The Mediating Role of Process Management: Education and Training and Productivity

Abstract

Education and training are essential activities in organizations that increase productivity, as managers recognize the need for a continuously skilled workforce in the dynamic business environment of the 21st century. While previous studies have linked education and training to productivity, few have included contingency variables to provide deeper insights into this relationship. The study introduces process management as a contingency variable to examine its mediating role between education, training, and productivity. Using a sample of 149 managers from the Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority, data were analyzed in Jamovi using descriptive statistics, regression, and mediation models. The results indicate that education and training significantly increase productivity, while process management partially mediates this relationship. These findings contribute to the literature on human capital theory and process management by empirically validating these relationships. The study has practical implications for organizations, suggesting that structured training programs should be integrated with process improvement strategies to maximize productivity. In addition, policymakers are encouraged to support workforce development initiatives that align training with operational efficiency. Future studies should examine these relationships across different industries and over longer time horizons to improve generalizability.

Received: 11 March 2025 | Revised: 23 April 2025 | Accepted: 21 August 2025

Conflicts of Interest 

The author declares that he has no conflicts of interest to this work.

Data Availability Statement

Data are available on request from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Author Contribution Statement

Tryson Yangailo: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Data curation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project administration.