The relation between employees’ self-directedness and work-related learning intention: Moderated mediation effect of affective commitment and perceived organizational support

The current study aimed to examine the relationship of antecedent variables of employees’ work-related learning intention. More specially, this study investigated the moderated mediating effect of perceived organizational support through affective commitment on the relation between self-directedness and work-related learning intention. To perform this study, online survey was conducted by Korean employees who were working in private enterprises. Total 311 data(men=148, women=163) were analyzed using SPSS 21.0 and SPSS Macro. A moderated mediation is an integrated model that combines mediation and moderation effect therefore we sequentially tested the effects of mediation, moderation and moderated mediation. The results of this study were as following. First, the mediation effect of affective commitment on the relation of self-directedness and work-related learning intention was verified. Second, perceived organizational support moderated the relation between self-directedness and affective commitment. Lastly, the moderated mediation effect of perceived organizational support on the relation between self-directedness and work-related learning intention through affective commitment was identified to be statistically significant at higher perceived organizational support group by using SPSS Macro. This study further expanded the understanding of the antecedent variables and its relationship on employees’ work-related learning intentions. Implications and limitations of this study as well as the suggestions for the future study were discussed.