This book explores the perspectives of experienced practitioners, sharing ideas about building and sustaining organizational strength through workforce development practices and systems. As the saying goes, a company's greatest resource is its people. When managers really believe that and work to develop organizational capabilities, productivity,…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationships among strategic HRD (SHRD) practices and organizational learning; and the relationships among organizational learning and HRD outcomes through a literature review. Design/methodology/approach: Keywords were identified to use in the literature search: HRD, SHRD practices, and…

This document contains four papers from a symposium on strategic human resource development (HRD). "The GEICO Challenge Session: A Model for Integrating Human Resource Development and Strategic Planning" (Clyde T. Conine, Jr., Bill P. Criswell) reports on a study that delineated the nature of the integration of HRD into the strategic…

This paper discusses the managerial challenges and opportunities resulting from the change in the U.S. workforce from one composed of predominately white males to one increasingly composed of females, minorities, and immigrants. It notes that managing people from different cultures whether at home or abroad is receiving a good deal of attention…

A group of human resource development (HRD) practitioners participated in an innovative session on managing culture in the e-workplace. The session objectives were as follows: (1) bring cultural patterns of the e-workplace to the forefront; (2) discuss the impact of culture on performance improvement in the e-workplace; and (3) share resources for…

This symposium on organization development (OD) consists of three presentations. "A Study of Gender Management Preferences as Related to Predicted Organizational Management Paradigms for the Twenty-First Century" (Cathy Bolton McCullough) reports a study that found that access to diverse management preferences and the manner in which the…

This handbook, developed by the National Alliance of Business, is designed as a tool for Private Industry Councils (PICs) in providing a framework for planning a program of Employment Generating Services (EGS) for disadvantaged workers. Based on the experiences of many PICs, a six-step EGS-program-planning process that includes assessing needs,…

The Workforce Virginia 2000 Advocacy Council committee recommends that for Virginia to respond effectively to the growing global challenge, it must take positive action aimed at improving the productivity and skills of its work force and establishing high performance work organizations. Virginia must shift to a high performance work organization…

The formation of local workforce investment boards (WIBs) was examined through case studies of two sites in Indiana and two in Kentucky. The four sites had very different labor market conditions, contexts, and One Stop histories that affected their formation of local WIBs and selection of One Stop operators. The boards surveyed ranged in size from…

Rising competition in world and domestic markets for the past 2 decades has necessitated that U.S. companies undergo significant transformations to improve their performance with respect to a wide array of efficiency and quality indicators. Research on the transformations recently undertaken by some U.S. companies to boost performance revealed two…

This book details the work required at the outset of all efforts designed to improve an organization's performance at the organization, process, and/or individual levels. The book is divided into four parts that are devoted to the following aspects of conducting the systematic diagnostic analysis required to improve performance: (1) analysis as…

This handbook, developed by the National Alliance of Business, is designed as a tool for Private Industry Councils (PICs) in promoting permanent partnerships between public and private interests in training and employing the disadvantaged. Basic information on roles, organizational issues, and program activities of the PIC are considered in four…

A model of technological training has two dimensions: level of cultural stability and employee's level of cognitive ability. Each dimension has two variables. The variables of cultural stability are (1) technological adoption and organizational adaptation and (2) structure of work and work processes. For cognitive ability, the variables are…

The learning organization is one that has a strategy of continuous organizational change, exploring and facilitating a link between the development of the organization and the personal development of the employee. These five disciplines lead the innovation of learning organizations: systems thinking (meaning the whole is more than the sum of the…

According to psychologist Daniel Goleman, a strong IQ can set the baseline for success but does not guarantee prosperity. Goleman believes that factors contributing to "emotional intelligence" (for example, self-control, zeal and persistence, and ability to motivate oneself) are key to success in the corporate world. Howard Gardner has…