Research is increasingly acknowledging the pivotal role of national human resource development (NHRD) in economic development. There is a growing call to conduct research in country-specific contexts to further explore this concept and the factors that influence its outcomes. The concept differs from one country to another; therefore, many HRD studies focus on one country. However, few have focused on the Middle East region, and there has been even less research on Oman. The aim here is to fill this research gap by analysing Oman’s HRD practices. Specifically, the intent is to identify the gap in skillsets in Oman and to develop an NHRD model that is appropriate for the country’s economic requirements for national skills development.

Magister Educationis - MEd / This study investigated how workplace educator development programmes prepare workplace educators for their roles and responsibilities in facilitating learning in the workplace. Framed by the literature, the research shows that workplace educators’ qualifications prepare them for facilitating learning in the workplace. The most important findings show that their qualifications have prepared them for their roles and responsibilities in facilitating transformative learning within the workplace. Furthermore, the findings show that their qualifications, roles and responsibilities in facilitating learning in the workplace also impacted on workplace educators’ own thinking, prompting them to question their own values and beliefs. This perspective transformation allows for workplace educators better facilitating transformative learning in the workplace.

Immediately after the discovery of oil, the State of Kuwait put in place a plan for massive economic and social development for its people. This proposed plan required sophisticated labour skills to implement development requirements. However, over the years the country has continued to witness a labour market imbalance due to an inadequate supply of graduate skills that did not satisfy the demand from its workplace. The purpose of this study was to investigate the mismatch between outputs from higher education and labour market requirements. The present study employed a mixed approach to address its main research questions. It applied a quantitative approach using questionnaires prepared for graduates currently working and employers from both the public and private sector. It also utilized a qualitative approach using interviews with stakeholders in the labour market such as higher education personnel and policy makers. The literature review provided an overview of educational objectives and their relation to economic, social, and human resource development. It also looked at the nature of the relationship between higher educational institutions and the labour market, as well as providing some examples of the labour market gap around the world. The key findings indicated that higher educational institutions faced problems with regard to their role in the provision of knowledge and skills. The study found that employers believe that the quality of education provided by the institutions is low. Similarly, the study found that employers believe that the communication amongst stakeholders in the education system is not effective. In addition, employers reckoned that the main factors influencing graduates’ quality of education were the lack of skills, lack of motivation and weak communication. Similarly, graduates believed that the main factors influencing their quality of education were lack of skills, as well as overestimating job privileges and area of study. Furthermore, graduates satisfaction with their current jobs was influenced by many factors; such as low-quality education, disappointment with career development, source of skills, area of study, and gender. In fact, the literature identified the low quality of education as the main cause of the skills-gap worldwide, while it had always valued communication for closing the skills-gap. This study has confirmed that there is an imbalance within the Kuwaiti labour market. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed in the concluding chapter of the thesis.

This research explores human resource development ‘HRD’ as a ‘nationalization strategy’ within developing contexts. A framework for managing nationalization challenges and issues is constructed based on a ‘development’ concept at a national level. The development concept researched in the study is examined and explored through HRD and capacity building. Nationalization as an HRD national strategy is of crucial importance in developing country contexts, and this is especially true for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries in the Middle East. Nationalization strategies have been applied by GCC countries in the Middle East to increase national labour participation within the economy. Since the early 1980s, although nationalization strategies have been implemented through government authorities and ministries, the expatriate employment share remains at around 70 per cent with increasing national unemployment rates. The main aim of the research is to explore the role of nationalization programs within an HRD framework designed to build capacity from national human resources. Forces of resistance towards nationalization are addressed through a development framework that depends on human resource development and capacity building. Nationalization challenges are examined within developing contexts along with HRD theories presenting an intersection that positions ‘nationalization’ within HRD literature. Addressing nationalization issues through a ‘qualitative’ approach, distinct from quantitative measures such as quotas, proves to be a necessity for transitioning national labour towards a diversified economy in the GCC. The framework presented to address nationalization in the GCC was explored at the individual, organizational and national levels, hence presenting the nationalization challenges faced by the main executors of nationalization policies. The research findings reveal a strong correlation between the real practice of nationalization and HRD theories revealing the intersection between key concepts. The research findings demonstrate the significance of the intersection of nationalization and HRD, thus positioning nationalization within the HRD literature. The research findings reveal other ‘qualitative’ factors necessary to ensure long-term economic returns. The relevant areas include preparation of HRD professionals, coordination among entities, balancing supply and demand for labour, creating desired private sectors, education and culture. Considering retention strategies within nationalization indicates to be a crucial necessity to avoid lost investments in nationalization efforts. An examination of the role of career development in private sector organizations in Bahrain for managing and retaining local talents within nationalization initiatives reveals the importance of considering monetary rewards and creating suitable nationalized sectors that are attractive to nationals. The research examination of change management processes within nationalization in Bahrain provides strong evidence of the importance of considering qualitative approaches for developing economic sectors through national human resource interventions by embedding capacity building processes that can create long-term economic sustainable benefits within the economy. Therefore, the research findings provide a nationalization framework that takes a holistic approach by revealing findings at the individual, organizational and national levels that are essential to consider for increasing national human resources participation in developing economies such as the GCC countries where resistance towards nationalization persists.

The South African economy has developed with its strong connection to the minerals extraction and processing industries. Rich endowments of coal and a well-established mining sector in the country enabled the generation and supply of competitively priced electricity to energy and capital intensive processing and chemical industries. Although the minerals industry cluster remains globally competitive at the present time, whether it can be a catalyst for sustainable development, economically, socially and environmentally is in question. Field work was carried out in Richards Bay to analyse the development contributions of the local aluminium industry cluster in terms of two of the five capitals essential for sustainable development, viz. human and social capital. This town is the host of world class aluminium smelters as well as mineral sands mining and smelting, amongst other energy intensive industries such as paper pulp and phosphate production. The analysis interrogates the importance of skills development and of collective action between various stakeholders centred on the Hillside smelter of South 32, and including interviews with representatives of ten further stakeholders. Evidence found shows that the minerals industry cluster has contributed to human capital development, and continues to do so, through well-established in-house training and mentorship programmes as well as their corporate social investment into enterprise and supplier development, education and primary health care. However, a more competitive and environmentally responsible industrial cluster would require continuous improvement through institutional and individual capabilities. Research and training institutions and government intervention have important roles to play in this regard. One of the major challenges is rooted in the lack of social capital development in the past. Although no single accepted definition nor standard for measuring exists, social capital can be defined as the norms and networks that enable people to act collectively. The racially segregated development pattern in the region had left residents with huge disparities and a trust deficit. This mitigated against collective actions within the community except in the few cases of natural disaster responses and crime prevention. This is evidenced in the free-riding of skilled labourers by some companies in the region and the failure of socio-economic development programmes in the past due to the low level of community buy-in. The research highlights that the significance of the local minerals industry cluster remains undoubtedly high; however, a facilitative process of social capital development is necessary to promote collective actions. The process requires accountable formal institutions who can mitigate social distrust, create dialogue and a cooperative environment between different interest groups. This is particularly important as the government resource-based industrialisation policy is centralised in developing linkages from extractive sector (downstream, upstream, and side-stream) but little attention has been paid to the aspect of social capital development. It is expected that the study itself contributes to social capital development and works as a communication platform to further promote studies in applying multidisciplinary learning-by-doing process across academia, policymakers, and practitioners.

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No / Taking a critical perspective, Skill, Training and Human Resource Development focuses on the way people are developed at work; the skills that are encouraged, the way they are controlled and the implications they have for people. It draws on a wide range of research and covers an array of organizational practices. Preface Acknowledgements Human Resource Development Skills at Work International Comparisons: Skills and Employment Systems Vocational Education and Training in Britain New Skills for Old? The Changing Nature of Skill Emotions and Aesthetics for Work and Labour: The Pleasures and Pains of the Changing Nature of Work Managing Culture Management and Leadership Development Knowledge Work and Knowledgeable Workers Developments and Developing in the New Economy References Index

Yes / Gender research can be a highly political process with significant impact, positively or negatively, on the researcher(s) and research participants. As a result there are key issues for consideration when preparing to undertake gender research in Human Resource Development (HRD). Gender research in HRD requires a mature level of researcher reflexivity in terms of personal understandings of gender; individual researcher values, philosophical positions and standpoints on gender; motivations for research; awareness of how gender research may construct researchers in their own professional settings and how research participants may respond to gender research. We contend that a process of researcher reflexivity, in critically reflecting upon and reviewing individual assumptions and standpoints, is essential before beginning gender research. Gender is a significant dimension of personal life, social relations and culture: an arena where we face difficult practical issues about justice, identity and even survival; where there is much prejudice, myth and falsehood, and where social sciences gender research is producing a relatively new form of knowledge (Connell, 2009). This chapter outlines key issues for gender researchers illustrated through research into gendered media constructions of women leaders. We introduce the importance of women leaders and gender aware learning and HRD and outline understandings of gender; diverse advances in gender research; consistency, harm, pleasure and power; participant-research relationships and the researcher’s position in gender research, by drawing upon our previous studies. We then present the key issues in practice, through our operationalization of a Multi-Stakeholder Framework for analysing gendered media constructions of women leaders. We utilize a mixed method design (Saunders, 2012) of statistical analysis of secondary data on women in senior positions in a UK region (geographies of gender); analysis of three Supplements of the Top 500 Influential Leaders via discourse analysis; a semi-structured interview with a media producer; group and individual interviews with selected aspiring and current women leaders and stages of on-going researcher reflexivity and accountability. We conclude with reflections on the constraints and possibilities of the multi-stakeholder framework approach.

Woven within the pages of HRD’s historical literature, a variety of scholarly voices can be found drawing attention to the increasing inconsistency in the language of the field. Within the literature, we also find evidence of a long-standing discord and debate regarding the field’s definition and identified boundaries. This is the first study that attempts to elevate the conversation of HRD’s definition to that of an exploration of what is shared, and what makes the discipline’s members unique. Utilizing Li’s (2009) lens of disciplinary identity and elements of Gee’s (1999) theory of Discourse, this study presents a concept of what HRD’s disciplinary identity may look like at the macro level. This study also investigates the construct from both the academic and practitioner lens, in an attempt to include perspectives and influences at the micro level regarding the discipline’s enacted identity in both scholarship and practice, which may aid the relationship between theory and practice. Embedded within the larger aim of this study was the goal of revealing current similarities and differences in academic and practitioner labels-in-use within the field of Human Resource Development. To that end, this study employed an explanatory sequential mixed methods design that began with a quantitative collection and analysis of text from the Association for Talent Development’s (ATD) website and the Academy of Human Resource Development’s (AHRD) website. A second, qualitative phase was then conducted consisting of interviews of a diverse group of academics and practitioners from institutional/organizational contexts that were believed to provide greater insight into the potential contextual nuances behind the quantitative results. Mixed analyses of the quantitative and qualitative findings found a variance in the language-in-use, as well as indications that the discipline’s espoused identity may not reflect what is actually lived. These findings also suggest insights into the discipline’s social actions and interactions at the micro level, providing support for a proposed cultural model of HRD at the macro level. Although this study is a first step in trying to better understand HRD’s language-in-use and overall disciplinary identity, it also provides evidence that viewing HRD’s language-in-use in this way warrants further investigation.

I en värld som ständigt förändras och utvecklas kan det finnas ett pågående tryck hos organisationer att behålla värdefull kunskap men även att identifiera var kunskap saknas och åtgärda detta. Arbetet med detta hos organisationer kallas ofta för ”kompetensförsörjning”. Syftet med denna studie är att identifiera hur arbetet med kompetensförsörjning i vissa fall kan se ut för HR-medarbetare och chefer i en offentlig verksamhet. Studien är kvalitativ och innehåller tidigare forskning gällande Human Resources och kompetensförsörjning . I studien har fyra halvstrukturerade intervjuer genomförts med fyra respondenter som alla arbetar med HR inom offentlig sektor. Därefter har data blivit tematisk analyserat för att ge form till de olika teman som återfinns i resultatet. Resultatet påvisar att både HR-medarbetare och chefer är delaktiga i arbetet med kompetensförsörjning, men att cheferna ofta tilldelas utvalda ansvarsområden och att HR-medarbetare har det övergripande ansvaret och fungerar som en specialistfunktion. Slutsatsen påvisar att både HRmedarbetare och chefers olika kunskaper är viktiga beståndsdelar i kompetensförsörjningen men även att det finns alternativa arbetssätt som skulle vara önskvärda om tid och möjlighet funnits.