12 - 15 page Summary written for 3 chapters

· Overview of HRD paradigms:

· There are two main paradigms in HRD, learning and performance, with a third emerging paradigm of work and work-life integration

· Learning paradigm has three streams, rooted in adult learning:

· Individual learning

· Performance-based learning

· Whole systems learning

· Performance paradigm has two streams:

· Individual performance improvement

· Whole systems performance improvement

· Philosophical Views of Learning and Performance

· Performance as a natural outcome of human activity

· Individuals purposely engage in wide variety of activities with performance as a natural and valued outcome

· Performance as necessary for economic activity

· Utilitarian view that sees performance as key to enhancing individuals and society through economic gains

· Performance as an instrument of organizational oppression

· Performance is a means of control and dehumanization

· Definition of the Learning Paradigm: HRD “works to enhance individuals’ capacity to learn, to help groups overcome barriers to learning, and to help organizations create a culture which promotes conscious learning (p. 146).”

· Three Views of Learning

· Learning as a humanistic endeavor

· Primary purpose is enhancing human potential

· Learning as a value-neutral transmission of information

· Learning seen to solve problems of everyday living

· Learning as a tool for societal oppression

· Core Theoretical Assumptions of the Learning Paradigm

· Assumption 1: Learning, development, and growth are inherently good for the individual

· Assumption 2: Learning and development should be a way to enhance people and their humanness not just accomplish performance goals

· Assumption 3: Needs of the individual should be more important, or at least a minimum equal to, the needs of the organization

· Assumption 4: Learning is the primary outcome of human resource development

· Assumption 5: Performance occurs naturally when an individual is purposely developed to their full potential

· Assumption 6: Individuals have the intrinsic capacity and motivation to direct their own learning in a way most beneficial to themselves

· Assumption 7: HRD should focus on all aspects of individual development to holistically develop individuals to their fullest potential

· Assumption 8: Organizations have a duty and responsibility to help individuals fully develop

· Assumption 9: Emphasizing organizational performance targets cause individuals to be limited and not meet their full potential

· Performance Paradigm of HRD

· Definition of the performance paradigm: “the purpose of HRD is to advance the mission of the performance system that sponsors the HRD efforts by improving the capabilities of individuals working in the system and improving the systems in which they perform their work (p. 149).”

· Core Theoretical Assumptions of the Performance Paradigm

· Assumption 1: Performance is “a fact-of-life that is not optional” (p. 150) therefore organizations that fail to perform their core outcomes are likely to either need to restructure or go extinct. Employees who fail to perform at a level that supports the organizations long-term interests are unlikely to be productive members of the system

· Assumption 2: All actions taken by HRD are to enhance the system in which it is embedded by improving performance at the mission, social sub-system, process, and individual levels

· Assumption 3: The goal of HRD is both learning and performance; two outcomes that are equal and complimentary, not competing.

· Assumption 4: It is the unleashing of human potential that creates great organizations emphasizing both human potential and performance.

· Assumption 5: Outcomes (measures of effectiveness in achieving core objectives) and drivers (elements of performance expected to increase abilities and capacities to be more effective in the future) must be equally considered to create long-term, sustained performance

· Assumption 6: Performance improvement efforts must be ethical and moral and not harm individuals

· Assumption 7: Performance outcomes should be improved at multiple levels with nonlearning and learning interventions

· Assumption 8: Effective performance benefits individuals in numerous ways as it does organizations

· Assumption 9: Whole systems performance improvement is achieved through the analysis and improvements of the whole system through balanced emphasis on both outcomes and drivers in the four performance domains

· Assumption 10: HRD must partner with units in the organization to overcome variables outside of their control to achieve performance improvements even in the context of learning

· Assumption 11: While learning is a key component to job performance, that learning must transfer into job performance in a way that is measurable to be successful

· Fusing the Two Paradigms

· Figure 7.2. provides a summary of issues that occur when attempting to serve both individuals and organizations

· Common ground shared between the two paradigms (p. 158):

· Strong belief in learning and development as avenues to individual growth

· Organizations can be improved through human expertise

· Desire to see people and organizations as healthy and growing

· Commitment to people and human potential

· Passion for learning and productivity

Chapter 8: Perspectives on Performance in Human Resource Development

· Disciplinary Perspectives on Performance

· Performance is a multidisciplinary phenomenon

· Performance models have a disciplinary bias

· There is no such thing as a single view of performance

· Levels of performance and indictors of performance are confused in some models

· Subsystems in the models vary widely

· Financial Performance

· Evaluating the financial benefits of HRD is an underdeveloped expertise leading to several myths about the value of HRD including that HRD costs too much, benefits can’t be quantified, and organizations should be given the HRD they want and not necessarily what they need

· Financial Benefit analysis is a research based, field tested way of assessing HRD programs

· Provides three views of assessing financial benefits of HRD (p. 172):

· What is the forecasted financial benefit resulting from the HRD intervention?

· What is the actual financial benefit of the HRD intervention?

· What is the approximate financial benefit resulting from an HRD intervention?

· Multilevel Performance Models

· Organizations are complex social systems and several models have been developed to help make them more manageable

· Brache’s Enterprise Model

· Holistic approach that provides a clear conceptualization of how organizations work

· Performance improvement professionals need to understand organizational structures and how organizations work

· Internal and external variables of an organization environment are analyzed to diagnose the overall health of the firm

· Rummler and Brache’s Performance Model

· Integrated framework for achieving competitive advantage by learning how to manage organizations, processes, and individual’s effectively

· Explores the “white space” where the connection between components and performance breakdowns typically occur

· Hypothesizes organizational failure is due to lack of understanding of the variables that influence organizational, process and individual performance called “performance levers”

· Three levels of performance:

· Organizational level – relationship between organization and its market

· Process – how work is accomplished

· Job/performer – individuals doing the job

· Each level contains three performance variables:

· Goals – specific standards that reflect customer expectations

· Design – necessary components configured to enable goal attainment

· Management – practices that ensure goals are current and achieved

· Swanson’s Performance Diagnosis Process and Matrix

· Five-phase process for performance diagnosis:

· State Initial Purpose

· Assess performance variables

· Specify performance measures

· Determine performance needs

· Construct improvement proposal

· Assessing performance variables critical phase

· Four Performance Levels:

· Organization

· Process

· Team

· Individual

· Five performance variables

· Mission/goals

· System design

· Capacity

· Motivation

· Expertise

· Organization Development Performance Model

· OD models include a group or team performance level unlike Rummler and Brache models

· Great deal of emphasis is placed on groups and interpersonal dynamics in organizations

· Includes 16 variables across three levels, like the other models, but also includes organizational culture

· Holton’s Integrated Taxonomy of Performance Domains

· Proposes four domains for performance

· Mission – system’s mission and goals specifics the expected outcomes of that system

· Process – Same as other models; how work is accomplished, and goals achieved

· Social subsystem – internal social entity for which performance goals have been set that are derived from, and contribute to, the mission of the overall system

· Individual – the employee completing the task or work

· Process and Team-Level Performance Models

· Two views of process performance improvement

· Reengineering – radical approach, impatient with standard process improvement and willing to scrap entire processes for one that is projected to be more efficient and effective

· Incremental process improvement – focused on measuring processes at each step and assessing the steps and process as a whole as being under control

· Once under control, further process improvements are carried out

· Individual-Level Performance Models

· AKA human performance technology models

· Common characteristic of these models is their attempt to define individual performance and key factors the impact individual performance

· Campbell’s Model of Individual Performance

· Developed because psychologists paid to little attention to dependent variable (performance) focusing more on independent variables

· Three key parts:

· Performance components

· Performance determinants

· Predictors of performance determinants

· Eight components to describe job performance:

· Job-specific task proficiency – degree to which individual can perform their core duties or tasks

· Non-job-specific task proficiency – degree to which individual can perform or execute tasks not specific to their particular job

· Written and oral communication – individual’s ability to write or speak regardless of subject matter

· Demonstrating effort – consistency of individual’s daily effort, the degree to which they will expand that effort when required, and willingness to work under adverse conditions

· Maintain personal discipline – degree to which negative behaviors are avoided

· Facilitating peer and team performance – level to which individual supports their peers, helps with problems, and helps train

· Supervision – ability to influence the performance of others through face-to-face interpersonal interactions

· Management/administration – major elements in management independent of direct supervision

· Gilbert’s Human Performance Engineering Model

· Believed possessing large amounts of work, knowledge, and outcomes without accomplishments is not worthy performance

· Stated that measuring performance alone does not provide accurate measure of competence

· Focuses both on the individual and the individual’s environment to measure human performance and the environmental factors that can influence human performance

Chapter 9: Perspectives on Learning in Human Resource Development

· Basic Theories of Learning

· Behaviorism

· Primarily concerned with changes in behavior as a result of learning and how the external environment influences a person’s behavior and learning

· Seven core assumptions:

· Principles of learning apply equally to different behaviors and different species of animals

· Learning process is most objectively studied when the focus is on stimulus and response

· Internal cognitive processes are largely excluded from scientific study

· Learning involves a behavior change

· Organisms are born as blank slates

· Learning is largely the result of environmental events

· Most useful theories tend to be parsimonious ones

· Key contributions to HRD:

· Focus on behavior

· Focus on the environment

· Foundation for transfer of learning

· Foundation for skill development training

· Critics argue behaviorism view learners as passive and dependent and does not account for the role of personal insight and meaning in learning

· Cognitivism

· Rose in response to the “thoughtless” approach to human learning in behaviorism; primary concerned with insight and understanding; individuals are capable of shaping the environment

· Seven core assumptions

· Some learning processes may be unique to human beings

· Cognitive processes are the focus of study

· Objective and systematic observations of people’s behavior should be the focus of scientific inquiry though inferences about unobservable mental processes can be drawn from such behavior

· Individuals are actively involved in the learning process

· Learning involves the formation of mental associations not necessary reflected in overt behavior changes

· Knowledge is organized

· Learning is a process of relating new information to previously learned information

· Contributions to HRD

· Information processing

· Metacognition

· Cognitive development

· Humanism

· General approach to psychology; concerned with development by the whole person and highly emphasizes the affective component of the learning process

· Believes individuals are capable of controlling their own learning

· Core assumptions

· The person as a whole is the main subject of humanistic psychology

· Humanistic psychology is concerned with the knowledge of a person’s entire history

· Human existence and intention are also of great influence

· Life goals are of equal importance

· Human creativity has a primary place

· Humanistic psychology is frequently applied to psychotherapy

· Rogers principles of learning

· Personal involvement

· Self-initiated

· Pervasive

· Evaluated by the learner

· Essence is meaning

· Social Learning

· Focuses on how people learn by interacting with and observing other people

· Emphases on the social context in which people learn and how individuals can learn by imitating others

· Four core assumptions:

· People can learn by observing the behaviors of others and the outcome of those behaviors

· Learning can occur without a change in behavior

· Consequences of behavior play a role in learning

· Cognition plays a role in learning

· Contribution to HRD:

· The role of the facilitator as a model for behavior to be learned

· Overhaul of new employee development methods

· Emphasis of mentoring as a way to pass skills between employees

· Development of on-the-job training

· Constructivism

· Stresses that all knowledge is context bound and individuals make personal meaning of their learning experiences. Additionally, new information must be related to existing information for it to be retained and used

· Contributions to HRD

· Plays important role in understanding informal and incidental learning, self-directed learning, and perspective transformation

· Holistic Learning

· Embraces the individual, group, and organizational learning challenges facing HRD

· Conceptualizes knowledge into three facets:

· Implicit

· Explicit

· Emancipatory

· Each facet has three layers:

· Foundation

· Manifestation

· Orientation

· Combines the best of three major views about nature of knowledge and learning

· Empirical/analytic paradigm

· Interpretist paradigm

· Critical paradigm

· Learning Models at the Individuals Level

· Andragogy: The Adult Learning Perspective

· Core Andragogical Model

· Enable those designing and conducting adult learning to create more effective learning processes for adults

· Six core assumptions of Andragogy

· Adults need to know why they need to learn something before learning it

· Self-concept of adults is heavily dependent a move toward self-direction

· Prior experiences of the learner provide a rich resource for learning

· Adults usually become ready to learn when they experience a need to cope with a life situation of perform a task

· Adults’ orientation to learning is life centered and see education as a process of developing increase competency levels

· Motivation for adult learners is internal

· The potential for flexible application is where it’s greatest ability lies

· Andragogical model is a system of elements that can be adapted in the ways best fitted for the learner

· Three dimensions of andragogy in practice:

· Goals and purposes for learning

· Individual and situation differences

· Core adult learning principles

· Experiential Learning Model

· Process whereby knowledge is created through transformation of experience

· The facilitator should not only transmit and implement new ideas but also modify old ones that could block new ones

· Four steps in the experimental learning cycle:

· Concrete experience

· Observations and reflections

· Formation of abstract concepts and generalizations

· Testing implications of concepts in new situations

· Experimental learning serves as a mean to improve experience

· Informal and Incidental Workplace Learning

· Formal learning is typically institutionally-sponsored, classroom based, and highly structured

· Informal learning may occur in institutions but is typically not classroom based or structured and learning primarily rests in the hands of the learner

· Incidental learning is a byproduct of some other activity

· Examples include mentoring, coaching, networking

· Transformational Learning

· Premise is people may engage in incremental learning or in deeper learning that requires them to challenge fundamental assumptions and meaning schema they have about the world

· Transformational change at the organization level is unlikely to occur unless transformational change occurs at the individual level through critically challenging processes and changing internal cognitive structures

· Learning Models at the Organizational Level

· Senge’s Learning Organization Theory

· Three levels of work required for organizations

· First level is focused on development, production, and marketing of new products and services

· Second level of work is the designing and development of the systems and processes for production

· Third level is the quality of organizational thinking and interacting that affects the organizational systems and processes

· Organizations need to develop five core disciplines to accomplish the goals of a learning organization

· Personal mastery

· Mental models

· Shared vision

· Team learning

· Systems thinking

· Learning Organization and Performance Outcomes

· Learning organizations perceive learning as the means to long term performance improvement

· Innovation provides a critical link between learning organization strategies and performance

· Shared end goal between learning system and innovating system is improved organizational performance

Reference:

Swanson, R. A., & Holton, E. F. III (2009).  Foundations of Human Resource Development (2nd ed.).  San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.