Perspectives suggest different conceptions of HRD. This concluding article of the Special Issue reviews the contributions and proposes four meta-perspectives on HRD: language; community/societal; system; and psychological. It is argued that each perspective suggests a particular conception or...

Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is becoming an increasingly important issue facing the Irish legal profession. It requires individuals, law firms and professional associations to examine the developmental needs of legal practitioners and how these needs can best be satisfied. This...

The impact of the forces of globalisation on managerial practices across national boundaries has renewed interest in examining the degree to which culture impacts on the effectiveness of such practices. Increased employee interaction with global customers and the growth in cross-cultural...

John Seely Brown notes that context must be added to data and information to produce meaning. To move forward, Brown suggests, we must not merely look ahead but we must also learn to look around because learning occurs when members of a community of practice (CoP) socially construct and share...

Levels of analysis perform an important function in framing research and practice in human resource development (HRD). The purpose of this paper is to examine the concept of HRD from the individual, organizational and community/societal levels of analysis. The paper highlights both the...

Purpose – This paper explores this relationship between the individual values of managers and human resource (HR) decision‐making. Design/methodology/approach – Questionnaire data were collected from a total of 340 line managers from both Ireland and Canada. The questionnaire instrument...

Argues that cultural influences may not only affect a professional’s implicit concept of what constitutes effective practice, but may also affect researchers’ explicit theories. Suggests that this means that many HRD practices, processes, procedures and language are specific to cultures....

Purpose – The use of imagery in leadership speeches is becoming increasingly important in shaping the beliefs and actions of followers. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the use of speech imagery and linguistic features employed during the 2008 US Presidential Election campaign....