The contribution of scholarship to practice is an on-going concern of the AL/HRD community. This paper explores how one influential discourse may shape AL/HRD's understanding of that contribution. In 2020 the UK Government implemented the Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF) to gather data on English Universities' knowledge exchange activities.…

Purpose: The aim of the paper is to examine the meaning and value of the notion of theory as a basis for other papers in the special issue which examine facets of theorising HRD. Design/methodology/approach: A small scale and targeted literature review was conducted which focused on writings in the philosophy and sociology of science in order to…

Purpose: The aim of the paper is to present the findings of a definitional review and comparative study of HRD definitions. It also reports the results of comparing and contrasting a synthesis of the "intended purposes" and "processes" constituting these definitions against various definitions and conceptualisations of…

Purpose: The paper seeks to explore the proposition that there is a need for research to address the connections between talent management (TM) and managing diversity as one example of achieving better integration and less separation in academic work on human resource (HR). Design/methodology/approach: An exploratory study of one organisation at a…

Purpose: In this paper the authors seek to argue that doctoral supervision is one type of human resource development relationship in higher education (HE), and that this relationship may be close or distanced, and involve technical and social support. The paper aims to highlight the seldom-discussed aspects of power and emotion within doctoral…

Purpose: Educational programmes that are concerned with the learning and teaching of enterprise education, such as enterprise focused degrees and/or modules, could be argued to be of particular interest to human resource development (HRD) research since they commonly have an overt focus on influencing and shaping the career choices of students.…

This article features the University Forum for Human Resource Development (UFHRD), a voluntary network or an informal association stemming from two separate initiatives in the UK in the late 1980s. The first of these was at national government level and was the introduction of national competence based vocational qualifications (NVQs) following…

Purpose: This paper aims to explore the challenges and opportunities for expediting critical reflection in management education and development to highlight particularly how critical reflection has been facilitated within the context of a professionally focused doctoral programme. Design/methodology/approach: The paper draws on empirical research…

Case studies of three small and medium-sized enterprises in England examined how characteristics of small organizations influence their human resource development (HRD) policies and practices. Three models emerged, based on differences in planning, doing, and evaluating HRD activities. (SK)

Purpose: Establishes a connection between the concepts of "learning organisation" and "human resources development". Design/methodology/approach: A brief and broad overview of the current state of human research development research. Findings: One conclusion to be reached is that the subject is healthy. Another conclusion is that human resource…