From foundations to frontiers: 35 years of human resource development at HRDQ

HRDQ continues to celebrate its 35th anniversary. Originating from partnerships with the Association for Talent Development (ATD, formerly ASTD), the journal has progressively grown and strategically established itself in human resource development (HRD). Its interdisciplinary nature has brought together relevant research fields such as economics, management, education, sociology, psychology, and technology (Egan & Kim, 2024). The HRDQ Editorial Team now hosts a diverse array of content and methodological expertise from HRD, management, industrial organizational psychology, public administration, and advanced quantitative and qualitative methodologies.

As the journal has earned growing recognition in social science research (Clarivate SSCI/ISI), the number of submissions has steadily increased. Recently, we further enhanced and diversified our editorial team, striving for research excellence and impactful practices. Randall S. Davis, Taha Hameduddin, and Taehee Kim have newly been added to our Editorial Team, bringing strong quantitative expertise and in-depth knowledge of the international, public, and non-profit sectors. These new additions join our Associate Editor Team including Kate Black, Julia Fulmore, Caleb Seung-hyun Han, Sunghoon Kim, Kibum Kwon, Philseok Lee, John Mendy, Melika Shirmohammadi, Jian-Min (James) Sun, Pattanee Susomrith, and Zhen Wang.

HRDQ will continue to publish relevant topical research on “employee training, talent management, team development, management and leadership, knowledge management, organizational learning, organization development and change, strategic planning, performance management, feedback, motivation, HRD analytics, careers and global work, critical theory, virtual workplace, the future of work and learning, intersectionality, indigenous perspectives, participatory inquiry, human-technology intersections, etc.” (Kim et al., 2022).

Following the first invited editorial on HRDQ's origins (Swanson, 2024), this summer issue presents two additional invited editorial articles showcasing perspectives from the Editors-in-Chief across the journal's history. Gary McLean, HRDQ's second Editor-in-Chief, provides his reflections on the emergence of HRD scholarship and practice. The article, by former editor Baiyin Yang, advocates for HRD scholars to actively apply engaged scholarship, ensuring research is both academically rigorous and practically relevant. It discusses the tension between deeply engaging in the real world while maintaining the detached perspective necessary for objective, unbiased research, and suggests a dialectical approach given the complexity of the world.

The current issue contains four research articles. The first article examines workplace spirituality within the context of teams. Utilizing multi-case and multi-team analyses, Nandini McClurg and colleagues explore how individuals' spirituality is expressed at work and how their workplace spirituality influences their work teams. The second article explores the multi-level effects of human resources bundles on the performance of aging employees. Nikolaos Pahos and colleagues employ a generalized structural equation modeling (GSEM) analysis with members of Greek service organizations (n = 130 working groups; n = 342 subordinates; n = 115 supervisors). They discuss the roles of bundles of HR practices and ages (calendar age and proportion of an aging workforce) on performance at both group and individual levels.

The third article takes a multiple-study research design approach to understanding the role of inclusive leadership. Drawing on data from a two-wave field survey (n = 317 for Study 1) and a randomized experimental vignette study (n = 440 for Study 2) collected from Australian employees, Azadeh Shafaei and Mehran Nejati examine how inclusive leaders can promote employees' sense of meaningful work through psychological safety and learning from errors. The fourth article, by Julian Decius and Julia Hein, investigates the linkage between achievement goals and informal workplace learning of lecturers in higher education. Using survey data from German universities (n = 317 for Study 1), the article reports positive associations between learning approach goals and self-based informal learning, as well as between normative goals and social-based informal learning. It replicates most of those findings in a subsequent text-based vignette study with Austrian university lecturers (n = 185 for Study 2).

We sincerely thank all the authors, reviewers, and editors whose contributions made this issue possible. The articles featured herein demonstrate the exemplary research and academic dialogue typical of HRDQ. We trust these contributions will spark additional research and broaden understanding in the HRD field.