What Do the Next 25 Years Hold for HRD Research in Areas of Our Interest?

• Published date: 01 March 2014
• Author: Victoria J. Marsick,Gary N. McLean,Darlene Russ‐Eft,Ronald L. Jacobs,Karen E. Watkins
• Date: 01 March 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/hrdq.21180

What Do the Next 25 Years Hold

for HRD Research in Areas of Our

Interest?

Darlene Russ-Eft, Karen E. Watkins, Victoria J. Marsick,

Ronald L. Jacobs, Gary N. McLean

This invited feature article presents the perspectives of fi ve highly

recognized and infl uential HRD Scholars who are also past and present

leaders within the Academy of Human Resource Development. These

scholars were asked to refl ect on the past and present of research in an area

of their interest and expertise and they have each offered projections for the

next 25 years of HRD Research in their respective areas.

Key Words: competencies, training, informal learning, learning organization,

researcher roles, practitioner roles, national HRD, trends, future

As scholars who have achieved recognition within the Academy of Human

Resource Development, and as past and present leaders within the Academy,

we have been asked to refl ect briefl y on the past and present of research in an

area of our interest and we have chosen to project out 25 years as to possible

research that might be undertaken in these areas.

We all have some trepidation in doing this. New breakthroughs in tech-

nology, medicine, global politics, and even HRD (National Intelligence

Council, 2012) can yield these predictions as completely off track. Indeed,

Tetlock’s (2006) work suggested that the probability of an accurate prediction

(in his case, dealing with politics) is quite low.

Therefore, we have done our best. What follows is neither comprehen-

sive nor necessarily refl ecting the highest priority areas within HRD. Each

section simply refl ects the interests and ponderings of that section’s author(s).

We hope you will fi nd our thoughts intriguing and challenging as you con-

tribute to the research accomplishments of the next 25 years.

INVITED FEATURE ARTICLE

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.21180 5

6 Russ-Eft, Watkins, Marsick, Jacobs, McLean

HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT QUARTERLY • DOI: 10.1002/hrdq

Pursuing “Ability”

Darlene Russ-Eft

To frame this piece, I will consider some of my own past research as well as

that of other scholars to attempt to discern some future directions.

Furthermore, I will focus the discussion around the word ability and some of

its extensions, since that captures much of my work and much of the work

appearing in HRD.

Ability

The word ability (n.d.) has been defi ned as “the power or skill to do some-

thing,” “the quality or state of being able,” or “competency” (www.Merriam

.Webster.com). Competencies have been of concern to HRD and HRD research-

ers for a number of years. Although not referring to his work as competencies,

Flanagan (1949, 1951a, 1951b, 1954) described the critical incident technique

and suggested its use as a means of determining the requirements or skills

needed for a particular job. Later, McClelland (1973) argued that competencies

rather than intelligence were of importance for job performance. Indeed, in an

earlier HRDQ editorial, I wrote about various approaches to determining com-

petencies (Russ-Eft, 1995). Since then, my work has examined competencies

for leaders (Russ-Eft & Brennan, 2001), customer service representatives

(Russ-Eft, 2004), sales professionals (Russ-Eft, Del Gaizo, Moulton, &

Pangilinan, 2003), evaluators (Russ-Eft, Bober, de la Teja, Foxon, & Koszalka,

2008; Russ-Eft, Yap, & O’Connor, 2007), and instructional designers

(Koszalka, Russ-Eft, & Reiser, 2013; Russ-Eft, D., Koszalka, & Babbel, 2013;

Russ-Eft, Koszalka, & Robichaux, (2013).

A recent critique of “competency modeling” (Stevens, 2013) identifi ed

some areas of concern, specifi cally “issues of conceptual ambiguity, lack of

methodological rigor, and dubious psychometric quality” (p. 102). Even with

such problems, Stevens also suggested that competencies and competency

modeling “ought to represent one of the foundational activities of HRD”

(p. 101). Furthermore, competency modeling allows for the connecting of

individual attributes, with group, strategic, and national and cultural needs.

With the diffusion of power to non-Western countries (National Intelligence

Council, 2012), greater attention will be paid in the future to an examination

of national and cultural needs as one aspect of competency modeling. Such

research will contribute to the explorations related to national HRD and to

various worldviews (e.g., Akdere, Russ-Eft, & Eft, 2006).

Stevens (2013) indicated the need to bring together the various stands of

literature regarding competencies in order to reduce the level of confusion and

to recognize the central role that identifi cation and use of competencies can