Global changes and HRD issues

HRD is practice-based discipline and its theory should be built upon the implementation of HRD practice. Since HRD theory has been criticized to fail to guide and provide the direction of HRD implementation, this paper tries to bring out the contemporary HRD issues discussed in academics, understand them in a view of organizational practices and discuss implications for the future directions of HRD scholars and practitioners. For this, global changes are defined at three domains such as technical change, HR change and market change and its influences on organizations are viewed at individual, group and organization levels. Based on the matrix composed of those cross-sectional criteria, nine contemporary issues for HRD practices were extracted, which are VHRD(virtual HRD), diversity and global leadership at organization level, virtual team-working, employee engagement and coaching at group level, and SNS, work-life balance and creativity at individual level. Each issue is then discussed with practical applications of the companies. Implications for HRDers are followed.