effects of networking, and want to present skill mastery to their peers, would be more likely to engage in interpersonal development activities because of their expectations that it would advance their careers. Theory thus advances the remark that not only obtaining new abilities, but also presenting them to peers will ultimately serve the goal of career advancement.

Individuals with learning goal orientation are more likely to engage in social developmental activities because of their perseverence in problem-solving. Moreover, according to Bandura (1986), social cognitive theory suggests that goal orientation would facilitate developmental relationships (Bandura, 1986).

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Task demands can also play a role facilitating the relationship between goal orientation and informal learning. The role of social informal learning may be seen superior as opposed to self-directed learning, because obtaining knowledge from peers may be more personalized and faster than in the cases of reading management books or searching the internet (self-directed informal learning).

This study thus hypothesizes that learning goal orientation leads to more peer-to-peer informal learning:

H5. Learning goal orientation is positively related to peer-to-peer informal learning.

4. Big Five personality dimensions and forming valuable relationships

Noe, Tews and Marand (2013) found that the Big Five personality dimensions are not significant predictors of informal learning. This section argues, however, that extraversion, agreeableness and emotional stability may play important roles in creating valuable relationships (friendships) at the workplace, which positively influence peer-to-peer informal learning.

Informal learning scholars agree that “people learn in the workplace through interactions with others in their daily work environments” (Marsick and Watkins, 1990, p. 4). The workplace is a social context, where learning emerges as a result of social interaction, and is therefore influenced by the relationships in which individuals engage (Lave and Wenger, 1991 cited in Le Clus, 2011).

It is generally accepted that positive relationships contribute the improvement of employee attitudes such as job satisfaction, job commitment and perceived organizational support (Cherniss, 1991; Riordan and Griffeth, 1997; Jehn and Shah, 1997; Song and Olfshki, 2008). In turn, job satisfaction and organizational support were found to be important antecedents of informal learning (Ellinger, 2005; Le Clus, 2011). This study sees positive, valuable interpersonal relationships as important antecedents of peer-to-peer informal learning, partly because employees are more inclined to help peers who are friends, and vice-versa, peers are more likely to turn for help to a friend (Bowler and Brass, 2006).

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Past research has examined the antecedents of interpersonal relationships in the workplace, and found that positive interpersonal relations are influenced by family ties, class, ethnic background, race, gender, age, experience and interests (Song and Olfshki, 2008). Furthermore, it has been proposed that contextual factors, such as organizational culture or even physical proximity help the formation of positive interpersonal relations or friendships (Lu, 1999; Song and Olfshki, 2008). Recent research started to draw on the assumption that personality traits, or “an individual’s dispositional differences likely also influence the formation of positive work relationships” (Dachner, 2011 p. 5). Personality traits have been suggested to influence the formation of positive relations, because “meaningful relationships on the job are likely to be a function of the nature of two people who come together” (Dachner, 2011, p. 5). Other scholars proposed that “psychological predispositions are critical factors at the most basic level of a social relationship between two individuals (Kalish and Robins, 2006 as cited in Dachner, 2011). Furthermore, it is generally accepted that common interests, which are often results of personality traits, is an important influencer of creating valuable relationships.

The Big Five personality dimensions include openness, agreeableness, emotional stability, extravertism and conscientiousness (Barrick, Mount and Judge, 2001) and provide the framework for elaborating a personality trait-based approach for the identification of social informal learning antecedents.

Despite the extensive theoretical foundations, findings about the relations between the big five and interpersonal relationships are mixed. Chiaburu et al. (2011) found that emotional stability, extraversion and openness to experience have incremental validity in predicting the individual’s helping behavior and thus fosters building interpersonal relationships. In contrast, Dachner et al. (2011) found that extraversion, agreeableness and emotional stability are each positively and significantly related to forming valued interpersonal relationships at work. Another study investigating the role of individual personality traits is that of Noe, Tews and Marand (2013). Their study examined the relationship between informal learning and the Big Five personality dimensions and found no significant relationship between the variables. The study, however, did not investigate individual and social informal learning as separate tenets, although theoretical considerations imply that creating valuable relationships, and thus the findings of Dachner (2011), are valid in the domain of peer-to-peer informal learning. Specifically, this study considers

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extraversion, agreeableness and emotional stability as antecedents of forming positive relationships and consequently, as influencer’s of the individual’s intent to engage in peer-to-peer informal learning.

The theoretical foundations imply that the number of interests, to which, one is attracted or shortly- openness to experience- is not a reliable predictor of creating valued interpersonal relationships. Moreover, conscientiousness, the individual’s focus on multiple goals, bears no theoretical implications to why individuals should be more likely to engage in social informal learning.

Opposingly, the three dispositional differences, extravertism, agreeableness and emotional stability are believed to positively influence valued relationships and consequently, peer-to-peer informal learning. These traits have also been shown to positively influence social cohesion (Barrick, Stewart, Neubert and Mount, 1998). Our analysis thus focuses on these three personality traits. The theoretical validity of extraversion, agreeableness and emotional stability will be elaborated in the following sections.

a. Extraversion

Extraverted individuals are energetic, participative, gregarious and expressive (Dachner, 2011). These individuals represent the most social end on the socialization continuum, because they form and maintain interpersonal relationships at work. They are the individuals who create meaningful relationships with a large network of people, and engage frequently in social interaction. Carl Jung, who first popularized the term extraversion, characterized it as an attitude type characterized by concentration of interest on the external object (Jung, 1995).

Extraverted employees have been shown to enjoy socializing and to participate in development actitivities (Noe and Wilk, 1993). Besides having a large number of interpersonal relationships, extraverted individuals appreciate their human relationships more than introverts and perceive them of higher quality (Dachner, 2011). Extraverted individuals feel closer to their friends and value those relationships more highly than other individuals (Berry, Willingham & Thayer, 2000).

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Extraversion is the most important predispositary individual trait of social interaction, therefore extravertism can be interpreted as a significant antecedent of human relationships.

A number or papers dedicated attention to the role of extraversion in learning, but those papers found that extraversion relates positively to self-perceptions of learning ability, and participation in active learning (Barrick and Mount, 1991; Colquitt et al., 2000). If we expand the scope of formal learning to informal learning, and take into account that social interaction is an antecedent of peer-to-peer informal learning, it can be hypothesized that extraversion must play an important role in forming valuable relationships, and consequently, peer-to-peer informal learning.

H6. Extraversion is positively related to peer-to-peer informal learning.

b. Agreeableness

Agreeableness refers to the extent to which individuals are polite, trusting, flexible, tolerant and cooperative and is often depicted as ’Likability’ or ’Friendliness’ (Barrick & Mount, 1991). Agreeable individuals are generous and considerate (Goldberg, 1992) and are eager to help others by expecting that they would be reciprocated (Costa and McCrae, 1992). “Such individuals strive for cooperation over competition” (Dachner, 2011, p. 7). Agreeableness contributes largely to the development of interpersonal relationships, because these developments are partially functions of warmth and kindness, both descriptive of agreeableness (Sprecher and Regan, 2002). Friendship networks have been found to be centered by agreeable individuals, because they provide help and support while welcoming new people (Klein et al., 2004). Not only do agreeable individuals strive for new friendships with people, but due to reciprocity, people prefer to be friends with tolerant, agreeable people (Berry et al., 2000). Consequently, people high in agreeableness like other people and other people tend to like them more. It has been declared that in social contexts, agreeableness is not a predictor of job performance (Barrick and Mount, 1991), but a positive predictor of interpersonal relationships (Dachner, 2011).

People with low levels of agreeableness are little concerned about other people, and they are reported to have low levels of empathy (Barrick & Mount, 1991). These individuals do not make extreme effort to help others, and are often sceptical about other people’s motives, resulting in

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suspicion and unfriendliness (Graziano and Eisenberg, 1997). Low agreeableness individuals are also likely to compete, rather than cooperate, and are often manipulative in their relationships.

Agreeableness has been seldom investigated in learning contexts (Noe et al., 2013). The few number of studies which investigated the role of agreeableness found that agreeableness is unrelated to training proficiency and participation in formal development activities (Barrick & Mount, 1991; Major et al., 2006 as cited in Noe, Tews and Marand, 2013). Studies which investigated the role of agreeableness in informal learning contexts, found that this personality trait is not a significant predictor of informal learning in general.

However, it may be a predictor of one type of informal learning and not the other. Theory predicts that agreeable individuals are open, trusting, flexible and seek interpersonally supporting environments (Barrick et al., 2001), so they seek the company of other individuals and others tend to like them more (Dachner, 2011). Based on the role of agreeableness in interpersonal relationships, we hyphotesize that agreeableness influences peer-to-peer informal learning:

H7. Agreeableness is positively related to peer-to-peer informal learning.

c. Emotional stability

Emotional stability refers to the extent to which individuals are secure, calm, confident, and feel in control, so emotionally stable individuals are usually referred to as controlled, confident and well-adjusted (Dachner, 2011). They tend to be unemotional, keep their cool and their positive disposition is seen as an attraction for others, because they are reliable when others need support. Emotionally stable individuals tend to be happy (Hills and Argyle, 2001) and other people find it pleasing to be around individuals with emotional stability. Therefore, emotional stability is a personality trait, which does not only facilitates the creation of positive interpersonal relationships, but also acts as an antecedent of creating these relationships, because individuals high in emotional stability are more likely to be liked by others (Xia, Yuan and Gay, 2009).

In formal learning environments, “emotional stability is believed to be negatively related to a variety of learning outcomes, including affective reactions to training and knowledge and skill acquisition” (Colquitt et al., 2000).

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The study of Noe, Tews and Marand (2013) theoretized that emotional stability can influence informal learning in two ways. “Individuals with high levels of emotional stability likely have less fear, stress, and anxiety about learning and have higher expectations about the benefits they can gain from such endeavors” (Feldman & Ng, 2011 as cited in Noe, Tews and Marand, 2013). Moreover, individuals with higher emotional stability are also likely to engage in informal learning, because they are able to divert attention away from performing their core job and instead engage in the meta-cognitive processes of informal learning (Gully & Chen, 2010; Kanfer & Ackerman, 1989).

Therefore it can be concluded that individuals high in emotional stability are more likely to engage in informal learning, and specifically, since these individuals are more able to create valuable relationships, engage more in peer-to-peer informal learning. In other words, individuals with higher emotional stability are likely to create meaningful relationships more easily and therefore are probably more inclined to learn informally and socially, which leads to the following proposition:

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III. Methodology

The following chapter outlines the research design for this study. First, we present the overall design and explain why a survey provides the most appropriate data collection method. Second, we describe the sample from which we collected our data and how the researcher ensured the reliability and validity of research instruments. Last, the chapter provides a detailed overview about the variables used, and their measurements.

1. Research design

The research project follows an interpretivist philosophy. This research philosophy was brought to life by the concern over greater organizational complexity and the role of individuals as organizational members. The interpretivist philosophy provides an appropriate approach for studying informal learning at the workplace, because interpretivism “relates to the study of social phenomena in their natural environment” (Saunders et al, 2009, p. 106). This approach ensures that the study of social phenomena is possible among the organization’s social actors, who provide their interpretation within the organization’s social context. Therefore, interpretivism makes it possible to understand differences among humans in their roles as social actors (Saunders et al, 2009).

The extensive theoretical framework already projects the deductive approach of the research. Along the deductive approach, the theory underlying the research is clarified at the beginning of the study, and the theoretical propositions are tested by using a research strategy specifically designed to effectively test the propositions (Saunders et al, 2009).

This study is explanatory in nature. Explanatory research is “looking for an explanation behind a particular occurrence through the discovery of causal relationships between key variables” (Saunders et al., 2009, p. 113). Explanatory research can follow both quantitative and qualitative

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methods, and data collection is typically conducted by case studies, observation and surveys (Saunders et al., 2009).

This research follows a quantitative approach, partly because it enables the researcher to quantify the significance of independent variables and partly because only a small portion of informal learning studies are quantitative in nature (Ellinger, 2005).

A survey strategy is used as research design: this strategy can be described as “a research strategy that involves the structured collection of data from a sizeable population” (Saunders et al., 2012, p. 115). Field (2009) also points out that the survey strategy is an appropriate method for quantitative ressearch. Clear advantages of using a survey instrument for the collection of data are that a large sample can be targeted easily in a highly economical way (Saunders et al., 2012, p. 144). A survey makes it possible to collect quantitative data from a population, which can provide an explanation for relationships between variables (Saunders, et al., 2012, p. 144-145). As the survey method enables the researcher to collect data from a large sample, a survey is also suitable for generalization provided that sampling provides reliable and valid findings. Despite its advantages, the survey method has limitations, which may inhibit unconditional generalization (Saunders et al., 2012).

In the survey method, the questionnaire ensures that respondents are asked the same set of questions, in the same exact order (Saunders et al., 2012). In this study, a traditional questionnaire has been used for the collection of data, with standardized questions. Although Saunders et al. (2009) recommend the survey method for exploratory and descriptive research, by using standardized questions, the questionnaire is also applicable for explanatory research and enables the researcher to test the relationships between variables (Saunders et al., 2012).

During the research, we used a self-administered questionnaire that respondents could completely electronically via the Internet. The distribution of the questionnaire was carried out through e-mail, which included a short introduction of the researcher, the context of the research, and the electronical link to the survey. By distributing the survey via e-mail, it has been ensured that only the person to whom the survey was intended filled in the survey. Representativeness was kept at maximum level, because only the members of the organization could fill in the survey. Distributing the survey via e-mail ensured that money-, space- and time-constraints have been minimized, contributing to the 52,5% response rate of our survey.

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Although the Internet enables the researcher to gather data economically, it may deteriorate responsiveness of the respondents (Saunder et al., 2009). The survey was anonymous, which further deteriorated the employees’ accountability in filling in the questionnaire. Another factor that may contribute to reducing the validity of the research is that the size of the sample could be reduced by the data collection method: the older population, not completely familiar with Qualtrics, could be deterred from answering questions online.

The organization where the research was carried out is highly dependent on information technologies, and its oldest employee is 56 years old, therefore the sample was not biased by computer-illiteracy. The ‘Qualtrics’ online interface has been used to administer the questionnaires, and a pilot test with 5 participants took place to make sure that all questions were clear and understandable.

2. Sample

Due to constraints of time and resources, a Dutch organization has been selected as the sample of research. The Dutch firm’s main activity is in finance, and its employees rely highly on informal learning. The firm has been chosen for the research, because it was formally identified as an organization highly dependent on informal learning and knowledge sharing among employees. Moreover, the organization was the only respondent who provided a positive response to the search request, granting access to all resources necessary to conduct this project.

The firm is a mid-sized international player in the financial industry. The firm ranks in the top 100 companies in its sector, and the majority of employees are Dutch. Only 2 employees out of 181 were non-Dutch citizens. Due to industrial requirements, the company consists of several small teams of 4 to 8 people. The teams are clustered into departments of about 30-40 people, resulting in 4 major departments. All departments are directed by a manager, and the firm is controlled by 3 executives besides the CEO.

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Besides the internet-based chat programs and emails, there are no knowledge sharing tools implemented in the organization, therefore employees often engage in meetings to discuss work projects. Interestingly, top management is not separated from employees, open-door policies and the open office structure grant free access to every employee to discuss ideas with each other. As news spread fast and learning occurs often, the organization was considered to an optimal subject for testing social interaction-based informal learning activities. The organization has a very flat hierarchy, therefore our initial expectation wass that employees from every position level woud take part in filling it.

In order to build trust for the survey and increasing the response rate, the researcher had to contact several people within the organization: HR-managers, members of the top management, and middle-managers to promote the survey among employees.

Due to the small sample, the findings of this study are not representative of the whole population, which will be acknowledged later as a limitation of this study.

3. Measurements

Due to the multi-faceted view of this study, it is necessary to ask multiple questions to measure all variables. These questions are pre-dominantly based on reliable scales, used in previous studies. Given that almost all scales have been tested in previous studies, they are likely to have high reliability and validity. Regarding informal learning, this study uses a modified version of earlier scales.

a. Informal learning in the workplace

The scale developed for informal learning in the workplace is based on the work of Noe, Tews and Marand (2013). Noe et al. developed an initial scale of 12 items to measure informal learning in the workplace, which was reduced to 9 factors after taking specific organizational contexts into consideration. The researchers’ exploratory factor analysis revealed that the scale is composed of