The 21st century is seeing dramatic shifts in the business environment. In order for organizations to adapt to these shifts, they must be more flexible and learning oriented. To thrive in this environment, organizational leaders must facilitate and build the capacity for learning throughout the organization. Organizational leadership is looking…

The American Graduation Initiative stands as the cornerstone of the Obama administration's higher education agenda. To investigate the state of the politics of education in the Age of Obama, this article employs critical discourse analysis to unveil the hidden meanings and ideological commitments inherent in Obama's policy discourse. Read within…

Six theoretical perspectives on work design are examined for their contributions to our understanding of how work is organized and designed in organizations: sociotechnical systems theory, process improvement, adaptive structuration theory, the job characteristics model, technostructural change models, and activity theory. A critique of these…

The recent vehement and highly visible critique of the North American business school curriculum illuminates core tensions in the field of human resource development (HRD) related to the role and responsibility of the profession in for-profit organizations and the educative process by which future practitioners are prepared. If the business school…

In reference to Peter Kuchinke's manuscript, the author points out that current MBA programs suffer from a myriad of ills that are somehow detrimental to organizations and that there is a similar problem with human resource development (HRD) programs (hence the reference in the title to "birds of a feather"). In this article, he shares his…

Peter Kuchinke has written a powerful and relevant article that should generate much discussion in the human resource development (HRD) community. The focus of Kuchinke's paper is the question of whether HRD academic programs should emulate the value preference of business schools or march to a different drum. In this response, the author argues…