This article is in part inspired by an HRD director's insight that his HRD staff should view themselves as HRD Family Doctors, suggesting that a doctor-patient relationship was similar in many respects to the HRD-manager consulting relationship. Although that is possible in some organizations, the author's interviews with corporate managers and…

The preceding article (Clarke, 2010) examines an important and interesting question; that is, under what conditions can learning contribute to the development of emotional intelligence (EI)? Despite the controversy surrounding the definition and construct of EI, its prevalence for the human resources development (HRD) field and its implications…

For nearly three decades, the quality management philosophy known as Six Sigma has brought competitive advantage to organizations implementing it. The typical approach, however, has been to have leaders from operations, engineering, quality, and marketing manage this strategic initiative. Human resource's role has been to default to the…

This article presents a provisional grounded theory of conceptual development for applied theory-building research. The theory described here extends the understanding of the components of conceptual development and provides generalized relations among the components. The conceptual development phase of theory-building research has been widely…

Although the scholarly and popular literature on work-life has grown tremendously in the past several decades, and as more and more individuals and organizations grapple with work-life issues, it appears that HRD's involvement in work-life has been modest. It is hoped that this article will serve as a catalyst for discussion and debate among HRD…

The purpose of this article is to describe four methods for completing the conceptual development phase of theory building research for single or multiparadigm research. The four methods selected for this review are (1) Weick's method of "theorizing as disciplined imagination" (1989); (2) Whetten's method of "modeling as theorizing" (2002); (3)…

Theoretical research in HRD has established itself and is now at a point where many avenues exist for further contributions to the field. But what kinds of theoretical research appear to be needed at this stage in the development of HRD? This paper identifies areas in which further research in theory and theory building might be conducted.…

Describes the rationale for a code of ethics and integrity in human resource development (HRD). Outlines the Academy of Human Resource Development's standards. Reviews ethical issues faced by the HRD profession. (SK)