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Human resource development (HRD) research and practice mostly have focused on performance improvement although HRD fundamentally pursues human development as a whole. The purpose of this study is to conceptualize meaningful work in the context of HRD and provide implications for HRD research and practice.

This study reviewed the literature on topics such as meaningful work, the meaning of work, workplace spirituality, the value of work and work as a calling, to understand the concept of meaningful work. In addition, this study reviewed existing studies on meaningful work in HRD journals to investigate the current status of meaningful work research within the field of HRD. This study reviewed the related literature such as meaningful work, the meaning of work, workplace spirituality, the value of work and work as a calling, to understand the concept of meaningful work. In addition, this study reviewed the existing studies on meaningful work in HRD journals to investigate the current status of meaningful work research in HRD.

The findings of this study identified three main themes in conceptualizing meaningful work, namely, positivity; significance and purpose; and human fulfillment. The authors also suggest that the meaningful work discourse in HRD expands a research boundary of HRD and enables a holistic approach to HRD research and practice.

For future research, the authors recommend that HRD research deepens its understanding of meaningful work and its related concepts. They also recommend studies pursuing empirical evidence to reveal the significance of meaningful work.

Given the limited studies on meaningful work in HRD and a lack of understanding of meaningful work, this study proposes a comprehensive understanding of meaningful work, especially within the HRD context. This study also suggests a holistic approach to HRD by stressing a humanistic perspective beyond the performance-oriented HRD.

The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore how highly educated women respond to career chance events in a Korean context where traditional cultural values and male-dominated organizational culture coexist.

The authors conducted 50 semi-structured interviews with highly educated women operationalized as women with doctoral degrees in and out of Korea. The authors used a collaborative research process with a team of ten Korean-born researchers who have built consensus on research themes through discussions on the collection and analysis of a large data set, thus reducing the researcher bias issue inherent in qualitative research.

In an analysis of the interview data collected, the authors report on three themes: before obtaining a doctoral degree, during and after their doctoral study and responses (coping strategies) to chance events in their careers. Highly educated women’s pursuing a doctoral degree was a way to maintain work–life balance in Korea where women are expected to take a primary caregiver role. After obtaining a doctoral degree, participants struggled with limited job opportunities in the male-dominated higher education. Women’s unplanned and unexpected chance events are intertwined with the male-dominated culture in Korea, and career interruptions as such a chance event, whether voluntary or involuntary, happened largely due to family reasons. In this context, highly educated women responded to chance events largely at individual and family levels and articulated the need for support at organizational and government levels.

The study findings confirm the literature that women’s careers are limited by traditional family roles in non-Western countries where strong patriarchal culture is prevalent. Particularly, women’s career interruptions surfaced as a critical chance event that either disrupts or delays their careers largely because of family issues. Future research is called for to identify both individual and contextual factors that influence women’s decisions on voluntary and involuntary career interruptions as their responses to chance events.

Based on highly educated women’s coping strategies largely at individual and family levels, we suggest national human resource development policies put in place not to lose out on the opportunity to develop highly educated women with doctoral degrees as a quality workforce for a nation’s sustainable economic growth. Additionally, organizations need to be aligned with the government policies and programs for the provision of developmental programs for women in the workplace, beginning with highly educated women’s career planning, while creating organizational culture to promote gender equality as a long-term goal.

The participants’ voluntary career breaks helped them care for their children, be involved in their children’s education, reflect on work–life balance after having long hours of work for many years and move forward with personal satisfaction. Voluntary career breaks can be understood as highly educated women’s unique way of responding to chance events.

The purpose of this study is to reveal how research on brain-based learning (BBL) addressing adult learners’ education and training issues has contributed to the overall knowledge base linking neuroscience, adult education and human resource development (HRD) research and practices. Through this comprehensive review of the BBL studies, this paper aims to expand the landscape of understanding educational phenomenon in adult education and organizational settings using the lens of neuroscience.

Using the content analysis method, this study extracts key research themes and methodological choices from the body of BBL studies. In addition, this paper explores the relationships and proximity among key concepts of BBL research using keyword network analysis. For data analysis, this study reviews the current literature on BBL addressing both adult education and HRD topics from 1985 to 2019.

The findings of this study provide a clearer picture of the potential mechanisms of BBL approaches observed in the literature of adult education and HRD. What has been found from the thematic analysis is that addressing misconceptions about the neuroscience of learning is regarded as an important topic. In terms of the methodological approaches, the literature review was a dominantly used method, whereas experimental or quantitative research has yet to be fully performed. Influential keywords and topics obtained from the keyword network analysis reveal the primary foci and structural patterns of current BBL research.

This study makes a significant contribution to theories and research in adult education and HRD scholarship as it provides an integrative view of key research themes and major issues about BBL. Additionally, our findings offer practical insights for adult educators and HR professionals to successfully apply neuroscientific approaches.

Global gender diversity and equality indexes have been developed to promote gender diversity and equality at the country level, but it is difficult to see how those indexes are applied to organizations on a daily basis. The purpose of this study is to examine the application of environmental, social and governance (ESG) measures for gender diversity and equality at the organizational level in a Korean context.

Based on the institutional theory, the authors reviewed ESG measures for gender diversity and equality of women funds in four countries (USA, Canada, UK and Japan) and examined The Women Fund in Korea through document analysis and interviews.

ESG measures in four countries’ women funds mainly assessed the percentage of women in the workforce, on boards and in leadership positions. In The Women Fund, gender diversity indicators consider the ratio of female to male employees, while gender equality indicators take into account gaps of male and female salaries and positions. This study’s impact analysis indicates that the companies invested in by The Women Fund had higher return on assets and return on equity than those without the fund.

Although women funds explored in this study exemplify the use of ESG measures to apply global gender diversity and equality indexes at the organizational level, research is needed to examine ESG measures and women funds and their associations. Possible topics include what needs to be measured in ESG, who should be involved, how ESG measures should be applied, what outcomes of using ESG measures would ensue in organizations and how ESG measures relate to regional and global gender diversity.

In promoting ESG measures that apply global gender diversity and equality at the organizational level, human resource development practitioners, as change agents, can help organizations develop socially responsible and ethical behaviors and transform organizational culture, practice and systems, which may influence organizations’ long-term survival and development as well as financial performance.

As the government’s support and policies guide and drive firms to develop and implement initiatives and programs, the launch and implementation of gender diversity and equality at the organizational level in the form of women funds require a certain level of collaboration between the government and the private sector.

This study on the application of ESG measures for global gender diversity and equality at the organizational level in the form of women funds is timely to engage organizations in dialogue regarding what needs to be done to promote women’s participation and leadership roles in organizations in Korea and other countries.

The purpose of this study was to compare South Korean female executives’ definitions of career success with those of male executives, identify their career development strategies for success and provide implications for research and practice. Two research questions guiding our inquiry included: How do female executives’ definitions of career success differ from those of male executives? What career development strategies do male and female executives use for career success?

A basic qualitative research design was used and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 male executives and 15 female executives in diverse corporations by using an interview protocol of 13 questions regarding participants’ background, definitions of career success and final thoughts. To analyze the interview data, we used both NVivo 11 and a manual coding method.

Gender differences were detected in the participants’ definitions of career success and success factors. As previous studies indicated, male and female executives had different perspectives on career success: men tended to define career success more objectively than women. Many male executives, through experiencing transforming changes in their careers, began to appreciate work–life balance and personal happiness from success. Gender differences were also detected in their career development challenges, meanings of mentors and networking activities. While work stress surfaced as a challenge that men faced, experiencing the token status in the gendered workplace was a major challenge for female participants.

In this study, three research agendas are presented, needing further investigation on career success, women’s token status and comparative analyses.

Three implications for practice have been provided, including organizational support, government’s role and HRD’s role.

Gender differences in this study were not as distinctive as previous literature has indicated. Some male executives valued more subjective career success than others, while a few female executives spoke of more objective definitions than others. These subtle differences could be captured through in-depth interviews. By hearing the participants’ stories, both objective and subjective definitions of success, for both genders, could be observed, which might not have been possible in quantitative research. In addition, the study findings reflect the nature of a uniquely Korean context. The participants worked in a Confucian and military culture, which operates in hierarchical structures and the command and control system, coupled with a heightened camaraderie spirit in the workplace.

Vegetarian diets are increasingly common worldwide. Vegetarianism is no longer just related to food, but rather it evokes a deeper meaning, such as environmental sustainability and animal welfare. In Western cultures, many studies have examined how vegetarians' motivations relate to animal welfare, health and environmentalism. However, there is little research in this area in Asia, especially in South Korea, despite a growing number of vegetarians. This study identifies the hierarchical value maps (HVMs) of vegetarians to clarify why people choose to become vegetarians and investigates the negative aspects of these dietary types.

The authors conducted in-depth, one-to-one laddering interviews with 33 vegetarians in South Korea based on the means-end chain theory. The laddering technique is a qualitative approach to determining connections between attributes, consequences and values.

Vegetarians tend to value an ethical lifestyle, sustainable future, ecological circulation, responsibility for nature, respect for life, respect for the weak and quality of life. HVM differs slightly among groups by the type of vegetarianism (vegan vs non-vegan vegetarians) and sex (females vs males). The most dominant cognitive structures toward vegetarian diets were “meat-free,” “no factory farming,” and “plant-based” (attributes); “health,” “environment-friendly” and “animal-friendly” (consequences); and “quality of life,” “ethical life,” and “sustainable future” (values).

This study offers insights into the motivations of Korean vegetarians, and they are not culturally different from those of Westerners as they relate to animals, the environment and health.

As the risks associated with sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) increase, various policies require sugar to be reduced in beverages. This paper segmented consumers according to food-related lifestyle (FRL), analyzed beverage selection attributes and preference for sugar-reduced beverages (SRBs) for each group and presented basic data for the strategies of SRBs for each consumer group.

In total, 1,000 Korean consumer panels responded to the online survey. The questionnaire consisted of FRL, beverage selection attributes and attitude toward SRBs.

Consumer groups were divided according to FRL: rational, value seeking and careless consumer. Rational consumers tended to be in their 30s or 50s and women, and they focused on product quality/hygiene when choosing beverages. Value seeking consumers were mainly in their 40s and 50s and were characterized by high education and income. They showed high scores in quality/hygiene, economy and sensory traits. Careless consumers were more likely to be in their 20s–30s, unmarried men and considered sensory traits as the most important factor.

The main limitation of this study is the lack of generalization of consumer panels to represent the entire population because they were part of an online research firm.

This study implies that segmenting consumers according to FRL allows detailed analysis of consumer attitudes and behaviors. Using this analysis, the complex consumer pattern can be used as basic data for promoting sugar-reduced beverages.

This study examined both American and Korean consumers’ motivation to share marketer-generated content (MGC) on Facebook and how these motives are related to the frequency of various types of sharing activities and the frequency of sharing various types of MGC.

An online survey was conducted in the US and Korea.

The findings demonstrated that both American and Korean consumers share MGC for several reasons: liking/helping the brand, self-presentation/social interaction, economic rewards, and entertainment. In addition to these four motivations, Korean consumers also share MGC with others to offer information that may be of use to them. These different types of motivations were associated with the frequency of sharing MGC directly from Facebook brand pages, of re-sharing what Facebook friends shared first, of adding comments when sharing, and of sharing different types of MGC differently. We found similarities and differences in the patterns of these relationships between the US and Korea.

Although many studies on electronic word of mouth (eWOM) have examined consumers’ motivations for providing consumer-generated content, research on consumer motivations to forward marketer-generated content is scarce. Additionally, earlier work examined the influences of motivation on sharing in general and on a certain type of MGC. Our findings that focused on various types of motivations to share MGC, and their influences on various types of MGC and specific types of sharing activities can provide a more complete picture than what was previously available in the eWOM literature. Further, by comparing American consumers’ motivations to share MGC on SNSs and their influences on sharing activities with those of Korean consumers, this study contributes to building a body of cross-cultural studies on consumer sharing of MGC.

In Virginia, former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder accused the state’s library agency of racism for “its slow pace in processing and publicly presenting records from his tenure as the nation’s first elected Black governor” (Associated Press, 2020). The State Librarian responded that this was just a lapse in protocols and framed it as a budget issue and staff turnover. However, “Library of Virginia has been processing papers from his gubernatorial successors before finishing work on his” (Associated Press, 2020). Recently, the Alabama State Department of Archives and History acknowledged their participation in systemic racism, epistemicide, and their history of privileging White voices over those of Alabama African-Americans.

Epistemicide is the killing, silencing, annihilation, or devaluing of a way of knowing (Patin, Sebastian, Yeon, & Bertolini, 2020). Conceptualization and analytic application of epistemicide has an established tradition in a number of social science fields, but information scientists have only recently acknowledged epistemicide (Oliphant, 2021; Patin et al., 2020; Patin, Sebastian, Yeon, Bertolini, & Grimm, 2021). Building from our recent identification of the existence of epistemicide within the IS field (Patin et al., 2020), this work challenges the information field to become an epistemologically just space working to correct the systemic silencing of certain ways of knowing.

This chapter examines the four types of epistemic injustices—testimonial, hermeneutical, participatory, and curricular—occurring within libraries and archives and argues for a path forward to address these injustices within our programs, services, and curricula. It looks to digital humanities and to reevaluations of professional standards and LIS education to stop epistemicide and its harms. This chapter demonstrates how to affirm the power and experience of Black lives and highlight their experiences through the careful acquisition, collection, documentation, and publishing of relevant historical materials. Addressing epistemicide is critical for information professionals because we task ourselves with handling knowledge from every field. There has to be a reckoning before the paradigm can truly shift; if there is no acknowledgment of injustice, there is no room for justice.

Despite the importance of incorporating social media with customer relationship management (CRM), the implementation of social CRM is still in its initial stages for a majority of green brands. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether consumers’ perception-based factors of the online CRM tactics through social media (i.e. perceived marketer-dominated information quality, perceived interaction quality, and perceived service content quality in social media) offered by the green brand were related to the perceived customer retention orientation (CRO) of the green fashion retailer, which was related to patronage intention towards the green retailer, and the moderating effect of green consciousness on the link between perceived CRO of the green retailer and patronage intention.

Data were collected from social media users (n=631) using a consumer panel via an online survey. Structural equation modelling was employed to test the proposed model and research hypotheses.

This study found that the perceived CRO of the green retailer was positively related to patronage intention. The perceived marketer-dominated information quality and perceived service content quality in social media were positively related to the perceived CRO of the green retailer. Green consciousness moderated the link between perceived CRO and patronage intention.

First, this study contributes to the further theoretical understanding of the underlying factors that influence customer perception of the CRO of the green retailer and green patronage intention. Second, on a managerial level, this proposed model provides green retailers with beneficial insights into the development of successful social CRM.