HRD Scholars Who Laid the Foundations of HRD

Abstract

Problem: The work to formalize the academic knowledge of HRD generated a research literature base to influence HRD practice and to form the basis for further research and theory-building. Current HRD scholarship builds on the foundations that were laid in the 1970s through 1990s. As the field continues to grow, it is important that we understand the work of the early scholars and the impact they have had on HRD. Solution: Many researchers were involved in the early HRD scholarly work, and a handful were recognized by the Academy of Human Resource Development (AHRD) through its Outstanding Scholar Award. The early winners of the award largely framed HRD as an emerging academic discipline. This article summarizes the work of the first seven winners. Stakeholders: It is important that HRD researchers and students know the work of the seven scholars described in this article. In addition, HRD practitioners will see how some of their current practices evolved from the early research and theory-building undertaken by these scholars.

Keywords

scholars HRD research leaders awards

In the first issue of Human Resource Development Quarterly (HRDQ), Jacobs (1990) described human resource development (HRD) as both an area of professional practice and an emerging interdisciplinary body of academic knowledge. He argued, “After practice is established, the need arises to formalize the knowledge gained in practice into some logical structure. Such activity helps legitimize the profession and increases the reliability of practice” (p. 66).

The work to formalize the academic knowledge of HRD generated a research literature base that could then influence the many hundreds of thousands of HRD practitioners worldwide, as well as to form the basis for further research and theory-building. Many researchers have been involved in that work. A handful of those scholars went on to be recognized by the Academy of Human Resource Development (AHRD) through its Outstanding Scholar Award (originally named the HRD Scholar of the Year Award). That award was created to recognize those with continuing and substantial contributions to research in HRD, advancement of research in HRD, and the development of new knowledge in HRD. Those recognized by the award had a significant track record of research articles and other scholarly publications, research-related service to the profession, and citations of published works.

As of March, 2016, AHRD had recognized 20 scholars through the Outstanding Scholar Award. Between them, these scholars made a significant impact on the literature base for HRD, and the early winners of the award largely framed HRD as an emerging academic discipline. To know the work of these scholars is to know a critically important foundation of HRD research. It is therefore important that HRD researchers and students know the work of these early scholars as they look to walk in their footsteps and build on their legacy. In addition, by understanding their work, HRD practitioners will see how current practices evolved through the help of early research and theory-building.

In this article, I focused on the early winners of the AHRD Outstanding Scholar Award as those who first laid the groundwork of HRD scholarship. Because of space, I considered the first seven scholars: Frederick Otte, Ronald Jacobs, Victoria J. Marsick, Gary N. McLean, Karen E. Watkins, Darlene F. Russ-Eft, and Richard Swanson. The following sections contain short summaries of their work and impact. With the exception of the first section on Frederick Otte, each section has been reviewed and approved by the award recipient (Otte sadly passed away in 2004).

Frederick L. Otte

[The following, with approval from Wiley, the journal publisher, draws on Kahnweiler and Burns (2006), an article on Otte published in Human Resource Development Quarterly.] Frederick Lewis Otte, PhD, was the first winner of the AHRD Outstanding Scholar Award, received in 1994.

Otte became a faculty member at Georgia State University (GSU) in Atlanta prior to completing his PhD at the same institution in 1972, and he worked at GSU until his retirement in 1996. During those years, Otte drew on his past work experiences and background in counseling, education, technical training, and theology, to create graduate programs in vocational and career development and in adult education program management. These evolved into master’s and doctoral programs in HRD that became the models for many equivalent degrees at other universities.

From a research perspective, much of Otte’s work focused on career development theory and practice, and his legacy of nearly 30 years of research and publications contributed greatly to how career development became viewed as a core part of HRD. His work included a landmark study on organizational career development practices (Gutteridge & Otte, 1983b), as well as two coauthored books on the design, delivery, and evaluation of career development programs and processes in organizations (Gutteridge & Otte, 1983a; Otte & Hutcheson, 1992).

Otte also influenced the profession through his vision and service related to HRD professional associations. For three decades, he was active in what was then the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD; now ATD). He was the first director of the ASTD HRD Professors’ Network; led numerous task forces, special interest groups, and projects; and regularly presented papers and sessions at ASTD conferences. In 1986, ASTD recognized Otte’s impact and contribution through the Walter Storey Professional and Leadership Award. Otte was a founding member of AHRD, a member of its first Board, and its first treasurer. Otte’s impact in AHRD was most felt throughout its first decade, including his role in planning and execution of conferences, as well as his work on the AHRD Committee on Ethics and Integrity that led to the publication of the AHRD Standards on Ethics and Integrity (AHRD, 1999).

In addition to Otte’s legacy of academic programs, research, and publications, he contributed greatly through his mentorship of colleagues and students. As described by Kahnweiler and Burns (2006), Otte

. . . lived a life devoted to developing human potential through a variety of avenues. He left his imprint on people from all walks of life because of his unique ability to find a common point of understanding on which to form relationships. Fred was known as a leader, adviser, teacher, mentor, collaborator, and friend to the students and colleagues with whom he generously shared his life. (p. 5)

Fred Otte influenced the profession of HRD through his writing, research, teaching, academic programs, professional service, and mentorship. He passed away in 2004 but has not been forgotten.

Ronald L. Jacobs

Jacobs was the second winner of the AHRD Outstanding Scholar Award, received in 1995.

At the time he received the award, Jacobs was a professor of workforce development and education at the Ohio State University. Jacobs was a prominent member of an emerging group of researchers in the 1980s that had identified HRD as their primary scholarly focus. In particular, he was recognized by AHRD for his work in two separate areas of scholarship: leading the discussion about the underlying nature of HRD and introducing structured on-the-job training (S-OJT) to the HRD literature.

First, in terms of the nature of HRD, Jacobs was largely responsible for beginning the discussion about the conceptual boundaries of HRD by strongly proposing that systems theory should be considered its theoretical core. During that time, he published a relatively large number of scholarly journal articles and an ERIC monograph on the nature of HRD and its contributing bodies of knowledge, culminating in an influential article (Jacobs, 1990) that appeared in the first issue of HRDQ. At that time, members of this early group of researchers represented diverse academic traditions, including adult education, instructional technology, vocational education, and others. Thus, although perspectives of the field may have differed early on, Jacobs’ work can be credited with having started the important conversation about the nature of HRD and its contributing bodies of knowledge.

Second, Jacobs also established a line of research related to formal learning in the work setting by introducing the training approach of S-OJT to the HRD literature. Until that time, most training programs were assumed to occur only in corporate classroom settings, and that any learning that might occur on the job was considered to be essentially informal in nature. However, S-OJT was formulated as being planned in its design and delivery and yet occurring in the actual work context, a combination of features that had not been considered since the Training Within Industry (TWI) initiative during World War II (WWII; see Torraco, 2016). In fact, OJT had received scant attention in the training and development literature, to the extent that most texts had urged managers to rely more on the classroom setting as the training activities could presumably be more controlled by the trainer. Jacobs’ work re-introduced the unique combination of formal learning in the work setting through his scholarly writings in journals (Jacobs, 1988a, 1988b; Jacobs, Jones, & Neil, 1992), some case-study collections through ASTD (Jacobs, 1989) and other publishers, an issue of Advances in Developing Human Resources (ADHR; Jacobs, 2001), and several influential textbooks (Jacobs & Jones, 1995). While introducing some unique conceptual models for S-OJT, Jacobs also contributed significantly to a series of return-on-investment (ROI) studies in scholarly and non-scholarly publications that compared the financial benefits of using S-OJT and unstructured OJT in a wide range of organizational situations. Few if any ROI studies had been systematically reported until that time.

Jacobs’ scholarly work on S-OJT was the basis for a number of development projects with client organizations, which provided the experience necessary for him to begin formulating the idea of partnership research, a set of principles that Jacobs had proposed to help increase the influence of research on HRD practice.

Jacobs joined the University of Illinois in 2011 and is a professor of HRD and director of international programs in the College of Education. His current research interests include formal learning in the work setting, employee competence, and adapting HRD practices to society.

There were no recipients of the award in 1996 or 1997.

Victoria J. Marsick

Marsick was the third winner of the AHRD Outstanding Scholar Award, received in 1998.

Marsick earned a master’s degree in international public administration from Syracuse University, spending 1.5 years as a Maxwell Scholar interning with the United States Agency for International Development in India. She worked with a health educator, Emma Carr Bivins, who helped build health and family planning education into materials using community education approaches. When she returned to Syracuse University to complete her MIPA, she studied how to communicate with populations with low literacy and wrote two articles on literacy and family planning in India (Marsick, 1970, 1971) published in the Indian Journal of Adult Education. Marsick’s work led to an invitation to join the staff of World Education, a non-profit that provided seed money and technical support for programs that drew on core capabilities in participatory development and education. Marsick spent 4 years as World Education’s Southeast Asia field representative in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. She earned her PhD in adult education at the University of California, Berkeley. She consulted internationally for several years with U.S. and international agencies with a focus on professional development and training and then joined the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) where she worked for 4 years in staff development and training.

Marsick began teaching and advising doctoral dissertations as an adjunct while employed at UNICEF and joined Teachers College, Columbia University as faculty in the early 1980s. Shortly after beginning her academic teaching career, she met Karen E. Watkins, which led to a long history of collaboration across their careers. Marsick (1987) invited her to contribute to a book she published on learning in the workplace. Watkins invited her to participate in seminars conducted by Chris Argyris and Donald Schön on action science capability building—a focus that Watkins and Marsick have shared throughout their work together. They co-developed a theory of informal and incidental learning in the workplace (Marsick & Watkins, 1990) and have updated over time to this date.

Their mutual interests in the influence of group and organizational learning and development led to collaboration on Sculpting the Learning Organization (Watkins & Marsick, 1993), In Action: Creating the Learning Organization (Watkins & Marsick, 1996), and Facilitating the Learning Organization (Marsick & Watkins, 1999). Around that time, they developed the Dimensions of the Learning Organization Questionnaire (DLOQ; Watkins & Marsick, 1997), which they have recently been invited to add to the American Psychological Association’s PsycTest Database.

Marsick continues to research informal learning at the individual, group, and organizational levels. With Dechant and Kasl, she conducted field studies of team learning and developed a team learning model the Team Learning Survey (Dechant, Marsick, & Kasl, 1993) that is still used in research studies and as a diagnostic tool to improve team learning and performance. She collaborated with O’Neil for many years on both the scholarship and practice of action learning (e.g., O’Neil & Marsick, 2007). Since 1999, she and Gephart have conducted studies on strategic organizational learning using Strategic Leverage Through Learning©—a comprehensive model of organizational learning and performance developed by Gephart and Marsick (1999) as part of the J. M. Huber Institute for Learning in Organizations that Marsick established at Teacher’s College in 1999.

Gary N. McLean

McLean was the fourth winner of the AHRD Outstanding Scholar Award, received in 1997.

McLean, a Canadian born in Ontario (who now holds dual citizenship in the United States), completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Western Ontario (a double major in business administration and secretarial studies) followed by a master’s at Teacher’s College, Columbia University, during which time he did student teaching at Central Commercial High School on 42nd Street. After 2 years at Quinsigamond Community College in Worcester, Massachusetts, he returned to Teacher’s College for his doctorate, conferred in 1971.

In 1969, McLean joined the University of Minnesota (UMN) as a business educator focused on teacher education. In the late 1970s, McLean was central to the department’s introduction of a new certificate in training and development, at the encouragement of the local chapter of ASTD. That certificate met a local demand for professional development for trainers and contained three courses, including one on McLean’s interest area of organization development (OD). A year later, McLean and colleague, Richard Swanson, received approval to add a training and development specialization within the department’s industrial education and business education master’s degrees. That was the start of collaboration with Swanson that saw them, with their colleagues, develop the country’s top program in HRD.

As with other recipients, McLean has a lengthy track record of activity with professional associations. In the 1990s, McLean attended meetings of the ASTD Professor’s Network. Then, together with Richard Swanson, formed an organization of doctoral granting institutions in the United States (University Council for Training and Development Research). It was at one of the meetings of this group that Wayne Pace came forward with his proposal for AHRD, which replaced ASTD’s Professors’ Network. McLean was one of the founding members of AHRD and was the president from 2000 to 2002 (see Hanson & McLean, 2002, and McLean & Lee, 2016, for more on the history of AHRD). He also served as the president of International Management Development Association (IMDA). McLean was central to the successful launch of two HRD journals as the first associate editor of HRDQ and one of the two first general editors of Human Resource Development International (HRDI).

McLean has an extensive and varied research vita, with publications focused on multiple aspects of HRD. McLean (2006) was most closely associated with organization development, including his seminal book on OD, and also with his focus on international HRD. McLean was active in organizing international AHRD conferences in Asia and Middle East and North Arfica (MENA), in forming a partnership with University Forum for HRD (UFHRD) to establish a European HRD conference, in establishing HRD programs outside of the United States, in teaching at HRD academic programs in multiple countries, and in collaborative research with HRD academics from around the world. Through his international focus, McLean has been involved in HRD in more than 50 countries. However, his writing had an impact well beyond OD and international HRD, such as his articles on HRD theory (see McLean, 1998; McLean & McLean, 2001), as well as his writing related to viewing the field beyond a corporate setting by considering the impact it can have on communities (CHRD), families, non-government organizations, nations (NHRD), and societies (SHRD). McLean has also advocated for greater indigenization of research in HRD, recognizing the wide range of existing worldviews. Throughout his career, he has also been a strong advocate of equity for women’s roles and development. He was inducted into AHRD’s HRD Scholar Hall of Fame in 2006 and, in the same year, inducted into the Hall of Fame for International Adult and Continuing Education. He received an honorary PhD from the National Institute of Development Administration in Thailand in 2010.

In parallel to his successful teaching (marked by receipt of the Horace T. Morse-Amoco Foundation Award for Outstanding Contributions to Undergraduate Education in 1986) and research, McLean has a consulting business in organization development that started in 1970 and is now a family business. As a result, his research was heavily influenced by his practice, and his practice was heavily influenced by his research. He actively encouraged connections between HRD research and practice, and he spoke at AHRD conferences about the importance of researchers being involved in practice.

McLean retired from the UMN after 38 years (in 2007) and then spent 5 years at Texas A&M University. In 2014, he was appointed a renowned scholar in the Graduate School of Management at the International Islamic University in Malaysia. At the time of writing, he continues to be active in research and writing, in his consulting business, in volunteer community organizations, and in teaching domestically and internationally.

Karen E. Watkins

Watkins was the fifth winner of the AHRD Outstanding Scholar Award, received in 1998.

Watkins started as an English major and taught English and American Literature at Miami-Dade Community College. While there, she also collaborated with Carol Zion on faculty and organizational development. In 1978, Watkins moved to join Oscar Mink at the University of Texas at Austin, where she completed her doctorate and worked in a program funded by a Kellogg grant offering faculty and organization development in community colleges in the United States and Canada. Over the next 5 years, Watkins worked with Mink to create an HRD program, framed on Chris Argyris’ theory of action science, which was later recognized as the ASTD Program of the Year.

In 1983, Watkins joined the faculty of the University of Texas. Her early research and writing focused on innovation and change, prior to the start of her long-standing collaboration with fellow winner of the AHRD Outstanding Scholar Award, Victoria J. Marsick. Watkins and Marsick started looking at informal and incidental learning in the workplace, which eventually led to the seminal books, Informal and Incidental Learning in the Workplace (Marsick & Watkins, 1990, re-issued in 2015 in the Routledge Revival Series) and Sculpting the Learning Organization (Watkins & Marsick, 1993). The two scholars also collaborated on writing numerous articles and chapters and two other books, In Action: Creating the learning organization (Watkins & Marsick, 1996) and Facilitating Learning Organizations: Making Learning Count (Marsick & Watkins, 1999).

Watkins joined the University of Georgia in 1993 as an associate professor of adult education. In 1996, she became a professor of adult education as well as the director of graduate programs in human resource and organization development (HROD). Between 2000 and 2003, Watkins was the interim director and then the director of the School of Leadership and Lifelong learning.

Watkins was very active in professional associations, including the ASTD Professors’ Network, where she was a keynote speaker at their first meeting, was elected to its Board in 1988, and was chair in 1991. Shortly before joining the University of Georgia in 1993, Watkins was a founding member of AHRD. As its first president-elect, Watkins organized the first AHRD conference in 1993 and later followed R. Wayne Pace as its second president (1994-1996).

Like other winners of the award, Watkins combined her teaching and research with HRD consulting practice. Recent projects have included work with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Society and the Organization for Economic Cooperative Development (OECD). She takes on at least one consulting project per year and has spoken about how this benefited her scholarly work in HRD.

Watkins has had a significant impact on HRD through her six books, more than 50 book chapters, more than 60 refereed journal articles, more than 60 refereed conference papers, and years of teaching (including being guest faculty at 25 institutions worldwide). Her impact on HRD has been recognized through multiple awards, including being inducted into the International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame (2003) and into AHRD’s HRD Scholar Hall of Fame (2014).

Watkins is a professor of human resource and organization development and the coordinator of the Learning Leadership and Organization Development Program at the University of Georgia, College of Education. Her most recent publications focus on diagnosing the learning culture in organizations using the DLOQ (Watkins & Marsick, 1997) and informal and incidental learning.

Darlene F. Russ-Eft

Russ-Eft was the sixth winner of the AHRD Outstanding Scholar Award, received in 1999. At the time of the award, Russ-Eft was the director of Research for AchieveGlobal, an international training provider.

Russ-Eft completed her undergraduate degree with honors at the College of Wooster, Ohio, majoring in psychology. She received a fellowship and completed her master’s and doctorate degrees from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in psychology (with an emphasis on learning, memory, cognition, and perception).

After graduate school, she joined the research staff of the Palo Alto, California office of the American Institutes for Research (AIR). There she worked with Dr. John C. Flanagan on a series of studies to define quality of life (using the critical incident method) and then to determine the effects of education on U.S. Americans’ quality of life. The first study involved a 15-year follow-up of a nationally representative sample of 1,000 students who were tested in high school as 15-year-olds and then interviewed at age 30. That study was followed by similar interview studies of nationally representative samples of 50- and 70-year-olds. While at AIR, Russ-Eft headed the Statistical Analysis Group in Education, developing new statistical methods for the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). She also led a project that developed program evaluation methods that were used for the Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) and University Year for Action programs.

Becoming more interested in a focus on program evaluation, Russ-Eft moved to a start-up training company, Zenger-Miller. There she built a research and evaluation unit within the organization, undertaking research projects to help identify useful training methods and undertaking evaluation projects to determine the effectiveness of training initiatives. Eventually, the company was purchased by the Times-Mirror Company and merged with other training companies to form a new company, AchieveGlobal. Russ-Eft continued to head the research evaluation unit. In her role, she was recognized by the Times-Mirror Company in 1996 with an award, Editor of the Year.

During her time at Zenger-Miller and AchieveGlobal, Russ-Eft became a member and then chair of the Research Committee of ASTD. As part of the work of that committee, she collaborated with Bassi to edit the What Works (Bassi & Russ-Eft, 1997) books. She also collaborated (Russ-Eft, Preskill, & Sleezer, 1997) to write the book, Human Resources Development Review: Research and Implications. The professional collaborations continued, resulting in Building Evaluation Capacity (Preskill & Russ-Eft, 2015), Evaluator Competency Fieldbook (Russ-Eft, Bober, Koszalka, & Sleezer, 2014), and A Practical Guide to Needs Assessment (Sleezer, Russ-Eft, & Gupta, 2014). Her books and articles have emphasized and highlighted the role of program evaluation within HRD.

Russ-Eft became aware of the creation of AHRD while involved with ASTD. She learned more about AHRD at the European HRD conference held in Milan, Italy, and became an active member. She served as associate editor and later editor of HRDQ. She also contributed to the development and adoption of the AHRD Standards on Ethics and Integrity (AHRD, 1999). She has served on the AHRD Board, as the vice president for research, and recently as president.

HRD Conferences and the AHRD Asian Chapter Conferences

In 2002, Russ-Eft left AchieveGlobal to join the faculty of Oregon State University (OSU) as an assistant professor. She received promotion to associate professor, with tenure, in 2005 and to professor in 2008. At OSU, she has been teaching learning theory, research, and program evaluation courses in the doctoral-level community college leadership program and the master’s-level adult education program; in both programs, she bridges the gap between research and practice. She has served as department chair and most recently as discipline liaison to the College. She also serves as a faculty member for the doctoral HROD program of the National Institute for Development Administration (NIDA), co-teaching a course on ethics and good governance. Both at OSU and at NIDA, she serves as a doctoral advisor or committee member.

Richard A. Swanson

Swanson was the seventh winner of the AHRD Outstanding Scholar Award, received in 2000.

Swanson received his doctoral degree from the University of Illinois in 1968 and joined the Bowling Green State University Industrial Education Faculty in the same year. There, he created a successful cross-discipline Career and Technology Education (CTE) master’s degree program.

Three factors highly influenced Swanson’s early scholarly orientation: (a) career development theory that led to research funding resulting in his award-winning Career Exploration for Children Project (Swanson, 1975); (b) corporate training personnel enrolling in the CTE graduate program brought along their research problems with corporate funding for cost–benefit studies, more effective methods for developing those working on what was then known as training and development, and the need for more powerful performance analysis methods; and (c) a personal realization from serving on university councils that the perceptions and realities of academic discipline status in universities have large consequences.

Swanson created a list of attributes of an academic discipline that became his career focus beyond his personal program of research and publication. The list included,

Research journal(s) dedicated to the discipline

Research academy(ies) of scholars in the discipline.

Research methodology handbook(s) unique to the discipline.

Foundational theory and practice of the discipline textbook(s).

After joining the UMN faculty in 1979, Swanson established the Training and Development Research Center that was later renamed the HRD Research Center (HRDRC). The Center became a vehicle for HRD to achieve the four attributes of an academic discipline.

The HRDRC, in cooperation with ASTD, created the Theory-to-Practice Monograph Series. The monograph series was the precursor to the creation of the journal, HRDQ in 1990. Using the platform of the HRDRC, Swanson, with the support of Steve Piersanti, President of Jossey-Bass, pressed ASTD into a third-party partnership to create HRDQ, the first HRD research journal. In 1999, Swanson created a proposal for another scholarly journal focused on the connection of research and practice, ADHR. Swanson was also a key player in the establishment of two additional HRD research journals: HRDI with Monica M. Lee taking the lead (in 1998) and Human Resource Development Review (HRDR) with Elwood Holton taking the lead (in 2002).

Swanson played a central role in the creation of AHRD in 1993. Collaborating with other leading scholars, such as Wayne Pace and Karen E. Watkins, Swanson viewed this move as a break from the University Council for Research for HRD, as well as from ASTD. Swanson was a highly visible leader within AHRD and was the president from 1996 to 1998. He was inducted into AHRD’s HRD Scholar Hall of Fame in 2004.

Although many in HRD espoused interdisciplinary thinking and interdisciplinary research methods, the lack of an identifiable HRD research methodology handbook minimized the profession’s disciplinary status. Swanson, therefore, partnered with Elwood Holton to produce two edited research handbooks to confirm better the disciplinary status of HRD: Human Resource Development Research Handbook (Swanson & Holton, 1997) and Research In Organizations (Swanson & Holton, 2005). The use of HRD theory and research was also evident in Swanson’s publications aimed at improving HRD practice (Swanson, 1994, 2001). In addition, Swanson took on the challenge of creating the last component of a recognized academic discipline: the need for a foundational theory and practice textbook. The first edition of Foundations of Human Resource Development appeared in 2001 (Swanson & Holton, 2001), and an updated second edition in 2009.

Swanson retired from the UMN in 2005 and then spent 3 years at the University of Texas at Tyler. His most recent publications include Theory Building in Applied Disciplines (Swanson & Chermack, 2013) and The Adult Learner (8th ed.; Knowles, Holton, & Swanson, 2015).

Synthesis

These seven scholars share a remarkable combined legacy. Between them, they played a central role in creating the foundations of HRD research and theory onto which current HRD scholars now build. Reflecting on the backgrounds of the seven, there is much that was unique to each individual. At the same time, common themes exist that act as pointers to those looking to further advance HRD as a profession:

All shared a passion for HRD and a belief that research is critical for HRD to advance. By setting a high bar on HRD research quality, the seven encouraged those who came after them and acted as role-models for how to lead HRD through research.

All were active in multiple professional associations, often in leadership roles. They used those associations as a means of connecting with other HRD scholars, sharing their work, and building a community of scholarship within HRD. In return, their work, impact, and service were recognized by many of those associations.

All placed an emphasis on collaborative work, with many of the most influential HRD research publications being a partnership between two or more HRD scholars.

Many placed an emphasis on the creation and/or advancement of HRD journals. For some, this took the form of establishing new journals; for others, it was editing an HRD journal.

All bridged HRD research and practice. This took many forms, such as involvement in HRD practitioner organizations, working in HRD practice as an internal practitioner or a consultant, advising those working in HRD practice, creating diagnostic tools used in HRD practice, writing books that influenced HRD practitioners, completing research in applied settings that in turn influenced HRD practice, and forming partnerships with HRD practitioners to advance their research and writing.

These themes act as pointers to others on how to make substantial contributions to HRD research. The same themes are also apparent when considering those who are following in the footsteps of these early scholars. Summaries of their stories will have to wait for future articles; however, a list of their names highlights the quality of HRD research that continues to this day. As of May 2016, other recipients of the AHRD Outstanding Scholar Award include the following:

Elwood F. Holton III (2001)

Wim J. Nijhof (2002)

Todd J. Maurer (2003)

Reid Bates (2004)

Baiyin Yang (2007)

Jerry W. Gilley (2008)

AAhad M. Osman-Gani (2009)

Andrea D. Ellinger (2011)

Laura Bierema (2012)

Michael Marquardt (2013)

Thomas Garavan (2013)

Peter Kuchinke (2014)

Alexandre Ardichvili (2015).

Perhaps at some time in the future, you may find your name added to this list!

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biography

Darren C. Short was the president of the Academy of Human Resource Development (AHRD) from 2012 to 2014, and served on the Board of AHRD for 9 years. As an HRD scholar-practitioner, he has managed HRD teams in the United States and the United Kingdom, and is currently the senior director of learning at GoDaddy, Inc., based in Arizona, the United States.

References

Academy of Human Resource Development. (1999). AHRD standards on ethics and integrity. Baton Rouge, LA: Author.

Bassi

Russ-Eft

(Eds.). (1997). What works: Training and development practices. Alexandria, VA: American Society for Training and Development.

Dechant

Marsick

Kasl

(1993). Toward a model of team learning. Studies in Continuing Education, 15, 1-14.

Gephart

M. A.

Marsick

V. J.

(1999). Strategic organizational learning: Using system dynamics for innovation and sustained performance. Berlin, Germany: Springer-Verlag.

Gutteridge

T. G.

Otte

F. L.

(1983a). Organizational career development: State of the practice. Alexandria, VA: ASTD Press.

Gutteridge

T. G.

Otte

F. L.

(1983b). Organizational career development: What’s going on out there? Training and Development Journal, 37, 22-27.

Hanson

McLean

G. N.

(2002). R. Wayne Pace, first president of the AHRD: An historical perspective. In Egan

Lynham

(Eds.), Proceedings of the Academy of HRD Conference 2002 (pp. 742-749). Bowling Green, OH: AHRD.

Jacobs

R. L.

(1988a). Human performance technology: A proposed field of practice for the training and development profession. Journal of Industrial Teacher Education, 26, 57-66.

Jacobs

R. L.

(1988b). A proposed domain of human performance technology: Implications for theory and practice. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 1, 2-12.

10.

Jacobs

R. L.

(1989). Systems theory applied to human resource development. In Gradous

(Ed.), Systems theory applied to human resource development (pp. 27-60). Washington, DC: American Society for Training and Development.

11.

Jacobs

R. L.

(1990). Human resource development as an interdisciplinary body of knowledge. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 1, 65-71.

12.

Jacobs

R. L.

(2001). Preface. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 3, 405-407.

13.

Jacobs

R. L.

Jones

M. J.

(1995). Structured on-the-job training: Unleashing employee expertise in the workplace. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler.

14.

Jacobs

R. L.

Jones

M. J.

Neil

(1992). A case study in forecasting the financial benefits of unstructured and structured on-the-job training. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 3, 133-139.

15.

Kahnweiler

W. M.

Burns

J. Z.

(2006). Frederick Lewis Otte: (1934-2004): The consummate human resource developer. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 17, 5-7. doi:10.1002/hrdq.1158

16.

Knowles

M. S.

Holton

E. F.

Swanson

R. A.

(2015). The adult learner (8th ed.). London, England: Routledge.

17.

Marsick

V. J.

(1970). New literates and family planning. Indian Journal of Adult Education, 31, 11-12.

18.

Marsick

V. J.

(1971). Literacy and family planning in India. Indian Journal of Adult Education, 32, 8-10.

19.

Marsick

V. J.

(Ed.). (1987). Learning in the workplace. Beckenham, UK: Croom-Helm.

20.

Marsick

Watkins

(1990). Informal and incidental learning: A new challenge for human resource developers. London, England: Routledge.

21.

Marsick

Watkins

(1999). Facilitating learning organizations: Making learning count. London, England: Gower Press.

22.

McLean

G. N.

(1998). HRD: A three-legged stool, an octopus, or a centipede? Human Resource Development International, 1, 375-377.

23.

McLean

G. N.

(2006). Organization development: Principles, processes, performance. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler.

24.

McLean

G. N.

Lee

M. M.

(2016). AHRD’s Globalization. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 18, 536-550.

25.

McLean

G. N.

McLean

L. D.

(2001). If we can’t define HRD in one country, how can we define it in an international context? Human Resource Development International, 4, 313-326.

26.

O’Neil

Marsick

V. J.

(2007). Understanding action learning. New York, NY: American Management Association.

27.

Otte

F. L.

Hutcheson

P. G.

(1992). Helping employees manage careers. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

28.

Preskill

Russ-Eft

(2015). Building evaluation capacity: 72 activities for teaching and training (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

29.

Russ-Eft

Bober

Koszalka

T. A.

Sleezer

(2014). Evaluator competency fieldbook. Charlotte, NC: Information Age.

30.

Russ-Eft

Preskill

Sleezer

(1997). Human resources development review: Research and implications. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

31.

Sleezer

C. M.

Russ-Eft

D. F.

Gupta

(2014). A practical guide to needs assessment (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer.

32.

Swanson

R. A.

(1975). Career exploration for children: Elementary career development education. In Stamm

C. P.

(Ed.), Essential development through industrial arts: Representative addresses and proceedings of the American Industrial Arts Association’s 37th annual conference at Cincinnati, Ohio, March 23-27, 1975 (pp. 6-13). Washington, DC: American Industrial Arts Association.

33.

Swanson

R. A.

(1994). Analysis for improving performance: Tools for diagnosing organizations and documenting workplace expertise. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler.

34.

Swanson

R. A.

(2001). Assessing financial benefits of human resource development. Cambridge, MA: Perseus.

35.

Swanson

R. A.

Chermack

T. J.

(2013). Theory building in applied disciplines. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler.

36.

Swanson

R. A.

Holton

E. F.

(Eds.). (1997). Human resource development research handbook: Linking research and practice. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler.

37.

Swanson

R. A.

Holton

E. F.

(2001). Foundations of human resource development. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler.

38.

Swanson

R. A.

Holton

E. F.

(Eds.). (2005). Research in organizations: Foundations and methods of inquiry. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler.

39.

Torraco

R. J.

(2016). Early history of the fields of practice of training and development and organization development. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 18, 439-453.

40.

Watkins

Marsick

(1993). Sculpting the learning organization: Lessons in the art and science of systemic change. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

41.

Watkins

K. E.

Marsick

V. J.

(Eds.). (1996). In action: Creating the learning organization. Alexandria, VA: ASTD Press.

42.

Watkins

Marsick

V. J.

(1997). Dimensions of the learning organization questionnaire. Warwick, RI: Partners for the Learning Organization.