The Impact of HRD/M Research on Practice: an Analysis of the REF2014 Impact Case Studies: Working Paper for UFHRD 2017 Conference, Scholarly Practitioner Research Stream

Bridging the gap between academic research and practice has long been recognised as a challenge for Human Resource Development. Recent research into the business research outputs submitted to the UK universities’ Research Excellence Framework in 2014 found that HRD research was relatively under-represented, suggesting that it was not central to most university research (Sambrook and Stewart 2015). However, the fact that HRD research was less well represented than some other business disciplines amongst REF2014 output submissions does not necessarily mean that it had less of an impact upon practice more broadly. This working paper therefore builds upon Sambrook and Stewart’s (2015) research to analyse a broader (40%) sample of all case studies of research impact submitted to the REF2014, to explore both the impact of academic scholarship on HRD practice in comparison to other fields of HR, and the role of HRD scholarship in achieving academic impact.
Our findings suggest that impact can be considered in two domains: content (scholarly advancement of the field of HRD) and delivery (achieving practical impact through learning and development interventions). We note that HRD academic scholarship from disciplines outside HRD and indeed outside the REF2014 Business and Management unit of assessment have demonstrated impact on or through HRD practice. In all units of assessment, we find that HRD has greater impact on practice than other fields of HR.
A key implication of this is that the often discussed gap between researchers and practitioners in HRD should be extended to take into account academics and practitioners outside the HRD discipline, emphasizing the importance of cross-disciplinary collaboration.