L & D professionals in organizations: much ambition,
unfilled promise
Garavan, Thomas N., Heneghan, Sinead, O'Brien, Fergal J.ORCID: 0000-0003-2030-8005, Gubbins, ClaireORCID: 0000-0002-7285-0528, Lai, Yanqing, Carbery, Ronan, Duggan, James, Lannon, Ronnie, Sheehan, Maura and Grant, Kirsteen
(2019)
L & D professionals in organizations: much ambition,
unfilled promise.
European Journal of Training and Development, 44
(1).
pp. 1-86.
ISSN 2046-9012
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 MNCs,
SMEs, public sector and not for profit organisations. We investigated 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.
We gathered data from executives, senior managers, line managers, employee and L&D
professionals using multiple methods: 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. We 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 utilising multiple research methods.
Metadata
Item Type:
Article (Published)
Refereed:
Yes
Uncontrolled Keywords:
Learning and development professionals; Perceived Effectiveness; Roles;
Competencies;. Careers