Impacts of management development programmes on training transfer: The case of the Malaysian armed forces

Organizational leadership development programmes conventionally comprise course content, trainer’s role and management support. Recent studies in the field reveal that the ability of management to plan and implement leadership development programmes may actually enhance training transfer, yet the role of leadership development programme as an important predicting variable for training transfer has received little attention in organizational development models. This study measures the relationship between leadership development programmes and training transfer in a Malaysian military training center. A field questionnaire survey was conducted to gather primary data from 161 intermediate leaders of the armed forces. Results of the Smart Partial Least Squares (SmartPLS) path model analysis showed that course content, trainer’s role and management support were all significantly correlated with training transfer. As such they were effective predictors of training transfer in the Malaysian military training center.