네트워킹 행동과 무형식 학습의 관계에 관한 연구: 비서직을 중심으로

Networking and informal learning have become important career management strategies not only on individual dimensions but also on organizational dimensions in the era of new career development. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between networking behaviors and informal learning among secretaries, who heavily rely on informal learning rather than formal training. In this study, networking behaviors are divided into two main types: internal networking behavior—vertical and horizontal networking behaviors—, and external networking behavior—relationship management, friendship and work-related networking behaviors. Informal learning measurement was consisted of attaining job knowledge, adjustment to the organization and understanding the context, forming relationship, and enhancing self-development skill. The questionnaire was distributed to 247 incumbent secretaries who were collected by judgement sampling and snowball sampling. After screening the data, 240 responses were used for this empirical analysis. The data were analyzed by methods of frequency analysis, descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, factor analysis, correlation analysis, and multiple regression analysis. Research findings can be summarized as follows: First, vertical and horizontal networking behaviors in internal networking behaviors was positively related to attaining job knowledge, adjustment to the organization and understanding the context, forming relationship, and enhancing self-development skill of informal learning. Horizontal networking behavior of internal networking behaviors was positively related to attaining job knowledge and forming relationship, but was not significantly related with adjustment to the organization and understanding the context and enhancing self-development skill. Second, relationship management networking behavior in the external behaviors was not significantly related to informal learning. However, friendship networking behavior among the external behaviors was negatively related only with attaining knowledge for performance. Third, work-related networking behavior in the external behaviors was positively related with informal learning. According to the results of this study, in order to increase the level of informal learning in secretarial work, it is necessary to establish and to strengthen the strategy for vertical networking behaviors and horizontal networking behaviors for superior, colleagues and subordinates in the organization, and work related networking behaviors for experts and professional associations outside the organization. However, friendship networking behavior can take away the opportunity to attaining job knowledge and lower the level of informal learning. Thus, differentiating strategies of networking behaviors within and outside the organization can effectively enhance the results of informal learning. The theoretical and practical implications of this research results are discussed, and recommendation for future research are suggested. The study was the first to show a relation between networking behaviors and informal learning, this has not been examined directly in previous empirical research.