CAREER EXPERIENCE AND MOTIVATION AS PREDICTORS OF TRAINING BEHAVIORS AND OUTCOMES FOR DISPLACED ENGINEERS

This paper reviews the literature on reactions to job loss and program s for retraining and reemployment. We examined he behavior and outcome s of 72 displaced engineers in a semester-long training program in tec hnology management. Measures included experience (a combination of age , years in the defense industry, and number of jobs held), career moti vation (a combination of career resilience, insight, and identity), tr aining behaviors, and training outcomes. Training outcomes were negati vely related to experience and positively related to results. Moreover , training behaviors were a function of the interaction between experi ence and career motivation, For highly motivated individuals, experien ce was positively related to training behaviors. However, low career m otivation had a particularly deleterious effect on training behaviors for the most experienced individuals. Implications are discussed for a dditional research on the effects of experience and motivation on retr aining and for the design of retraining programs for displaced workers . (C) 1995 Academic Press, Inc.