Understanding HRD System: A Critical Appraisal of HRD Practices and Facilitators

Abstract

Kandula's (2001) study on HRD practices and facilitators was re-examined to assess whether these constructs really measured practices and facilitators claimed by the author. Using the intermediate results of HRD practices and facilitators in matrix form, an attempt was made to establish the explanatory power of HRD facilitators vis-à-vis practices, besides attempting to isolate such practices and facilitating variables that maximally discriminate profit orientation of the company The reanalysis revealed that practices and facilitators' dimensions largely suffered from being non-specific and the dimension scores of both the measures overlapped with each other to such an extent that there is little chance to differentiate them as independent domains of human resource development. It was demonstrated that due to using non-discriminative and psychometrically inadequate dimensions of practices and facilitators besides using a single response per organization, the main findings turned out to be less significant The relationship with profit making orientation of the company also showing primarily non-significant results could be attributed to above reasons. A relatively short but conceptually distinct list of HRD practices (what is seen as action outcomes) and the facilitators (concerns for producing desired practices) are developed for further research in this area.