How do HRD professionals and business managers interact in organizing HRD activities?

Abstract

Human resource development (HRD) has traditionally been seen as the main driver behind people-centered developmental activities such as learning and development, organization development, and career development. However, the role of HRD professionals as the main stakeholder has been questioned as more and more people-centered development activities have been integrated into a broad range of leadership and supervisory roles within the organization. The question arises: How do HRD professionals and business managers interact in organizing HRD activities? Building on structure and actor theories as a theoretical foundation, the study combines deductive and inductive data analysis of semi-structured interviews to review the roles of HRD professionals and business managers involved in organizing HRD activities in six different organizations in the USA. Our findings show that while training does not appear in any of the HR-related job titles, the term “training” is more common in business managers' titles describing their link to HRD activities. When organizing those activities, HRD professionals and business managers engage extensively in emergent partnering structures. While some HRD professionals are the main actors in some learning networks, business managers drive HRD activities in others. We discuss the commingling of actors and its impact on the learning network. The paper closes with a discussion of research limitations, future research, and implications for HRD practice.