Human Resource Development

Theory and Practice

Jeff Gold, Rick Holden, Paul Iles

• Publisher: Red Globe Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780230367159
• eBook ISBN: 9781137088086
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Business

This core textbook, edited by five leading scholars of the subject, provides a comprehensive overview of the key topics, debates and themes in this increasingly important field. Balancing research-led theory with industry best-practice to provide students with a definitive overview of HRD, the book draws on the international experience of its authors to tackle topics as diverse as leadership and managing development, change and diversity, workplace learning, and graduate employability. The book's approachable yet thorough writing style and lively presentation helps students to understand the topic from a critical perspective while also demonstrating how HRD plays out in reality.
This is an essential textbook for undergraduate, postgraduate and MBA students of Human Resource Development on HRD or Business and Management degree programmes.

section 1

looking out: macro considerations of HRD

In this section we begin the HRD journey firstly by setting out the scope of HRD, dealing with its history, emergence and debates about its definition. We also consider how HRD features in national policy areas such as skills and qualifications (Chapter 1: The Scope of HRD and National HRD Policies and Practice). We then take a look at how HRD may or may not feature in strategic decisions within organizations and the part played by specialized staff who focus on learning and development within organizations (Chapter 2: Strategic HRD and the Learning and Development Function). Not all organizations are the same, so we consider how HRD works in such contexts as the public and voluntary/community sectors and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) (Chapter 3: Contrasting Contexts of HRD Practice). Finally, globalization requires more attention to working within and across cultures and preparing people to do this (Chapter 4: Cross-cultural HRD).

chapter 1

The Scope of HRD and National HRD Policies and Practice

Jim Stewart, Julie Beardwell, Jeff Gold, Paul Iles and Rick Holden

Chapter learning outcomes

After studying this chapter, you should be able to:

• Define the scope of HRD

• Debate the meanings associated with HRD theory and practice

• Explain different models of National HRD (NHRD)

• Understand the key features of vocational and educational training systems (VET)

• Apply a range of concepts in critically assessing HRD practice

Chapter outline

Introduction

The scope of HRD

Academic disciplines

Contexts of practice

Models of NHRD

Vocational education and training

Key debates and emerging themes

Summary

Introduction

This book examines the idea of Human Resource Development (HRD). A general approach throughout the book is to focus on theoretical and conceptual understanding as well as the application of that understanding in practice. HRD is an area of professional practice as well as a subject of academic enquiry. This first chapter is to look at the foundations of both. In other words, we will discuss the results of academic theorizing and the results of research into professional practice. To achieve this purpose we will consider HRD from both a practitioner and an academic perspective; identify the academic disciplines that have been drawn on to develop associated concepts and theories utilized within HRD; discuss the various contexts in which HRD is argued to be practiced, with a particular focus on the national context; and finally, examine the current debates and emerging themes in HRD research. Human Resource Development (HRD) as a term is more commonly used in academic contexts than it is in professional practice (Sambrook & Stewart, 2005). In professional contexts, the words training and development, are more common and are sometimes combined with learning, especially in job titles. In fact, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), the professional body in the UK, uses the words Learning and Talent Development rather than HRD in the title of its professional standards specifying the knowledge and skill requirements of professional practitioners (Stewart & Rigg, 2011). It also titles its web pages as Learning, Training and Development. So we can see here an immediate difference and distinction between HRD as a subject of academic enquiry and as an area of professional practice.

This simple difference also allows us to make a more important point. This is that HRD is a human construct and does not have a settled and accepted meaning. Different meanings are contested and subject to debate and argument (see Hamlin & Stewart, 2011 for an analysis) and there is no definitive basis for deciding between the various arguments and positions. So, personal judgement, based on the best available evidence and a critical evaluation of arguments built on that evidence, is the final determinant of a position on HRD.

Visit the CIPD’s website – www.cipd.co.uk/subjects/lrnanddev/ – then contrast the CIPD’s website with those of the University Forum for HRD – www.ufhrd.co.uk/wordpress/ – and the Academy of HRD – www.ahrd.org

We want you to exercise your personal judgement throughout this chapter and indeed throughout the book. The Reflective questions below, as with others in the book, are designed to help you to achieve the objectives set for the chapter. These questions support the application and exercise of personal judgement. You will need to engage with others for this activity, who can be a group of colleagues or a seminar/tutorial group of students.

1 What reasons can you think of for the greater use of HRD in academic contexts compared to professional practice contexts?

2 What implications other than ambiguity and uncertainty arise from HRD being a contested term?

3 What criteria might you use in judging the validity of evidence and the logic of arguments on the meaning of HRD?

The scope of HRD

As with its meaning, there is also debate over the scope of HRD, fuelled by differing views on the origins of the term and its relationship with other concepts. Some argue that the origins of HRD can be traced to what is known as Organization Development (OD), which began in the USA sometime in the 1940s (Blake, 1995). Others, including Blake, attribute the first specific formulation to the American writer Leonard Nadler (1970) who defined HRD as:

organized learning experiences provided by employers, within a specified period of time, to bring about the possibility of performance improvement and/or personal growth (quoted in Nadler & Nadler, 1989, p.4)

This definition has shaped continuing debates and controversies. For example, there seem to be two purposes attached to HRD in the definition. One is the possibility of improving performance, the other is concerned with bringing about personal growth. These two possible purposes are, however, the focus of disagreement between those who adopt what is known as a performative focus for HRD and those who adopt what is known as a learning focus (Rigg et al., 2007). We do not need to examine these debates here but for now just note that the term HRD is American in origin and emerged in common usage there sometime in the 1970s.

Adoption of the term HRD came later to Europe and the UK, where it did not really prove popular until the late 1980s and more particularly the 1990s. Two early UK references were in Mumford (1986) and Stewart (1989). A simpler debate than that seen in the USA occurred in the UK between Oxtoby and Coster (1992), later contributed to by Stewart (1992), and published in the professional journal Training and Development. This debate centred on the values inherent in referring to employees, and thus people, as resources and so debated the validity and utility of the term HRD. Themes similar to those raised by Oxtoby and Coster are still subject to scrutiny (see, for example, Kuchinke & Han, 2005; Hamlin & Stewart, 2011). More sophisticated debates have since grown in the UK, including that of Lee (2004), who argues against any attempt to define HRD on the basis that, in uncertain and unpredictable times, this would give ‘the appearance of being in control’ and ‘se...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copy Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Notes on Contributors
• Preface to the Second Edition
• Acknowledgements
• Permissions
• Introduction
• 1 Looking Out: Macro Considerations of HRD
• 2 Looking in: Principles of HRD
• 3 Looking at: HRD at Work
• 4 The Future
• Index