Human Resource Development in a Complex World

HRD in a Complex World presents a strong challenge to traditional HRD. Over the past ten years notions of complexity have emerged from the hard sciences and are now being applied to the social sciences. This is a highly contested area, but what is clear is that the ideas and language of complexity offer the chance to reinterpret traditional views of theory and practice. This collection addresses HRD from within the notions and language of complexity, presenting multifaceted alternative perspectives to the current practice and theory of HRD. Divided into four sections, each containing four chapters, this book presents sixteen different perspectives and represents the current state of the art, as portrayed by twenty internationally renowned academics and practitioners. The first section, ‘Reviewing the bases of HR: the depth’ addresses this issue from a theoretical perspective, exploring the roots of the debate more deeply. Chapters in the second section ‘Reflections of HR: the width’ build on and widen the debate. In the third section ‘Realising HR: applying the theories’ the chapters each extend the previous debates to introduce possible tools for practice. The fourth section ‘Realities of HR: aspects of practice’ looks directly at the implications these debates hold for practice. A range of themes which cut across these sections is highlighted in short introductory passages.

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