The contribution of scholarship to practice is an on-going concern of the AL/HRD community. This paper explores how one influential discourse may shape AL/HRD's understanding of that contribution. In 2020 the UK Government implemented the Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF) to gather data on English Universities' knowledge exchange activities.…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss how a discourse approach to theorising human resource development (HRD) can open a "discursive space" to challenge dominant discourses within the field; enabling a more critical discourse to emerge. Design/methodology/approach: Discusses two approaches to discourse analysis, a "practice" and a…

Purpose: The aim of the paper is to examine the meaning and value of the notion of theory as a basis for other papers in the special issue which examine facets of theorising HRD. Design/methodology/approach: A small scale and targeted literature review was conducted which focused on writings in the philosophy and sociology of science in order to…

Purpose: In this paper the authors seek to argue that doctoral supervision is one type of human resource development relationship in higher education (HE), and that this relationship may be close or distanced, and involve technical and social support. The paper aims to highlight the seldom-discussed aspects of power and emotion within doctoral…

Human resource development (HRD) is a concept associated with human resource management, and, by this association, one component of the broader concept of management. Much work has examined management practices from a critical stance and this article provides a brief review. However, HRD is a more recent concept, still emerging and finding space…