Use Value and HRD and HRM Flexibility

Human Resource Development (HRD) and Management (HRM) flexibility emphasizes flexible learning, educational technology, flexible firm model, human resource flexibility, high performance work systems, and contingent employment. Human resource departments should examine the development and management of their human resources in the context of the employees' use value within organizations. This paper analyzes the concept of use value of the employees within the theoretical and practical applications of HRD and HRM flexibility and provides recommendations for organizations to increase the use value of workers. Employee use value directly contributes to the organization's success or lack thereof.

Evidence-Based Organizational Change and Development

This chapter is targeted mainly toward HRD practitioners and line managers who are actively involved in bringing about effective and beneficial organizational change and development (OCD) within their own respective organizations and/or within host organizations. Its purpose is to help them to appreciate more fully the complexities of the process issues of managing change, and the value of using theory and results of rigorous internal research in a very conscious and focused way to inform, shape, and evaluate their own change agency practice. After discussing why so many OCD programs fail, the author argues that ‘evidence-based management' and ‘evidence-based HRD', coupled with HRD's understanding of and alignment with the strategic thrust of the business, will likely lead to more effective OCD initiatives and programs. Several case examples of evidence-based OCD from the United Kingdom are presented, and the merits of ‘design science', ‘professional partnership research' and ‘replication research' are discussed.

Strategic Human Resource Development Alignment

The critical role of human resource development (HRD) in helping organizations identify and meet their strategic objectives in today's competitive and ever-changing global marketplace is increasingly being recognized by both scholars and practitioners. While many HRD scholars have examined the importance of HRD alignment with the organization's strategic objectives, there exist few conceptualizations of this alignment from the employee's perspective. Drawing on strategic HRD and management “line of sight” literature, the purpose of this chapter is to explore the theoretical conceptualization and a proposed model of employee perceptions of the strategic alignment of HRD in their organizations. Strategic HRD alignment from the employee's perspective is explored, and future research directions are discussed, in relation to strategic HRD, organizational learning culture, perceived investment in employee development, and performance-related outcomes for which HRD scholar-practitioners strive in their quest to facilitate organizational strategic objectives.

The Interplay between Theory and Practice in HRD

While few would argue that a tension exists between HRD theoreticians and practitioners, few models explain why such tension exists. Leveraging Gosney's Model of Modern Era Theory & Practice Generation in HRD (Gosney, 2014; Gosney & Hughes, 2015), a careful evaluation of current HRD context and informing philosophy reveals compelling reason for the theory-practice gap. In reviewing both the current historical context, capitalism, and the predominant informing philosophy, pragmatism, both theoreticians and practitioners are better equipped to understand and ameliorate the divide. The chapter concludes with specific recommendations to the discipline, including a more robust exploration by theoreticians of pragmatism as an informing philosophy in HRD and the adoption of critical thinking as a core competency in practitioners.

Human Resource Development as a Knowledge Management System

The crux of the challenge in bridging the scholar-practitioner gap in Human Resource Development is in creating effective mechanisms for the transfer of knowledge between scholars and practitioners. Emerging literature on the topic of knowledge management, and of knowledge management systems, provide a compelling point of view in which to consider the scholar-practitioner gap in HRD. In the chapter, knowledge management systems, as a functional outcropping of systems theory, are considered along with the use of logic models to develop and evaluate organization and program effectiveness. Preliminary research results conducted by Hughes and Wang (2015) gives further support to the notion that considering HRD as a knowledge management system may provide a framework for bridging the scholar-practitioner gap.

Corporate Trainers

Corporate training programs are widely prevalent, even ubiquitous. This situation is likely to continue: some management experts predict that training will become a continual process and include employees at all levels of the organization. Organizations, especially large ones, typically have dedicated staff (trainers) who manage and deliver training programs. In order to be effective, trainers must be knowledgeable about available and appropriate education delivery methods. Programs are often tightly linked to content - thus, trainers need to have some technical knowledge. Corporate trainers can utilize knowledge about advances in the fields of both content and delivery for organizational benefit. In turn, as possessors of knowledge from practical implementation they can make contributions to the fields. Thus, corporate trainers are ideally positioned as practitioner scholars in the workplace. Frameworks proposed in this chapter indicate how trainers can bridge the practitioner-scholar gap.

Career Development Models and Human Resource Development Practice

Various career development models and concepts have been developed over the years to explain career trajectories of employees in the workplace. The new employer-employee relationship in the workplace has resulted in more dynamic careers; boundaryless, protean, kaleidoscope, hybrid and multiple level careers. However, the impact of these relatively new career theories on human resource development (HRD) is still unclear. In this chapter, the author discusses the role of career development in human resource development and different models of career development. In addition, various organizational activities that can support career development are presented. The author then proposes a framework that links career models to specific organizational career development activities. This provides direction to organizational efforts geared towards employee development.

HRD ‘Scholar-Practitioner'

The quality of human resource is a key driver in creating organizational performance. An HRD investigates human work patterns and abilities required to perform determined job roles and role-specific responsibilities in competent manner. The ‘HRD Scholar-Practitioner' opens the ways connecting the division between academics and real world of practice. This integration involves different scholastic efforts that make theory, practice and research mutually dependent; and promotes opportunity to engage simultaneously in the real time HRD practices and scholastic investigations. The ‘HRD Scholar-Practitioner' has ability to create organizational learning objectives, personal and professional cognitive meanings, integrative approaches, and to setup ‘participative learning-based competency culture' towards organizational performance and dynamic leadership. Thus, this can be considered as a significant mechanism to enhance organizational competitiveness and effectiveness of scholastic works via filling theory, practice and research gap(s).

The Academic Workplace

This manuscript will consider higher education institutions as workplaces, and it will explore the relationships between the shifting landscape of higher education, the corresponding organizational changes that are identified and implemented by college and university leaders in response to those shifts, and workplace culture and climate. Its purpose is to offer a typology of HRD interventions that respond to organizational needs for skill building and education in order to equip individuals and organizations to thrive during periods of significant change. The context for this chapter is mostly through a U.S. based lens, although it is likely that several concepts and suggestions might have transnational relevance.

Theorizing the Research-Practice Gap in the Field of Management

This chapter provides a review of key theoretical frameworks and models in the field of Management that conceptualize various aspects representative of the research-practice gap phenomenon. In particular, the authors discuss the scholarly literature and review key frameworks and models on the topic by elaborating on three streams of research: the rigor-relevance debate; knowledge creation and production; and the role of educational institutions in bridging the gap. In addition, more recent, and, rather, holistic perspectives on narrowing the research-practice divide are also presented. These perspectives are Engaged Scholarship and Evidence-Based Management. The chapter concludes with solutions and recommendations aimed at fostering the convergence between research and practice.