The Performance/Integrity Workgroup at the 2000 Academy of Human Resource Development conference sculpted the following definition: The purpose of human resource development (HRD) is to enhance learning, human potential and high performance in work-related systems. This chapter argues that this definition is incomplete and must include the notion of sustainable human development. Thus, the purpose of human resource development is defined as the capacity to enhance learning, human potential and high performance in work-related systems and
contribute to sustainable human development.Pursuing this purpose is
vitally important: at no time in history has HRD been called upon to play
a more fundamental and key role in solving critical economic and social problems faced by communities, organizations, and nations. As a consequence, HRD is being challenged to pursue an extensive and expanding
agenda of objectives. This chapter offers a framework that effectively captures the breadth and complexity of objectives addressed by HRD as a field of practice. Within this framework, two critical mission level objectives are offered as guideposts for HRD practice.
2. The Importance of Human Resource Development To understand its objectives, one must first appreciate the evolving importance of HRD. This is evident, for example, in the growing number of organizations looking to HRD for help in developing the capacity to compete in a global economy. Global firms need individuals capable of operating effectively in diverse cultural environments, using increasingly complex organizational structures and communication patterns, and managing change using multiple integrative business strategies with an embedded international perspective. Similarly in
developing countries, the opening of internal markets, the adoption of new competitive strategies to meet market challenges, and demands of supplying products to meet the quality requirements of international firms are powerful forces driving organizational change. These changes have led to an expanded emphasis on HRD as a tool to develop the teamwork, problem and process
analysis, communication, and other needed capabilities. Drucker has observed that changes in market dynamics, technology, and the structure of
labor have created work that is more complex, abstract, and knowledge-based. As a result, an increasing proportion of jobs now require higher
levels of reading, math, problem solving, interpersonal, and other work
place skills. However, data indicate that many countries throughout the world suffer from a substantial gap between the knowledge and skills needed for economic and social progress and those that are available. The ‘skill gap’ problem has drawn increasing policy attention and financial investment aimed at implementing HRD systems capable of upgrading human resources
to meet emerging needs and opportunities. Perhaps the most enduring failure of humankind in the last century is the persistence of poverty. Poverty is a tremendously important personal, social, and economic issue because it deprives people of choices and significantly reduces the level of well being
that they can achieve. It limits people’s participation in political and development processes, and is associated with unemployment, underproductivity, poor health, nutrition, housing, and personal security.
Unfortunately, as Finsterbusch and VanWicklin observe, over fifty years of development efforts directed at countering poverty and associated problems through infusions of financial and technological assistance have largely failed
to significantly benefit the poor. Many areas of the world have, in fact, seen increases in the absolute degree of poverty. Castells postulates this trend will continue because poor countries are being further marginalized by a
competitive global economy that values information over production as a source of wealth. Recent efforts to overcome poverty and the problems it spawns have placed HRD at the top of many national development agendas. Here the value of HRD is seen in its ability to adopt both a production-oriented and a people-centered role. In the production-oriented role, HRD is viewed as a crucial tool for building and maintaining the reservoir
of skills needed for economic and social development. Singapore, Korea, Taiwan, and a number of African countries present lucid examples where HRD has been key part of
the national strategy to foster sustainable economic development. In the people-centered role, HRD is seen as the primary toolto more directly
address the needs of the poor by building their potential for political
and development participation, self-help, and improvement. Cernea, Low, Ridker and others see this role as particularly important because enhancing this potential is fundamental to the effective use of resources and the sustainability of economic and social development processes. These examples illustrate the evolving leadership role that HRD plays in solving a
number of significant economic and social problems faced by communities,
organizations, and nations throughout the world.It is clear that HRD is a fundamental tool for change and adaptation and the primary mechanism through which the human capital of nations is increased and preserve
d. The recognition thathuman resources and their development play a critic
al role in human progress (aposition well articulated in M. E. Porter’s ‘The Competitive Advantage of Nations’) has put increasing demands on
the field of HRD practice to address an ever widening range of objectives.
3. The Challenge of Defining HRD Objectives Defining HRD objectives is important because it provides a framework for clarifying and understanding of the growing capabilities of HRD as a field of practice. However,
defining HRD objectives is neither simple norstraightforward. HRD is an expansive and often nebulous field that includes a complex range of activities and interventions (e.g., training, education, coaching, counseling, career development, work system design, process improvement, organizational development, and so on) that are used in different ways to produce a variety of specific outcomes. This repertoire is necessarily dynamic because, as Karin Watkins points out, ongoing changes in economic and social needs, and work system processes, culture, and structure continue to expand these
activities and outcomes even further. Also, the practice of HRD includes a range of philosophical orientations, each of which has profound implications for how HRD is carried out. Finally, HRD practice draws on a variety of
scientific disciplines including economics, psychology, sociology, adult
learning, anthropology, ethics, systems, management and leadership,
human resource management, industrial engineering, and organizational development and change.
Despite the complex and evolving nature of the field, some initial steps have been taken toward arriving at consensus on the core purpose of HRD. At the 2000 Academy for Human Resource Development Conference,a small group of researchers and practitioners (the Performance/Integrity Workgroup) set out to understand and overcome the practical and philosophical diversity withinthe field and to reach consensus on the overarching purpose of HRD. The group agreed to the following statement: The purpose of HRD is to enhance learning, human potential and high performance in work-related systems. Although it is argued later in this chapter that this preliminary statement of core purpose must be expanded to include the concept
of sustainable human development, this statement provides the crystallizing agent necessary for distilling the practice of HRD into a manageable and understandable framework of objectives. Building this framework, however, requires a clear understanding of terminology. Therefore the following definitions are offered.
3.1 Human Resource Development. As noted above, HRD is a broad field of research, theory and practice directed at the development of human resources, their rational and optimal use, and the establishment of an enabling environment in which these resources can find their full expression. The purpose of HRD is to enhance learning, human potential, and high performance in work-related systems and contribute to sustainable human development.
3.2 Performance
Performance is defined as the outcomes or achievements that result from goal-directed work system behavior. Performance represents an aggregation of behaviors and outcomes over time and across tasks, groups, individuals and so on. Campbell notes that performance is distinguishable from
effectiveness (an evaluative judgment of outcomes), productivity (level of effectiveness divided by the cost to achieve that effectiveness), and utility (value of performance effectiveness or productivity).
3.2 Work system
A work system is defined as an interdependent, organized architecture of human activities directed toward the accomplishment of a valued goal or outcome. This broad definition extends the concept of work system from a loose collection of individuals to organized work teams and formal for-profit and public service work organizations. It includes informal organizations, such as community-based organizations, composed of a varying number of individuals without a formal organizational structure, that act interdependently to accomplish often vaguely defined goals. The concept also extends to collections of interdependent work sub-systems, such as those reflected in regional or national workforce development systems, educational systems, health or social service systems. These larger work systems reflect organized networks of smaller work systems that are fit together in ways that allow the larger system to respond to a broader range of customer demands and environmental threats or opportunities. Nadler and Gerstein suggest high performing work systems are those that opti