To be strategic in the new public sector, HR must remember its operational activities

L&D professionals in organisations: much ambition, unfilled promise

Purpose

This monograph reports on the strategic and operational roles of learning and development (L&D) professionals in Irish, UK European and US organisations including multinational corporations, small to medium enterprises, the public sector and not for profit organisations. This paper aims to investigate the contextual factors influencing L&D roles in organisations, the strategic and operational roles that L&D professionals play in organisations, the competencies and career trajectories of L&D professionals, the perceptions of multiple internal stakeholders of the effectiveness of L&D roles and the relationships between context, L&D roles, competencies/expertise and perceived organisational effectiveness.

Design/methodology/approach

The study findings are based on the use of multiple methods. The authors gathered data from executives, senior managers, line managers, employee and L&D professionals using multiple methods: a survey (n = 440), Delphi study (n = 125) and semi-structured interviews (n = 30).

Findings

The analysis revealed that L&D professionals increasingly respond to a multiplicity of external and internal contextual influences and internal stakeholders perceived the effectiveness of L&D professionals differently with significant gaps in perceptions of what L&D contributes to organisational effectiveness. L&D professionals perform both strategic and operational roles in organisations and they progress through four career levels. Each L&D role and career level requires a distinct and unique set of foundational competencies and L&D expertise. The authors found that different contextual predictors were important in explaining the perceived effectiveness of L&D roles and the importance attached to different foundational competencies and areas of L&D expertise.

Originality/value

This is one of the few studies to have investigated the L&D professional role in organisations from the perspective of multiple stakeholders using multiple research methods.

An Exploration of the Roles of HR Departments in Vietnam

This study explores the roles of human resource departments in Vietnam. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 human resource and line managers. Data were analysed using the repertory grid approach. There was divergence in the roles performed by human resource departments between foreign and local enterprises. The role framework of human resources developed in Western economies was perceived to be present in foreign investment enterprises, but not identified in privately-owned enterprises. Human resource departments in privately-owned organisations were perceived to be more administratively-oriented. In addition, the present study supports the notion that multiple stakeholders perceive differently the strategic and value-added role of human resource departments in organisations.