Capacity and Capability Building for National HRD

Abstract

Human resource development (HRD) scholars have grappled with the question of developing theoretical and conceptual frameworks that capture the complexities of building human capital capacity and capability at a national level. Relying on national HRD (NHRD) and international development literatures, we develop a multi-level framework for understanding capacity and capability building that is useful for assessing national development priorities for countries in general. We theorize that NHRD priorities must consider the simultaneous development of financial, industrial, and workforce capacities at the national, organizational, and individual levels. The conceptual framework considers positive as well as negative NHRD synergies that can emerge from linking financial, industrial, and workforce capacities to capability-building efforts at the national, organizational, and individual levels. In doing so, the framework contributes to the NHRD-model-building approaches in the extant HRD literature.