Human Resource Development International

Vol. 11, No. 3, July 2008, 219–221

EDITORIAL
People, organizations and development – is HRD being stretched?

I am pleased and very proud to write this editorial. As Associate Editor, I am responsible
for the non-refereed section: Perspectives on people, practice and research, the book
reviews and the debate (or Soapbox) articles. I have worked closely with many authors –
particularly students and practitioners – and am inspired by the knowledge, experience
and ideas they contribute to our profession.
This edition brings together an eclectic group of papers and I have spent some time
looking for emerging themes and patterns. First, I note how all of these articles illuminate
different aspects of Chalofsky’s (2004) three pillars of human resource development
(HRD): people, learning and organizations. Second, I detect something I call ‘HRD
stretch’, which involves multiple collaborative relationships pulling our profession up,
down and across.
In the refereed section, Yamnill, McLean and Singsuriya explore human development
(HD) and human resource development through the perspective of Buddhism in Thailand.
Here, the people include the leader and monks, but the beneficiaries include the wider Thai
society. The organization is the temple of Wat Panyanantaram, a religious institution and
important stakeholder in this context. The authors identify the growing focus on
spirituality and argue that learning and development should focus more on societal rather
than economic goals.
Remaining in the East, Lin and Jacobs remind us about the importance of training
design and the need to collaborate to ensure effectiveness. Their context is the
collaboration between two specific sets of people: HRD professionals and subject matter
experts (SMEs) in Taiwan. This involves collaboration across professional ‘cultures’ and
the need to develop partnership skills, which is a sub-theme across the issue.
On this theme, John Walton and Gisèle Guarisco present an insightful account of
developing face-to-face international collaborative ventures between higher education
institutions in Britain and Russia. Here, the people are HRD academics and senior
managers learning from each other and sharing knowledge within a cross-cultural context.
Again, long-term relationships focus more on developing societal rather than economic
goals. In addition, they highlight the importance of developing partnership skills.
In contrast, Holtbrügge and Schillo explore collaboration across national boundaries
(Germany and Japan) with their review of intercultural training requirement for virtual
assignments. Here, the people involved do not work together in person, but have to
develop their relationships through emails or video conference, which can create
misunderstandings and misinterpretations. The authors offer an approach to developing
intercultural training in the absence of face-to-face communication and common trust-
building mechanisms, evident in Walton and Guarisco’s paper.
The final paper in this section draws our attention to an emerging tension within, if not
a threat to, the HRD profession. Robert Hamlin, Andrea Ellinger and Rona Beattie

ISSN 1367-8868 print/ISSN 1469-8374 online

Ó 2008 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/13678860802102427
http://www.informaworld.com
220 Editorial

carefully analyse the similarities and differences between the HRD and ‘coaching’
professions, and the roles and purposes of people engaged in these forms of development
across the USA, UK and Europe. They call for the integration of HRD, organization
development (OD) and coaching professions to form a more holistic body for people and
organization development.
In this issue, we also have two interesting Perspectives on practice. Related to Hamlin
et al.’s paper, Sarah McVanel-Viney introduces the team performance consultant, a
supportive role that could be performed by HRD practitioners, but not exclusively. These
internal consultants appear to have a role similar to coaches in that they work closely with
people to help solve problems of conflict and adapting to change within Canadian health
care institutions. Here, the context is the healthcare organization, another important
stakeholder within national economies.
In the second Perspective on practice, Roland Yeo’s work reminds us that HRD is
about all forms of learning, and highlights how we might develop support for problem-
based learning (PBL) to enhance individual and organizational performance. The focus
here is on how people might more formally engage in PBL to enhance organizational
performance.
From these articles, it appears that HRD is being pulled in different vertical and
horizontal dimensions. Yamnill et al. link HD and HRD through the perspective of
Buddhism in Thailand. This article stretches HRD beyond organizational boundaries to
include religious institutional contributions to national economies, and the concept of
national HRD (McLean and McLean 2001). HRD is stretched up to include national and
religious dimensions, and beyond that, cross-cultural issues. The people are those engaging
in spiritual endeavours within ‘religious’ organizations to enhance the development of the
nation. Learning is about humanistic aspects – being a good person and citizen – rather
than organizational performance. This highlights differences between ‘Western’ and
‘other’ perspectives.
And yet, looking down to specific aspects of HRD, Yeo’s work reminds us that HRD
is about all forms of learning, and highlights how we might develop support for problem-
based learning to enhance individual and organizational performance. The focus of this
learning is to enhance organizational performance, rather than developing humanistic
aspects of society. Lin and Jacobs also remind us of the importance of training design and
the need to collaborate to ensure effectiveness. These two papers focus on the ‘basic’,
ground-level HRD activities within organizations.
Looking horizontally, Hamlin et al. raise crucial issues regarding the relationship between
HRD, OD and the ‘newer’ concept of coaching. Their article stretches HRD horizontally to
include the concept of coaching either as an integral aspect of HRD or somehow ‘different’
and a possible threat to HRD. McVanel-Viney also identifies the role of ‘team performance
consultant’, a different organizational role that could form part of the HRD professional’s
portfolio but continues to be somewhat ‘separate’. Both of these papers focus on the possible
role of people involved in HRD and the broadest possibilities for development.
Stretching HRD across organizational and national boundaries, Holtbrügge and
Schillo offer ways of supporting virtual collaboration through intercultural training. This
is required when the usual mechanisms of face-to-face communication and common trust-
building cannot be developed. This is in contrast to John Walton’s and Gisèle Guarisco’s
account of developing face-to-face international collaborative ventures between higher
education institutions in Britain and Russia. These two papers illustrate ways (both ‘real’
and virtual) in which HRD relationships are being forged across Western and emerging
Eastern economies.
 Human Resource Development International 221

To summarize, it appears that HRD is being stretched vertically upward to include

forms of national economic and social development, and cross-culturally across national
boundaries, with the tensions and contradictions these can create. Yet, we are also
reminded of the practical implications of ‘basic’ functions, such as training design and
problem-based learning. Also, HRD appears to be being stretched horizontally to include
newer forms of learning and development such as executive coaching and team
performance consultants, and traditional ones such as OD, and perhaps we face a ‘critical
time’ (Sambrook 2004)? With these stretches and new forms of collaboration, are HRD
practices becoming more similar in the national and international arena?
This reminds me of Kerr et al.’s (1973) convergence thesis, proposing that
industrialized societies become increasingly similar in their social, political and cultural
characteristics, and work organizations. Is there growing convergence between HRD, OD
and coaching, or are they retaining their separateness? Is there growing convergence
between national perspectives of HRD with the more international membership on
national bodies such as AHRD and UFHRD? This is particularly relevant with my own
recent election to the Board of AHRD. Convergence might also be supported further by
journals such as HRDI, with its international and collaborative focus. Yet, could/should
organizational and national cultures, values and forms of spirituality suggest an
underlying, but acceptable, divergence? I invite you to read this issue and reach your
own conclusions.

Professor Sally Sambrook

Bangor University

References
Chalofsky, N. 2004. Human and organization studies: The discipline of HRD. In 2004 AHRD
Conference Proceedings, ed. T. Marshal and M.L. Morris, 422–7. Bowling Green Ohio: AHRD.
Kerr, C., J.T. Dunlop, F. Harbison, and C.A. Myers. 1973. Industrialism and industrial man.
Harmondsworth: Penguin.
McLean, G.N., and L.D. McLean. 2001. If we can’t define HRD in one country, how can we define
it in an international context? Human Resource Development International 4, no. 3: 313–26.
Sambrook, S. 2004. A ‘critical’ time for HRD? Journal of European Industrial Training 28, no. 8/9:
611–24.