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The purpose of this paper is to increase the understanding of the relationship between social support (organizational, supervisor, and co-worker support) and the higher-order construct of motivation in human resource development (HRD), namely motivation to improve work through learning (MTIWL).

Self-reported data were collected from 131 public service employees who had attended management training programs organized by one of the Malaysian public service training providers.

Support emanating from the organization, supervisor, and co-worker had exerted positive and significant influences on MTIWL. Further, organizational support had the strongest relationship with MTIWL, relative to supervisor and co-worker support.

There is a need to extend the responsibility and proficiency of the organization, supervisor, and co-worker in providing practical support in training and workplace contexts to further enhance MTIWL.

This paper provides a better understanding of the influences of social support on a more practical and comprehensive trainee motivation in HRD, which is MTIWL.

Substantially few or no known empirical studies have explicitly focused on the higher-order construct of motivation in human resource development (HRD), namely, motivation to improve work through learning (MTIWL) as a mediator linking personality traits and social support to training transfer. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to redress the inadequacy by exploring the role of MTIWL as a mediator on such relationships.

Consistent with positivism, quantitative data based on self-rating were collected from 131 trainees attending management training programs organized by a public sector training provider in Malaysia.

The findings indicate that personality traits (i.e. conscientiousness, extraversion, and agreeableness) and social support (i.e. perceived organizational support and peer support) influenced training transfer via the mediating role of MTIWL. Supervisor support, nonetheless, was not a significant predictor of training transfer through MTIWL.

This study focuses on a more holistic motivational construct than simple motivation in HRD. The focus on MTIWL extends the existing understanding of the underlying motivational influences that link dispositional and situational factors to training transfer in occupational settings.