For flooring manufacturer Mohawk Industries, it is not enough to teach employees how to be great. The long-time Training Top 125 contender focused last year on helping employees to blaze their own learning paths while meeting organization imperatives. That meant improving the technology that supports employee performance, as well as creating new…

Crisis management has been a largely overlooked territory in human resource development (HRD) despite the increasingly recognized impact of organizational crises on the individual and organizational performance. This article explores the strategic role of HRD in the context of organizational crisis management using Garavan's strategic HRD model as…

Organizational learning is a complex phenomenon, the collective nature of which makes it difficult to study and examine. Organizational stories are cultural forms that facilitate the sensemaking processes and capabilities of the individuals and teams that form the collective organization. This paper utilizes literature to suggest possible impacts…

This paper is concerned with the relationship between trade unions and learning in the workplace, particularly in relation to the enhancement of worker employability profiles. With the restructuring and modernising of the European steel industry as its context, this paper argues that the organisational and structural features of a sector have a…

The author defines organization development (OD) and discusses organization, measurement of success, the role of specialists, the relationship between organization and organization interest illustrated in chart form, and 21 OD strategies. (JB)

This information analysis concerns human resource development (HRD), defined as consisting of programs and activities that positively affect the development of the individual and the productivity and profit of the organization. Several key human resource development components are identified and discussed: (1) training and development; (2)…

This is a comparative study of inter-organizational relations of manpower agencies in Cleveland, Philadelphia, and New York City. It analyzes how the political setting of cities affects the organizational design and relations of manpower agencies, and how this, in turn, affects agency performance. Specifically, it analyzes the conditions under…

This paper sets out to critically challenge five interrelated assumptions prominent in the (human resource development) HRD literature. These relate to: the exploitation of labour in enhancing shareholder value; the view that employees are co-contributors to and co-recipients of HRD benefits; the distinction between HRD and human resource…

As downsizing of government and business organizations has become widespread, many managers are seeking to increase productivity by empowering the workforce. When effectively and appropriately implemented, empowered workforce structures can cut costs and improve quality and safety. Yet resistance to such changes arises from a patriarchal…

Career development has evolved from the mid-1970s, when it was rarely linked with the word "organizational," to Walter Storey's work in organizational career development at General Electric in 1978. Its evolution has continued with career development workshops in organizations in the early 1980s to implementation of Corning's organizational career…

This paper examines the relationship between organizational learning culture, learning transfer climate, and organizational innovation. The objective was to test the ability of learning organization culture to account for variance in learning transfer climate and subsequent organizational innovation, and to examine the role of learning transfer…

This document contains four papers from a symposium on informal workplace learning. The first paper, "The Impact of Actor Strategies and Work Type on Learning Projects: A Multiple Case Study" (Rob F. Poell), reports on a multiple case study of four learning projects in two organizations that demonstrated that individuals' strategies and the type…

This document consists of four papers presented during a symposium on the change process in organizations moderated by John Redding at the 1996 conference of the Academy of Human Resource Development (AHRD). "Corporate Culture: Friend or Foe of Change?" (Joanne Burgess) reports a study of the characteristics of corporate culture that facilitate…

This monograph explains the new economy from the point of view of people at work. It begins by providing an overview of the new economy and places the United States in it. Separate aspects of the new economy are elaborated in five parts. Part I presents the competitive standards that provide the cornerstone for the new economic reality: robust…

This book describes a learning organization and reports on experiments carried out at four levels--individual, team, organizational, and societal--illustrating the action imperatives for creating a learning organization. Part 1 (chapters 1-3) explores the shifts that are leading companies to become learning organizations. It offers a framework for…