Determining factors in online training in companies

•Firms using virtual training are better ICT equipped and more intensive users of ICT.•Firms using e-learning are more innovative and active in knowledge-intensive sectors.•Firms using digital on-the-job training have higher qualified human resources.•e-learning in innovative firms causes greater gross value added per employee.•e-learning and innovation through ICT are highly correlated with productivity gains.

This article sets out the features of companies that use e-learning to train their workers. Moreover, the factors that determine why companies use this education methodology are analysed. The study indicates that the variables that have traditionally explained the existence of training processes within a company, such as larger company size, a better-educated workforce, or an employment relationship of indefinite duration, are not useful when explaining why a company is more likely to train its workers using e-learning. Instead, intensive use of digital technology (ICT), the capability to innovate with such technologies or a greater adaptability in work processes explains, to a large extent, the probability of e-learning in the organisations. This fact produces a virtuous circle between ICT learning and practice at the “digitised” workplace.This research is based upon data obtained from a survey made with a sample of 2,038 executives representing the Catalan business sector.