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The problem and the solution. Synthesizing findings from five selected case studies reflective of high-transitioning countries in the developing world, this article proposes a number of comparative discoveries about the necessary role and nature of national human resource development in this context. One such discovery is the influence of the political, economic, and sociocultural environments on the necessary nature and role of national human resource development in each country. A second is that context and intent shape and inform what makes for responsible human resource development. Another is that discoveries from this and other studies suggest emerging models and necessary attributes, components, and dimensions useful for informing an integrative and collaborative theoretical and sense-making framework for future study and practice of national human resource development. These and other discoveries pose numerous challenges to the human resource development profession-challenges that will require fundamental reperceiving by its professionals.
Keywords: national human resource development (NHRD); human resource development (HRD); developing world; theoretical foundations; HRD strategy; global HRD (GHRD)
I am convinced that the introduction of the notion of human development has been one of the most significant contributions, in recent times, to the development efforts of the international community.
-Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Former President of Brazil (HDR, 2005,¶ 1)
It is the purpose of this article not to repeat what has been presented in each of the preceding articles but, rather, to glance across these national cases and use the resulting insights to build on what we already know about the emergence and nature of human resource development (HRD) at the national level (national human resource development [NHRD]; McLean, 2004), specifically in the context of the developing world. In doing so, we highlight striking similarities (and one or two dissimilarities) in the historical and current environments influencing the study and practice of NHRD in these nation-cases. We underscore that context and purpose indeed do and must make a difference (Lee, 2001 ; McLean & McLean, 2001) to the aims, ideals, and methods that inform the thought and practice of HRD (Ruona & Lynham, 2004), and we propose an interconnected layering of the construction of HRD that accommodates these differences in boundaries of practice and study. We confer with Cho and McLean's (2004) suggestion of "five emerging...