Human Resource Development Professionals Research Articles

Change in the Face of Resistance

The Problem The Indian economy is one of the fastest growing in the world, but that growth is not accessible to all people. Women who exit the workforce and return face challenges that make staying more difficult. Challenges include poor perception of the likelihood of success, child care, time management, and work–family role balance. As a result, the process of returning to work demotivates many Indian women returnees (IWRs). The Solution The purpose of this article was to examine the cultural, social, and economic components of Indian women’s lives that may contribute to difficulties faced when returning to work after time away. We offer suggestions for the field of human resource development (HRD) to facilitate meaningful learning and development in the lives of these women and position hope as motivation for initiating change in the face of resistance. The Stakeholders The stakeholders of this issue are IWRs, the HRD professionals who may work with them, their communities, their partners and families, and the organizations that may employ them.

The HRD Eustress Model

Building on existing conceptualizations of stress, we present a model that provides an alternate explanation of the efficacy of human resource development (HRD) interventions. Unlike most stress research that emphasizes the negative side of stress, we view eustress—good stress—as a positive individual and organizational outcome. The HRD eustress model extends theory from the positive psychology and positive organizational behavior literature and positions a role for HRD in creating positive stress as a means to improve performance. We describe how HRD professionals can help challenge employees as a means of attaining individual goals and personal development.

Crossover of Discrete Emotion and its Effect on Employees’ Wellbeing

The purpose of this study is threefold, that is, to examine discrete emotion and how it could contribute to the crossover phenomena in organizations, to examine how crossover affect employees’ burnout and engagement, to develop a theoretical framework of discrete emotion as mediator and its crossover in the relationship between job demand, resource and employees’ wellbeing. This paper examined past studies from Proquest, SAGE, Springer, JStor and Emerald online Database that are related to discrete emotion, spillover-crossover model, burnout and engagement. Fifty papers were reviewed from the online databases within the year 2004 to 2015. Findings show that discrete emotion has some effect on employees’ wellbeing through crossover phenomena process. Positive emotions, such as, joy and happiness can accelerate a person’s recovery from the physiological effects of negative emotions. Employees react to the antecedent and possess a discrete emotion. Employees’ discrete emotion makes crossover towards colleagues and triggers the intensity of their psychological state (engage, burnout). Practical intervention for human resource development professionals were suggested to assist employees and organizations on making it known about knowledge on discrete emotion and how it can affect employees’ wellbeing. This research produces a theoretical concept to examine the predictive potential of discrete emotion that leads to crossover phenomena in determining employees’ burnout and engagement.Keywords: discrete emotion; spillover-crossover; burnout; engagement

Changing Cities, Changing Culture

The Problem With the rapid increase of urban populations, managing urban sustainability has become one of the most important development challenges of the 21st century. As cities plan for a sustainable future, human resource development (HRD) professionals have the potential to facilitate collaboration across multiple organizations and at various scales (neighborhood, ward, city, metropolitan area) and to foster culture change that embraces ecological protection, economic development, and social equity. Although the role of HRD in crises management as a result of major environmental disasters is discussed in the literature, the field of HRD is in its infancy in examining its role and approaches in greening the society and addressing urban environmental challenges proactively. The Solution This conceptual article examines sustainability and urban sustainability and their linkage with HRD, discusses the emergent roles of HRD in crisis management, presents opportunities and challenges for Green HRD as a proactive process, and concludes with a call for the moral imperative for HRD in urban sustainability in implementing long-term change processes with a social justice and equity agenda. The Stakeholders This article informs local government agencies, nonprofit and for-profit organizations, community groups, and their HRD leaders involved in urban sustainability planning and implementation on approaches to building new adaptive capacity and fostering culture change through collaborative learning and leadership interventions.

Using Creative Techniques in Leadership Learning and Development

The Problem Leadership development programs have become prolific in organizations in both the public and private sectors, with new initiatives endlessly being developed. Empirical and conceptual work that challenges some of the mainstream approaches to leadership learning and development has led to initiatives increasingly becoming complex in nature and to the use of innovative and unusual approaches. There is limited knowledge, however, regarding the impact of such techniques. The Solution This issue focuses on some core themes around enabling and enacting leadership development in organizations through creative techniques using art, poetry, symbolism, theater, drama, and film, and is rooted in experiences of delivering such interventions in a range of countries, sectors, and professions. Each article explores how these techniques can be translated into practice across a wide of variety leadership learning and development contexts and is rooted in the contemporary and critical leadership literature. The Stakeholders Human resource development professionals seeking to identify key considerations in selecting creative techniques for effective leadership learning and development interventions, and academics advising on such selections and teaching leadership themselves, will be interested in these articles, which will also set the basis for further empirical research and theoretical reflection on the topic.

Exploring Critical Perspectives of Toxic and Bad Leadership Through Film

The Problem This article considers concepts of toxic and bad leadership from a critical, post-structuralist perspective and illustrates how this can be conveyed to management students through the use of film analysis. In response to the paucity of critical approaches within toxic and bad leadership studies, we suggest that film is a useful way of developing in-depth discussion in student and management groups to uncover underlying subtleties and complexity in leadership theory and practice. The Solution We connect to film clips from Batman: The Dark Knight, and explain how this film is used with students and managers to illustrate the ambiguous nature of “good” and “bad” leadership and explore the fluid, shifting, and relational nature of these two concepts. We conclude that students and managers can recognize this more readily through viewing, discussing, and analyzing film clips such as the ones discussed herein. The Stakeholders University lecturers and students, executive educators and managers, general human resource development (HRD) professionals

Shaping the future of a globalized world

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to understand how everyday cross-cultural interactions affected the adjustment of undergraduate international students attending a private university in the northeastern United States of America.Design/methodology/approach– Data were collected primarily through interviews with nine international students and observations at “Eastern University”. Students were purposively selected to balance gender and world regions. Analysis used constant comparison until findings emerged, which were member-checked with study participants (Merriam, 2009).Findings– Findings show that the impact of university diversity initiatives for promoting everyday cross-cultural interactions is described as creating an us/them divide, promoting solidarity and establishing a cultural presence. It is concluded that formal university events foster recognition of the campus diversity international students help provide, but their impact on everyday cross-cultural interactions is both positive and negative. Additionally, the mode by which undergraduate international students are introduced to their US campus affects their integration and future interaction patterns.Research limitations/implications– Further research is needed to explore higher education institutions (HEIs)’ connection to human resource development (HRD) for shaping the future global arena. Studies that address the continuum from higher education to the workforce are needed to prepare the next generation of professionals for a global world. This study is limited due to small sample size. Findings are not generalizable in a statistical sense, but HRD professionals in HEIs may compare the details in this study with their own institutions.Originality/value– This study contributes to the discussion of national HRD by addressing international students and their insights into how diversity programs impact adjustment in an American setting. Additionally, organizational and faculty development initiatives in academic institutions can be improved by understanding the insights found in this study.

Exploring the effects of workplace support on work-life experience: a study of Malaysia

To date most studies of workplace support and work-life experience have been of contexts where government policies and legislation to protect employee work-life balance interests are well established, such as US, UK, and other European countries. Little scrutiny has been given to these issues in less developed economies, where support and protection in terms of work-life policies and legislation at the national level is rather limited. Malaysia, the setting of this study, provides such a context. Two types of organizational support, work flexibility and superior support, are studied for their impact on work-life experience of Malaysians. The findings of this study are based on a national survey of working adults in Malaysia. Work-life experience is conceptualized to capture conflict and enrichment aspects, as well as bidirectional effects between work and nonwork. Results show that work flexibility and superior support lower work-life conflict marginally but facilitate greater work-life enrichment among Malaysians. The paper also draws out implications of these findings for human resource development professionals operating in workplace settings within national contexts with limited mandatory work-life provisions.

Deterrents to Women's Participation in Continuing Professional Development

This study was designed to explore and define key factors that deter women from participating in continuing professional development (CPD) in the workplace. Four dimensions of deterrents that are caused by women's social roles, gender inequality and gender dimensions are discussed: family and time constraints, cost and work constraints, lack of support systems, and lack of career advice and resources. Further, the article discusses the anticipation and interpretation of women's involvement in CPD in relationship to their pre-adulthood experiences. Recommendations are provided to assist human resource development professionals in their efforts to increase women's participation in CPD, promote a gender equal workplace, and create a learning organization environment.

Turnover intention: the effects of core self-evaluations, proactive personality, perceived organizational support, developmental feedback, and job complexity

Despite extensive examination of predictors for turnover and turnover intention, most studies have focused on attitudinal and behavioural aspects of individual employees. Based on a study of knowledge workers in a Korean conglomerate, we investigated the effects of personal (i.e. core self-evaluations and proactive personality) and contextual factors (i.e. perceived organizational support, developmental feedback, and job complexity) on turnover intention. There were modestly negative but significant correlations between the contextual factors and turnover intention. In addition, core self-evaluations were found to be negatively related to turnover intention. Managers and human resource development professionals could play a pivotal role in retention of these knowledge workers by building better practices related to organizational culture, providing job redesign, and engaging in other employee developmental practices such as coaching.

Training motivation of employees in academia: developing and testing a model based on the theory of reasoned action

Selbstgesteuertes und lebenslanges Lernen sind die beiden Schlagworter in Veroffentlichungen zur Teilnahme von Erwachsenen an beruflicher Weiterbildung. Da beide Formen des Lernens einen hohen personlichen Einsatz der Mitarbeiter erfordern, wird es immer wichtiger, zentrale Einflussussfaktoren auf deren Trainingsmotivation zu kennen. Den bisherigen Modellen zur Trainingsmotivation mangelt es typischerweise an einem koharenten theoretischen Rahmen. Als Folge dessen sind die Auswahl und Zusammenstellung der darin untersuchten Variablen nicht ausreichend gerechtfertigt. Der vorliegende Beitrag mochte diese Situation verbessern, indem ein Modell entwickelt wird, das relevante Variablen aus fruheren Studien in den allgemeinen Rahmen der Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA, Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975) integriert. Das so hergeleitete theoretische Modell wurde in einer Stichprobe aus 240 Mitarbeitern im Hochschulkontext, der sich durch die Freiwilligkeit der Trainingsteilnahme auszeichnet, uberpruft. Eine leicht modifizierte Version des ursprunglichen Modells erreichte eine gute Passung sowie eine moderate Vorhersagekraft mit 44 % Varianzaufklarung in der Trainingsintention der Mitarbeiter. Implikationen fur zukunftige Forschung und praktische Anregungen fur Personalentwickler werden diskutiert.

Preface

The Problem The human resource development (HRD) field is still searching for a widely accepted identity. However, because development is a ubiquitous process, because understanding and facilitating it requires insights from many disciplines, and because cultural, maturity and other contextual factors determine how development issues are framed, the pursuit continues. Is the continual search for greater clarity about what HRD is and how to facilitate it a strength or a fool’s errand? The Solution This issue of Advances in Developing Human Resources ( ADHR) does not answer this question, but it does help clarify what is happening as universities evolve programs to develop HRD professionals who can add value to development processes at individual, organizational, and societal levels. The Stakeholders Scholars and practitioners interested in the history and current global status of HRD and HRD education, HRD practitioners and people aspiring to HRD roles in business or societal institutions.

Leadership and Employee Engagement

Leadership is one of the most studied topics in the organization sciences, and employee engagement one of the more recent. However, the relationship between leadership and employee engagement has not been widely investigated. As many organizations invest significant resources in retaining, developing, and engaging employees, human resource development (HRD) professionals are tasked to develop and partner with leaders to deliver those strategies effectively. Thus, a comprehensive understanding on the relationship and mechanism between leadership and engagement is essential to HRD professionals informing leaders on how best to cultivate positive results in followers. In this vein, this research conducted an extensive review of empirical and conceptual studies that examined the relationship between leadership and employee engagement, analyzed/synthesized the studies into integrated frameworks for the leadership–engagement relationship, and proposed future research agendas.

The development and empirical validation of the Q-PDN: A questionnaire measuring continuing professional development of nurses

Although separate studies among nurses have been conducted into their continuing professional development (CPD) motives, importance attached to CPD, conditions deemed needed for CPD, and actual CPD activities undertaken, these variables have not yet been investigated at the same time, on the same sample. The aim of this study is to report on the development and initial psychometric testing of the Q-PDN, a questionnaire measuring several aspects of CPD among nurses. Based on a survey administered to 1329 nurses in hospitals in the Netherlands, a multi-dimensional instrument for CPD was validated. The constructs 'CPD motives', 'CPD importance', 'CPD conditions', and 'CPD activities undertaken' were established through factor analyses. Reliability analyses showed satisfactory to good Cronbach's alpha scores on all factors, ranging from .70 to .89. Using this instrument can stimulate and support CPD of nurses, which has been shown to contribute to increasing the quality of care. Human resource development (HRD) professionals, educators in healthcare, and managers can use this questionnaire to gain insight in the extent to which nurses undertake CPD activities, in the importance they attribute to CPD activities, in the conditions they deem necessary to participate in CPD, and in the motives that they have to engage in CPD.

Responsible leadership development – crucible experiences and power relationships in a global professional services firm

There is increasing consensus that Human Resource Development (HRD) has a central role to play in promoting the principles and practices of corporate responsibility (CR). An important HRD intervention involves developing responsible leaders able to attract support for CR throughout the organisation, but empirical research is lacking in this area. This article contributes to the theoretical and practical knowledge of responsible leadership development (RLD) by addressing two questions: first, how does RLD engender learning that goes beyond basic cognitive awareness? Second, what affects participants’ abilities to manifest this learning in the workplace? A review of the RLD literature reveals a ‘knowing-doing gap’, which, it is posited, may be linked to a lack of theorisation around power. This issue is investigated by means of a case study on a responsible leadership development programme run by a professional services firm. Drawing on Bourdieusian concepts of language and power, the study reveals some of the mechanisms that inspired new socially responsible values whilst also demonstrating some of the contextual barriers inhibiting their manifestation in the workplace. It is argued that HRD professionals need to engage with Bourdieusian ideas of language and power to promote deeper learning around responsible leadership, which can more easily be embedded into the workplace.

Transforming HRD

The Problem Human resource development (HRD) has become powerfully influenced by a dominant rationality in which masculine characteristics of assertiveness, objectivity, control, and performance are privileged without question, resulting in inequitable practices and social systems such as sexism, racism, and capitalism. The humanistic roots of the field of HRD have been co-opted into serving organizations at the expense of workers and other stakeholders. The current frameworks used to understand and apply practices within the field are not sufficient to reclaim the HRD voice of organizational conscience. The Solution This article defines critical human resource development (CHRD) and offers a framework for envisioning the field that restructures the “holy trinity” of HRD known as Training & Development, Career Development, and Organization Development. We make a case for why a CHRD is needed and provide an overview of key, and contested, issues of practice for HRD (and CHRD) professionals—relating, learning, changing, and organizing. The Stakeholders Scholars and practitioners invested in exploring a new framework of CHRD.

What Type of Leaders Are We? Understanding and Enhancing Critical Human Resource Development Identity in the United States

The Problem These are the days of grand, interdisciplinary, and global challenges. For example, there is widespread acknowledgment within the scientific community that climate change is happening. The financial meltdown caused thousands of families to lose their homes, and environmental debacles like the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico generated economic, social, and public health concerns.These are problems—not necessarily human resource development (HRD) problems—but problems nonetheless that impact the people, communities and organizations we lead and serve.We are the leaders, change agents, consultants, and educators whom organizations, communities, and people turn to for their development and training needs. The Solution I believe HRD scholars should proactively develop a critical orientation to economic, social, cultural, and environmental issues currently plaguing the planet. With such a critical perspective, we can develop a CHRD leadership identity and challenge hidden assumptions and work with others to expose environmental, human, and economicexploitation.The accomplish this goal, I believe, we should examine the historical emergence of critical HRD identities and thenintentionally create critical leadership development opportunities for more HRD professionals to enact critical HRD more of the time. The Stakeholders Communities, individuals, organizations, the planet.

Helping new executives to hit the ground running

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide an interview with Mark Byford. Design/methodology/approach – This study discusses findings from a global survey of 500 executives about how well their needs are met by organizations. Findings – This study outlines the importance of providing support for both external and internal hires so that they may integrate into their new roles as quickly as possible. Practical implications – This study provides insight for human resource and learning and development professionals on how to ensure that new hires receive the support they need to adapt quickly to a new role or working environment.

Technical Perspectives on Theory in Screen-Based Virtual Reality Environments

The Problem Human resource development (HRD) functions in a world of exploding technology to which it has responded by developing virtual HRD (VHRD). Through appropriate technology, VHRD can lead organizations into more effective learning, both formal and informal. Screen-based virtual reality environments (SVREs) are well suited as a platform for this learning advancement. However, many HRD professionals may be unfamiliar with the technical theories underpinning SVRE design. Understanding these theories is important for using this technology effectively. The Solution This article offers HRD professionals an introduction to SVREs and the technical theory inherent within their design, and discusses implications of SVREs for learning and VHRD. It also describes the Theory U leadership model as a framework for researching and using SVREs in VHRD. The Stakeholders This article is aimed at both VHRD researchers and practitioners. It encourages researcher/practitioner partnerships as an appropriate strategy for developing, evaluating, and applying this technology.

How an Intranet Provides Opportunities for Learning Organizational Culture

The Problem Organizational culture is a central part of defining virtual human resource development (VHRD), yet little empirical research has uncovered the relationship between culture and intranets. Intranets constitute the webbed environment that enables VHRD, and much can be learned from studying an intranet used strategically for an organization. Specifically, the problem addressed in this article was the question, how does an intranet provide opportunities for learning organizational culture? The Solution Case research in a hospital setting explored the problem and found four themes for how an intranet enabled participants to learn and experience the larger culture. A primary conclusion of the study was that an intranet can convey and renew organizational culture when members interact and experience organizational values in action. Implications for human resource development (HRD) professionals include addressing the design and development of organizational systems to support cultural messages that are congruent with organizational objectives and to consider how intranets can support informal learning and community building necessary for VHRD. The Stakeholders Stakeholders for this article include HRD professionals who help implement new technology and use technical applications to support practice, leaders who oversee virtual work, and scholars who aim to further research and theory in VHRD.