Informal learning behaviors and the role of workplace support: preliminary findings from an India-USA workforce

The purpose of this paper is to study engagement of employees in informal learning behaviors (ILBs) and to understand the role of workplace support (organizational support, supervisor support and job support) in facilitating such behaviors.

The study uses descriptive design with data collected through voluntary non-probability sampling method of 58 employees from India and the USA through Amazon Mechanical Turk.

Preliminary findings suggest that 81% of the employees are likely to engage in ILBs and 65.5% agreed to have received workplace support. Employees from India rate their workplace support as higher and are more likely to engage in ILBs than those from the USA.

This study contributes to workplace informal learning literature and highlights the need for more studies on workforce ILBs across multiple countries and job role variations.