Human Resource Development International: a celebration of the journal’s first 20 years

It is with great pleasure that we write this editorial introducing HRDI’s 20th anniversary issue. To celebrate the journal’s 20th anniversary we issued an invitation to HRD scholars to write short pieces that addressed the broad theme of the past, present, and future challenges of international Human Resource Development. In encouraging short, provocative pieces, our hope was that contributors would feel free to engage in ideas about our field that are thought provoking, challenging and that would act as the foundation for future research conversations. The nature of this challenge was consistent with the journal’s founding ethos of remaining open to a range of methodological approaches and theoretical stances, and to offer a space for critical alternatives to the performance paradigm in HRD research which dominated at the time of HRDI’s conception. The authors contributing to this issue range from previous editors of the journal to researchers for whom HRDI has been a constant companion and informant to their scholarship.

The papers in this issue cover a wide spectrum of topics and methodologies. These range from Jill Zarestky’s and Joshua Collins’ proposal to re-centre the scope of international HRD research and practice around the UN’s human development agenda, to Peter Kuchinke’s provocation to HRD scholars to probe the connection between HRD practice and virtue ethics. Sally Sambrook’s paper is an autoethnographic examination of HRD scholarship, and Paul Tosey and Judi Marshall reflect on the demise of inquiry-based, action oriented, HRD Masters programmes in the UK.

We have many reasons to celebrate the journal’s successful 20-year publication history. Our readership spreads across the globe from South Korea to North and South America, Australasia, and Europe. The journal’s most popular article, Denise Bonebright’s (2010) ‘40 years of storming: a historical review of Tuckman’s model of small group development’ has been downloaded over 5500 times. The number of downloaded articles increases year on year, from 59,246 downloads in 2015 to 64,120 downloads in 2016. The volume of readers accessing the journal’s articles is testament to HRDI’s influence on both scholars and practitioners across the globe. The journal has been core to debates that considered different understandings of Human Resource Development, evidenced by Gary McLean’s editorial in 1998 when he reflected on whether HRD was a ‘three-legged stool, an octopus or a centipede’ (McLean 1998, 375)? Furthermore, the Perspective section in HRDI offers a launching pad for authors to advance radical and pioneering ideas and theories, a feature that positions HRDI uniquely in the world of HRD scholarship.

In HRDI’s first editorial, Monica Lee emphasized the need for the journal to have representation from all regions of the world, and to sustain an editorial board that provided ‘a voice for all aspects of sectorial expertise and focus’ (Lee 1998, 1). Each editor since then has been loyal to this focus, simultaneously developing the journal according to their interpretation of the journals’ needs at the time. Since the first issue, HRDI has innovated in a number of ways. We no longer ask authors to submit four hard copies of their manuscript to the editorial office for distribution to reviewers, and the journal has grown from four to five issues a year to allow for one special issue per volume. We have recently appointed a social media editor to ensure that the scholarship published in HRDI becomes more widely known, and that HRD as an area of research and practice connects with a broader audience. Since the first issue, many well-known HRD scholars have published some of their first articles in HRDI, and to go through all the issues from 1998 onwards is not only a nostalgic exercise, but also reminds us of how far we have come in terms of the range of countries represented by authors, and the foci of debates.

At the time of this celebration, the current editorial team would like use this opportunity to reflect and discuss the future of HRDI. In doing so, we hope it will ultimately contribute to the advancement of International HRD. To do that, we want to revisit a couple of important questions. What does it mean to be an international journal in the field of HRD? Have we been successful in promoting an international agenda in HRD around the world?

The answers to these questions can be complicated, but the short answer is we believe we still have a long way to go. First of all, manuscripts published in our journal in the last 20 years have largely been authored by scholars and practitioners from North America and Europe. This is hardly a unique phenomenon, a quick survey of any other English HRD or management journal will arrive at the same conclusion, and it is not for lack of trying. This phenomenon is contributed by factors of language, methodology, and fit. Fit is how the journal defines its contribution, which authors need to follow as that is how a journal defines itself. The other two factors are much more complicated.

English proficiency is the first roadblock many international authors have to face because English remains the language used by most of the influential journals in any given field. A submission with less than perfect English is too frequently judged according to its insufficient language skills first, rather than the value of the content. Even though some editors recognize this and try to work with authors who do not have English as a first language, successes are far fewer than they should be. Second, methodology is often reviewed under the premises of familiar paradigms, which are often predetermined by the reviewers’ training background. One’s paradigm is often influenced by its own culture biases as well, selective perceptions which often cause perceptual blind spots. When a reviewer or editor lets his or her own paradigm drive editorial decisions, the journal often communicates a preference for a certain methodology and creates a certain type or flavour of academic discussion.

The consequences of this could be potentially risky in terms of missing out on different perspectives from other parts of the world where English is not a first language or where they subscribe to a different research paradigm. The influence of language and culture reaches much further than most scholars believe. Differences in research paradigms go way beyond the debate of qualitative versus qualitative research methods, inductive versus deductive theory construction. The differences are much greater than this short editorial can possibly adequately address. For example, a culture of low uncertainty avoidance versus high uncertainty avoidance may approach theory building differently. Low uncertainty avoidance cultures would likely exhibit a low tolerance toward ambiguity in trying to define and understand a new emerging phenomenon in the workplace. Scholars and practitioners will rush and want to be the first to coin the term that defines the new phenomenon or practice. While a culture that has high tolerance for ambiguity would likely let it brew and mature until they can come to make sense of it; there is no rush to define. In making this assertion, we recognize that we too are imposing a western framework upon the interpretation of other cultures.

The economic strength and the ability to conceptualize at a faster pace has allowed the Western paradigm to influence the world of management and HRD scholarship during the past 30 years of globalization. It is evident that most of the publications using data sources outside of North American and Europe are typically involving applications of existing Western theories rather than development of local theories (Barkema et al. 2015). As emerging economies are gaining legitimacy in the world market, is it also time for local theories to emerge to inform local practices? As an international journal, HRDI needs to challenge itself to address that.

As a challenge to this dominance, in this special issue Jawad Syed and Beverly Metcalfe undertake an evaluation of gender and difference in the Middle East to illustrate how HRD practice is subjugated to neoliberal approaches that do not reflect the realities of development in diverse geopolitical contexts. They argue that HRD scholars ‘should reimagine colonial boundaries, and encourage critical inquiry that reflects the contextual and social complexities of space and place’. Monica Lee’s article reminds us that HRDI has always been involved in conceptual struggles, and is itself an example of hybridity where people from different cultures can come together and have a voice. During an era in which we are witnessing ‘the intrusion of the colonial past into the present’, HRDI’s celebration of critical inquiry, equality and diversity is vital to HRD scholarship and practice.

As an editorial team, Jessica, Rajashi, and I hope the papers comprising this special issue stimulate further debates, inquiries, and submissions to the journal. We would like to thank the articles’ authors for their response to our call, and for the new areas of inquiry their contributions inspire.