Designing a design thinking approach to HRD

This article considers the value of design thinking as applied to a HRD context, Specifically, it demonstrates how design thinking can be employed through a case study drawn from the GETM3 programme. It reports on the design, development, and delivery of a design thinking workshop which was created to draw out and develop ideas from students and recent graduates about the fundamental training and skills requirements of future employment. While design thinking has been widely deployed in innovation and entrepreneurship, its application to HRD is still very much embryonic. Our overview illustrates how the key characteristics of the design thinking process resonate with those required from HRD (e.g. focus on end user, problem solving, feedback, and innovation). Our contribution stems from illuminating a replicable application of design system thinking including both the process and the outcomes of this application. We conclude that design thinking is likely to serve as a critical mind-set, tool, and strategy to facilitate HRD practitioners and advance HRD practice

Designing a Design Thinking Approach to HRD

This article considers the value of design thinking as applied to a HRD context, Specifically, it demonstrates how design thinking can be employed through a case study drawn from the GETM3 programme. It reports on the design, development, and delivery of a design thinking workshop which was created to draw out and develop ideas from students and recent graduates about the fundamental training and skills requirements of future employment. While design thinking has been widely deployed in innovation and entrepreneurship, its application to HRD is still very much embryonic. Our overview illustrates how the key characteristics of the design thinking process resonate with those required from HRD (e.g. focus on end user, problem solving, feedback, and innovation). Our contribution stems from illuminating a replicable application of design system thinking including both the process and the outcomes of this application. We conclude that design thinking is likely to serve as a critical mind-set, tool, and strategy to facilitate HRD practitioners and advance HRD practice

Editorial: global entrepreneurial talent management challenges and opportunities for HRD

This special issue of the International Journal of HRD Practice, Policy and Research brings together on-going work from the Global Entrepreneurial Talent Management3 (GETM3) project. GETM3 is a European Union Research Innovation and Staff Exchange (RISE) project investigating the HRD implications of the way existing and future talent can be managed at work, harnessing the entrepreneurial attitudes and skills of young people. The project is both interdisciplinary and international, exploring the key challenges of managing this entrepreneurial talent within organizations. The scope and content of the project align neatly with the intent of the Journal of International Journal of HRD Practice, Policy and Research, not least the emphasis on practical HRD implications. Indeed, at the heart of GETM3 is an appreciation that true understanding and impact can only come from engagement with multiple stakeholders. This editorial provides a brief contextual overview of GETM3, focusing on its relevance for HRD, before providing a brief review of the articles and opinion/forum pieces that make up the special issue. Such explorations are certainly timely. Deloitte’s recent Global Human Capital survey highlights that organizations must re-invent their ability to learn. Indeed, the top rated trend for 2019, reflected by 86% of respondents, was the need to improve learning and development (Deloitte, 2019: 77). Related to this is the requirement for more dedicated evidence exploring the nature and impact of HRD (Gubbins, Harney, van der Werff, & Rousseau, 2018; Mackay, 2017), coupled with more directed attention to the process, rather than the content, of HRD interventions (Staats, 2019). The papers in this special issue certainly make a contribution to enhanced understanding and equally to bridging the seemingly ever widening theory-practice gap (Holden, 2019)

Editorial: Global Entrepreneurial Talent Management challenges and opportunities in HRD

This special issue of the International Journal of HRD Practice, Policy and Research brings together on-going work from the Global Entrepreneurial Talent Management3 (GETM3) project. GETM3 is a European Union Research Innovation and Staff Exchange (RISE) project investigating the HRD implications of the way existing and future talent can be managed at work, harnessing the entrepreneurial attitudes and skills of young people. The project is both interdisciplinary and international, exploring the key challenges of managing this entrepreneurial talent within organizations. The scope and content of the project align neatly with the intent of the Journal of International Journal of HRD Practice, Policy and Research, not least the emphasis on practical HRD implications. Indeed, at the heart of GETM3 is an appreciation that true understanding and impact can only come from engagement with multiple stakeholders. This editorial provides a brief contextual overview of GETM3, focusing on its relevance for HRD, before providing a brief review of the articles and opinion/forum pieces that make up the special issue. Such explorations are certainly timely. Deloitte’s recent Global Human Capital survey highlights that organizations must re-invent their ability to learn. Indeed, the top rated trend for 2019, reflected by 86% of respondents, was the need to improve learning and development (Deloitte, 2019: 77). Related to this is the requirement for more dedicated evidence exploring the nature and impact of HRD (Gubbins, Harney, van der Werff, & Rousseau, 2018; Mackay, 2017), coupled with more directed attention to the process, rather than the content, of HRD interventions (Staats, 2019). The papers in this special issue certainly make a contribution to enhanced understandin

An exploration of the social factors that may have contributed in the UK to perceptions of work-relevant upper limb disorders in keyboard users

The outputs that form the basis of this PhD submission include a web site that summarises a unique collection of over 200 Court Judgments in personal injury claims for work-related upper limb disorders heard in the UK, together with a number of more conventional publications. Individually, these outputs all address upper limb disorders associated with work although they each had slightly different objectives and the audiences for which they were produced significantly influenced the type of publication in which they appeared. Together, they help illustrate when, how and, to some extent, why upper limb disorders associated with keyboard use became the issue it did in the UK in the late 1980s and 1990s. While many might now regard keyboard or computer use as an innocuous task, in the late 1980s and 1990s upper limb disorders associated with keyboard use, particularly computer use, became the subject of litigation, legislation, industrial disputes and widespread publicity. The outputs on which this submission is based, together, suggest that following the importation of the concept of repetitive strain injuries (RSI) from Australia in the later 1980s, the activities of trades unions and journalists in the UK promoted work-relevant upper limb symptoms and disorders associated with keyboard use as work-induced injuries. Subsequently, a small number of successful, union-backed, personal injury claims, which involved contentious medical evidence and perhaps an element of iatrogenesis, were widely promoted as proof that computer use causes injury. Around the same time, the government chose to implement flawed Regulations relating to the design and use of computer workstations, which failed to distinguish between that which might give rise to discomfort, fatigue and frustration and that which might give rise to injury. The existence of these Regulations, which among other things require regular, individual risk assessments of computer users, unlike any other type of work, could be interpreted as further 'proof' that computer use causes injury. The approach to the prevention and management of musculoskeletal disorders advocated in current HSE guidance, including the risk assessment strategy, remain capable of generating distorted perceptions of the risks arising from keyboard and computer use

Experimentation and self learning in continuous database marketing

We present a method for continuous database marketing that identifies target customers for a number of marketing offers using predictive models. The algorithm then selects the appropriate offer for the customer. Experimental design principles are encapsulated to capture more information that will be used to monitor and refine the predictive models. The updated predictive models are then used for the next round of marketing offers.<br /

Communicating climate change: conduits, content, and consensus

Climate change has been the subject of increasing efforts by scientists to understand its causes and implications; it has been of growing interest to policymakers, international bodies, and a variety of nongovernment organizations; and it has attracted varied amounts of attention from traditional and, increasingly, online media. These developments have been aligned with shifts in the nature of climate change communication, with changes in how researchers study it and how a variety of actors try to influence it. This article situates the theory and practice of climate change communication within developments that have taken place since we first reviewed the field in 2009. These include the rise of new social media conduits for communication, research, and practice aimed at fine tuning communication content, and the rise to prominence of scientific consensus as part of that content. We focus in particular on continuing tensions between a focus on the part of communicators to inform the public and more dialogic strategies of public engagement. We also consider the tension between efforts to promote consensus and certainty in climate science and approaches that attempt to engage with uncertainty more fully. We explore the lessons to be learnt from climate communication since 2009, highlighting how the field remains haunted by the deficit model of science communication. Finally, we point to more fruitful future directions for climate change communication, including more participatory models that acknowledge, rather than ignore, residual uncertainties in climate science in order to stimulate debate and deliberation

A systemic approach to the database marketing process

The role of database marketing (DBM) has become increasingly important for organisations that have large databases of information on customers with whom they deal directly. At the same time, DBM models used in practice have increased in sophistication. This paper examines a systemic view of DBM and the role of analytical techniques within DBM. It extends existing process models to develop a systemic model that encompasses the increased complexity of DBM in practice. The systemic model provides a framework to integrate data mining, experimental design and prioritisation decisions. This paper goes on to identify opportunities for research in DBM, including DBM process models used in practice, the use of evolutionary operations techniques in DBM, prioritisation decisions, and the factors that surround the uptake of DBM.<br /