The UK research assessment exercise

Abstract

This article examines and critiques the UK research assessment exercise (RAE) and its implications for research and writing in HRD. It describes the process and identifies weaknesses in some of the concepts and related criteria applied in assessing and grading research outputs and in particular the notions of ‘international’ and ‘world class’ as standards against which to judge those outputs. The article argues that the process has detrimental effects for emerging subjects such as HRD, for those engaged in research in such subjects and for journals such as HRDI which are relatively new to business and management. It concludes that UK academics working in the field of HRD are mistaken if they allow the RAE to drive their research and choice of publications and outlets, and that it is important to support the journals which are playing a critical role in establishing the subject.     

The role of HRD in bridging the research-practice gap: the case of learning and development

ABSTRACT

An enduring challenge for HRD is ensuring academic research achieves impact on professional practice. We have located this research within debates about the research-practice gap. To investigate this challenge, we analyse case studies of academic impact from all disciplines submitted to the United Kingdom’s 2014 research assessment exercise (REF 2014). We found that Learning and Development was a primary focus of significant number of impact case studies submitted across all disciplines compared to other areas of HR and HRD. We also found that Learning and Development was a key path to Impact. These findings reveal that Learning and Development in a work context plays a pivotal role in helping researchers irrespective of discipline achieve impact. Our findings therefore speak to the research-practice gap across academia. We conclude by considering the potential role for HRD in generating impact.     

‘Environment’ Submissions in the UK's Research Excellence Framework 2014

There has been much debate about university research assessment exercises. In the UK, a major element of the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF2014) has been the research environment. Here we analyse 98 REF2014 ‘environment’ submissions in Business and Management Studies. We explore whether there are distinctive language‐related differences between submissions of high and low ranked universities and conclude that submission writers have a strong incentive to exaggerate strengths and conceal problems. In addition, innate biases such as the ‘halo’ and ‘velcro’ effects may distract the attention of assessors from a submission's strengths and weaknesses, since they are likely to influence their pre‐existing impressions. We propose several changes to improve how environment is evaluated. We also argue that the research environment would be more likely to be enhanced if the number of outputs submitted in future was an average of two and a maximum of four per academic, rather than the maximum of five currently being considered.     

Business and Management Studies in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework

The Research Excellence Framework 2014 (REF 2014) was the 7th formal assessment of research in UK universities and other institutions of higher education. Participation in these assessments is voluntary, and institutions can decide which staff to include and under which discipline to include them. A hundred and one institutions chose to submit research in Business and Management Studies, and this work was assessed by a panel of academic researchers and research users nominated by a wide range of academic constituencies. The previous assessment exercise was conducted in 2008, and REF 2014 shows that the quality of UK research in Business and Management Studies, already high in 2008, has improved since then. The operation of the Business and Management Studies sub‐panel is described, the results are summarized, and a few caveats are discussed so as to aid the Business and Management Studies community in its endeavours to understand and evaluate the process and the results.     

Measuring Research Performance in Business and Management Studies in the United Kingdom: The 1992 Research Assessment Exercise*

This paper presents the results of a statistical analysis of the 1992 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE92) for the 85 business and management departments in UK institutions of higher education. The aims of the paper are, first, to construct a set of quantitative indicators of research outputs and inputs which can be used by individual departments for comparative purposes and second, to investigate the extent to which variations between departments in the research rating obtained in the RAE92 can be explained by these indicators of research outputs and inputs. One of the main findings is that around 80 per cent of the variation in the research rating obtained by business and management departments are accurately predicted by a regression model that contains only a small number of regressors. These include: size of department, articles in refereed academic journals, research students and research income.     

The status of HRD research in the United States from 1980 to 1994

This study used the research methodology of citation analysis to elucidate the status of HRD research in the United States. The study results include information about core US journals, the number of articles published per year, and the type of article authorship. The results also provide information about the changing landscape for HRD publications.     

Strategic flexibility analysis of HRD research and practice post COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

While governments, intergovernmental organizations, non-profits, corporations are all aware that disruptions through pandemics and other natural bio-disasters like the COVID-19 pandemic can happen, barely are we proactive about them. Instead, we are always reactive. In a virtual Town Hall meeting of the Academy of Human Resource Development (AHRD) held on 9 April 2020, on the theme ‘How is the pandemic a game-changer for HRD?,’ the President of AHRD, Laura Bierema, challenged HRD scholars to determine the possible futures of HRD scholarship post-COVID-19 Pandemic. This article proposes the use of the Strategic Flexibility Framework (SFF) to determine the possible futures of HRD post-COVID-19 pandemic. I first discuss the SFF as a scenario planning and analysis tool. I then developed four scenarios of possible futures for HRD Research and Practice post-COVID-19 pandemic. These scenarios include the ‘Meaning of work,’ ‘Leadership,’ ‘Contactless Commerce & Education,’ and ‘Volunteerism.’ I conclude by discussing the important opportunities that can serve as intervention points for post-COVID-19 HRD theory, research, and practice.     

Human Resource Development in SMEs: A Systematic Review of the Literature

Human Resource Development (HRD) in small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) is a significant area of scholarship. However, the cumulativeness of research on HRD in SMEs remains relatively low when compared to HRD generally. This paper reports a systematic literature review (SLR) to synthesise research in this area. A disciplined screening process resulted in a final sample of 117 papers published in 31 journals from 1995 to 2014. The synthesis of these empirical and theoretical studies revealed that: (a) the literature utilises a narrow range of theoretical and conceptual perspectives; (b) HRD is being investigated across a variety of SME contexts, themes and units of analysis; (c) researchers define HRD in multiple ways and use a diverse set of measures of HRD activity; (d) there is significant potential for future research across the SME and HRD disciplines, SME settings and beyond existing theoretical perspectives. We offer suggestions for further advancing the development of this area of research in terms of theory, content and methodology.     

HRD research and practice after ‘The Great COVID-19 Pause’: the time is now for bold,critical, research

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted life as we knew it and created an unprecedented opportunity to pause and assess ‘normal’ life and work. We have an opportunity to create a new ‘normal.’ What possibility does the chance to show up differently in our lives and work hold? The pandemic has caused significant shifts in values that will affect individuals, organizations, communities, and nations. This article challenges HRD scholars and practitioners to imagine how HRD might create a new normal through bold, critical research inquiry that interrogates exclusion, pursues organization and social justice, and creates humanly sustainable organizations and communities.     

The same but different: HRD master’s programmes in the United States

In this study, we examined the curricular and institutional characteristics of HRD master’s programmes in the United States. Our sample included 108 programmes in 100 institutions that were self-identified as HRD programmes. Among our findings: (1) fewer programmes were located in schools of education (44%) and more were located in schools of business (28%) than indicated by previous research; (2) there was greater homogeneity in curriculum among programmes in the same institutional locations (e.g. schools of education or schools of business) and greater variation among programmes in different institutional locations; (3) the curriculum of programmes located in schools of education tended to focus on traditional educational topics such as adult learning and instructional design, while the curriculum of programmes located in school of business tended to focus on management topics such as organization development, staffing and employment law. Our findings suggest that the nature of HRD as an academic subject varies with institutional location, as do the skill sets of students who graduate from HRD programmes. Future research should take these differences into account.     

Most cited articles and authors in global strategy research

Recent reviews of global strategy research have documented a number of top contributors based on the number of their publications. However, no citation analysis has been conducted to ascertain the impact and influence of this research. In response, we have conducted the first ever citation analysis of 393 global strategy articles in nine leading journals published during the 1990s. Our findings identify the 25 most cited articles in the nine journals, the top 40 authors who publish these most cited articles, and the most cited articles in each of the 16 categories (subfields) of global strategy research. We also find that there is relatively little correlation between the set of 30 most prolific authors identified by Lu [Lu, J.W., 2003. The evolving contributions in international strategic management research. Journal of International Management, 9, 193–213.] and our set of 40 most cited authors. Among the 30 most prolific contributors, only eight (27%) have authored one of the top 25 most cited articles. Conversely, 32 (80%) of the 40 authors who publish the top 25 most cited articles are not on the list of most prolific authors. The eight leading authors who excel in both volume and influence of their research—Paul Beamish, John Hagedoorn, Jean-Francois Hennart, W. Chan Kim, Anoop Madhok, Arvind Parkhe, Mike Peng, and Aimin Yan—are surveyed to offer their insights on how to craft high impact research.     

Better know a Human Resource Development (HRD) scholar: a conversation with Robert (Bob) G. Hamlin

This article contains a conversation with Robert (Bob) G. Hamlin and is part of aseries that focuses on different human resource development (HRD) scholars. Theaim is to better understand the people behind the names we see in print and at HRD scholarly conferences. Bob is professor emeritus and chair of HRD at the University of Wolverhampton Business School, UK and a management and organization development consultant at Oaken Consultancy. Bob has spoken at many HRD conferences in Europe and the United States and was one of the founding members of the University Forum for HRD. The conversation explores Bob's career in HRD practice, research, teaching and management. Among the topics covered are the significance of practical experience and the influence it can then have on research, the power of evidence-based practice, and the need for HRD research to be seen as relevant and having utility within the world of practice.     

Landscape of human resource development research in Korea: results from author co-citation network analysis

The present study examined major trends and issues of Human Resource Development (HRD) research in Korean context applying the author co-citation analysis (ACA) to three primary HRD-related journals in South Korea. Following the analyses of author co-citation frequency, correlation matrix, dendrogram, and the multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) map, the results were found as follows: (1) co-citation network identified seven topical clusters (i.e., human competency improvement for young men and e-learning designers, system approach for training effectiveness, competency for executives and HRD-ers, HRD evaluations, HRD solutions, mentoring in career development, leadership, and the role of professionals), (2) competency appeared as a keyword in multiple clusters, (3) unlike HRD in North America or Europe, learning (informal, organizational, self-directed, and lifelong learning) with a variety of HRD solutions comprised the dominant research stream, and (4) research activities for critical issues, such as diversity, development of workforce minority, and international HRD were largely missing.     

Talking of HRD

This paper draws upon research exploring the emergence of HRD within the British National Health Service (NHS), the aim being to investigate how HRD has been talked into being, is talked about and accomplished through talk. HRD is conceptualized as a socialand discursive construction, and as discursive action. It is argued that conceptualizing HRD as a social and discursive construction can help identify and explain changes in ways of thinking and talking about HRD. Conceptualizing HRD as discursive action can help explain and justify HRD activity, in that much of what HRD practitioners and academics ‘do’ is ‘talk’. This paper explores these concepts and introduces a typology of the discourses of training and development (T&D), HRD and strategic HRD (SHRD), labelled Tell, Sell and Gel. It is suggested that this typology is a useful analytical tool for those practising HRD, providing ameans for HRD professionals to identify and analyse, and possibly change, their practices and discourse(s). The paper introduces a way of identifying how HRD might be talked ‘about’ and theorizes how discursive activities (the talk) might be changing.     

Country institutional environments and international strategy: A review and analysis of the research

We review and analyze the growing body of literature that addresses the institutional context of international strategy. By examining articles in eleven major journals from January 2008 to July 2020, we identify six major categories of international strategies and implementation approaches: market entry and internationalization, political strategies, multinational technology and innovation, multinational corporate social responsibility, multinational headquarters and subsidiary relationships, and international human resources management. A parallel analysis of the relevant institutional variables categorizes institutions into eight types: economic institutions, political institutions, regulatory institutions, normative institutions, administrative institutions, cultural/cognitive institutions, demographic institutions, and knowledge institutions. These eight categories allow us to contextualize the institutional environment in which the six international strategies and implementation approaches are employed. Our review identifies important progress in international strategy research that has yielded a greater understanding of institutional impact on multinational activities. Yet, it also reveals that many areas of international strategy research remain fragmented, highlighting the need for future research and suggesting new directions for such investigations. Our analysis concludes by identifying knowledge gaps in each of the six strategy categories and making a series of suggestions for relevant future research.     

A more radical human resource development: the time is now

The world is changing and so must human resource development (HRD). A cursory review of the scholarship in the four journals sponsored by the Academy of HRD revealed less than 10% of our discipline’s research explicitly focuses on the experiences of women, LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) people, millennials, people of colour, or immigrants and expatriates, and yet we know these groups have an increasing presence and impact on our organizations. The purpose of this essay is to amplify a call to action for radical change and to reiterate the imminent need for HRD to shift agendas in order to keep up.     

Human resource development (HRD) resilience: a new ‘success element’ of organizational resilience?

ABSTRACT

Endlessly changing business and economic landscapes urge organizations to become resilient to ensure business survival and growth. Yet, in many cases, business world is becoming turbulent faster than organizations are becoming resilient. Relevant research indicates the ways through which organizations could respond to unforeseen events, mainly through suggesting that individual and group resilience could lead to an organizational one. However, research is nascent on how particularly human resource development (HRD) resilience could be built, and thus to contribute to organizational resilience as well. Within today’s business uncertainty and complexity, HRD resilience comes in line with the developmental strategies of organizations. Therefore, the purpose of this perspective article is to set the foundations of the term (HRD resilience) in order to initiate a dialogue around its ability to make a substantial contribution to organizational practice, and thus to be seen as a new ‘success element’ of organizational resilience.     

Human resource development in small organizations

This article draws upon case-study research into human resource development (HRD) within three small organizations in the north west of England. It positions the case-study work within an overall framework of doctoral research and summarizes the research design; discusses the characteristics and values of small organizations and how they influence HRD policies and practices: presents findings and conclusions about HRD in the case-study organizations, focusing in particular upon one case in the voluntary sector; compares and contrasts the different models of HRD in the three cases; and concludes with some suggestions for further research.     

HRD standards and standardization: where now for human resource development?

This paper examines standard-setting and standardization processes currently being undertaken in the human resources field and makes a ‘call to action’ for human resource development (HRD) scholars and practitioners to influence these developments. The paper provides a reflexive ‘insider account’ of HR standards development combining personal experience with theoretical perspectives; ‘grey’ and practitioner literatures; and secondary data sources. Drawing on scholarly literature sources, opportunities and dilemmas of standardization processes in the HR field are discussed. Grounded in the standardization literature, alternative approaches to system-wide (meta) standards are identified. Drawing on publically available information, different standardization approaches in USA and UK are discussed. The paper critiques the dominant performance-orientated paradigm and ‘rules-based’ approach to standards and argues for an alternative, principles-based approach for HR standardization to support sustainable individual and organizational performance. These issues have important consequences for HRD identity, pedagogy, education, and practice. In addition to the development of an original typology of emerging HR standardization, the paper contributes a new perspective to debates about the identity, values, purpose, and contribution of HRD and the relationship between HRD and human resource management (HRM).