ABSTRACT
Brief description: The question over the moral and ethical justification and grounding for human resource development practice and research is moving into sharper relief as the field is broadening its range to include development at the regional, national, and transnational levels. This presentation will provide a historical account of the increase in scope of the field from a) business support to strategic and b) from functional to human development-focused in a variety of settings. This will be followed by a discussion of the contributions of value ethics and, specifically, the notion of human flourishing, which has taken center stage in the literature on human development by scholars such as Amartya Sen, John Finnis, and Sabina Alkire. Drawing on a range of HRD research projects, the central claim of this lecture is that HRD research and practice has, over the past ten years, moved deep into human development ‘territory’. Therefore the moral and ethical grounding that is so well expressed in the human development literature extends to human resource development. The lecture closes with a discussion of the implications of the thesis for theory, research, and practice, and points to several areas in need of further conceptual and research-focused development as the field continues to broaden its influence in the age of global connectedness, global organizational reach, and global mobility of labor.
