The best HRD research studies never done
✍ Scribed by Ronald L. Jacobs
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1999
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 131 KB
- Volume
- 10
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1044-8004
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Even the most cursory review of the studies published in Human Resource Development Quarterly suggests the challenge of doing HRD research. For one thing, the authors needed to overcome all the expected challenges inherent in doing research, such as constructing meaningful research questions, making mutually beneficial agreements with organization partners, devising relatively nonintrusive data-gathering methods, and preparing manuscripts to report the research (Merriam and Simpson, 1995). But unexpected challenges invariably occur as well when doing research. As most researchers are aware, the unexpected challenges are often more difficult to overcome than the expected ones. For instance, how should a researcher maintain the integrity of an ongoing study on organizational commitment when at the same time management has decided to lay off several employees? It is no wonder that many HRD researchers feel a deep sense of personal and professional satisfaction-even relief-when a study is successfully completed, regardless of its potential scholarly or practical contributions.
Because of the various challenges and the researcher's travails in meeting those challenges, each study presented in HRDQ likely has a compelling story behind it. But what about the planned studies that either fail to get off the ground in the first place or somehow get derailed during the process? Obviously we know little about these studies because they are never formally reported anywhere. Yet because of some unresolved problem or issue, they too would provide the basis for interesting stories and future learning. Such studies-in-waiting might be categorized as among the best HRD research studies that never get done, because they often represent the highest aspirations of the researchers involved. Unfortunately, at some point the researchers' aspirations converge uith the practical limitations of doing HRD research in actual organizational settings. By their nature, researchers often reach out further than the present reality might be able to accommodate.
For instance, a colleague and I recently met with the senior director of a government agency involved in promoting workforce development programs in an Asian country. Part of the meeting agenda was to discuss our mutual research interests and to discuss what studies the agency might be interested in supporting. My colleague presented the framework for a rather ambitious study, and several compelling reasons justifying the agency's support of the activity The proposed study represented an important next step in our work