Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) is traditionally valued for its developmental benefits for youth, such as enhancing leadership and critical thinking skills. However, this brief evidences that YPAR's potential extends significantly beyond individual growth, serving as a powerful mechanism for organizational development and academic…

Grounded in a partnership among researchers, a racial justice organization, and K-12 schools, this study uncovers the challenges of pursuing racial justice work in a polarized sociopolitical climate. Specifically, we illustrate these tensions across three dimensions of our work: (a) establishing critical commitments with K-12 partners; (b)…

Human Performance Technology (HPT) is the applied study and practice of improving organizational performance through training and non-training interventions. For practitioners working in this area that identify themselves as an HPT practitioner, organizational training and performance (OTP) specialist, or instructional designer--offering the right…

In 2006, our School of Management began the serious path of assessing both the "hard skills" (such as accounting, finance, and strategy) and the "soft skills" (such as leadership, team work, and ethics) of our MBA Program. The data generated from examining the "soft skills" that we want students to learn within our…

Purpose: This Special Issue is intended to heighten awareness of the importance of organizational learning in addressing the demands of organizational sustainability, and in particular triple bottom line (TBL) sustainability. A definition of TBL sustainability is provided, together with an exploration of the practical issues relevant to adopting…

The business of training and performance improvement has always been cyclical, with the fortunes of human resource development (HRD) and performance improvement professionals rising and falling with the economic fortunes of the workplace. The current economic downturn and nascent recovery represent an opportunity for HRD and performance…

Structuration theory helps to explain the role of human agency in the reciprocal relationship between social systems and structures, which Giddens called the "duality of structure." The theory explicates how power struggles emerge and are negotiated and, depending on the restructuration, can help to resolve conflict or lead to deteriorations and…

The state of higher education today is one of change and stasis. Economic vulnerability, globalization, technological innovation, and an increasingly competitive market underlie the need for change in higher education. At the same time, there are strong and stubborn forces at work supporting the status quo. Though daunting, institutions of higher…

This article describes the use of "business-driven" action learning in a healthcare setting. It reviews and reflects on an example where action learning does not "take", identifying the likely causes of this. It also poses four questions--whether action learning is counter-cultural in some organisations; whether the…

Connecting discipline scholars with the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) is accepted as an essential part of professional academic practice across the higher education sector irrespective of discipline. To connect meaningfully with teaching practice, SoTL needs to be translated by the discipline scholar and narratives related to the…

In this paper, I would like to offer the suggestion that HRD (human resource development) become an ethics champion within the corporations and the organizations we serve. By surveying and synthesizing literature from higher education and professional associations on business ethics theory and practice, this paper provides both rationale as well…

The authors present an approach for educating future evaluators by connecting evaluation theory and practice, organizational development, and grant making through experiential learning. They position this discussion on the conceptual framework of a newly developed graduate-level evaluation course, Advanced Program Development and Evaluation, which…

The nature of project management is change. Even though all knowledge areas in the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) are rooted in controlling change, none of these areas specifically addresses the human elements of change. There is a significant distinction between directly controlling change relative to the nonhuman aspects of a…

Teachers in the municipally run infant-toddler and preprimary schools of Reggio Emilia have repeatedly demonstrated and described their schools as relational spaces where documentation makes visible children's learning and informs flexible planning, or progettazione. The purpose of this article is to reveal how teachers' and children's patterns of…

Looking at literacy teaching across classrooms at the urban Mill City Charter School provides an opportunity to explore the importance of coherence within a school. This work was informed by teachers' voices and classroom observations over several months. Findings suggest that when teachers and school leaders share a common theory and vision for…