Guest Editorial - Historical Perspectives

Abstract

First paragraph: Human Resource Development Review’s mission is no mystery. It exists to publish work that makes a theoretical contribution to the development of theory, the foundations of HRD, and reviews of the relevant literature. The journal does not, however, publish work whose central focus is empirical findings, or empirical method and design. When the journal’s Editor, Yonjoo Cho, invited me to guest edit that part of the anniversary issue that would be devoted to papers on the history of human resource development, the extent to which potential contributors found it difficult to imagine how to write history without a central focus on empirical findings was not yet obvious. There was, however, a substantial number of potential authors who were interested in how they could contribute historical articles to HRDR.