Celebrating 25 Years of HRD Scholarship: Happy Silver Anniversary Human Resource Development Quarterly!

• Date: 01 March 2014
• Published date: 01 March 2014
• Author: Andrea D. Ellinger
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/hrdq.21178

Celebrating 25 Years of HRD

Scholarship: Happy Silver

Anniversary Human Resource

Development Quarterly!

Andrea D. Ellinger

Key Words: Human Resource Development Quarterly (HRDQ), Human

Resource Development (HRD), HRD research trends, HRD future research

directions, anniversary

Anniversaries are special occasions to be celebrated. Indeed, as Hatcher

(2009) acknowledged, “the 20th volume [of Human Resource Development

Quarterly (HRDQ)] is a historical milestone” (p. 1) for the journal, the

Academy of Human Resource Development (AHRD), and the HRD profession.

He noted that “twenty years ago there was not a single journal dedicated to

HRD research. That’s right: none, zero, zip, zilch. Against the skepticism of

scholars and practitioners who doubted that an HRD-oriented research publi-

cation could survive, the journal’s founders remained steadfast in their belief

that the profession needed and would support HRDQ.” (p. 1). The journal’s

founders and past editors, Richard A. Swanson, Gary N. McLean, Ronald L.

Jacobs, Darlene Russ-Eft, Timothy G. Hatcher, and Baiyin Yang should take

considerable pride in knowing that they have all had an important role in

positioning and supporting HRDQ such that it is now poised to celebrate its

25th anniversary.

This consistent steadfastness across many editorial teams has resulted in

the critical milestone associated with Volume 25 that refl ects the growth and

evolution of HRDQ over the past 25 years as well as for the fi eld of human

resource development (HRD). Although not without challenges and moments

of trepidation while building and evolving HRDQ into a Social Sciences

Citation Index (SSCI) indexed and ranked journal, HRDQ is well established

and maturing. With submissions from 38 countries totaling 255 new and

revised submissions received in 2013, an expanded editorial team, and several

important system and journal enhancements, my editorial team and I fi rmly

EDITORIAL

HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT QUARTERLY, vol. 25, no. 1, Spring 2014 © Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) • DOI: 10.1002/hrdq.21178 1