The seminal foundation of the discipline of HRD: People, learning, and organizations

Human resource development (HRD) has long been considered a field with an interdisciplinary foundation. Unfortunately there has never been a consensus on the composition of the seminal disciplinary base of HRD. A description of the concept of an applied discipline is presented, and HRD, as represented by its academic association, the Academy of Human Resource Development, is compared to a set of criteria of a discipline that is set forth in the scholarly literature. A seminal foundation for a curriculum of the HRD discipline is presented around the framework of people, learning, and organizations.