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Community renewable energy has been widely advocated as a mode of implementation of sustainable energy technologies that contrast in various ways from those of public or private sector utilities (Walker & Cass, 2007). Community energy projects have been established in many countries around the world, including various parts of Europe (DTI, 2004; Lauber, 2004; Madlener, 2007), the United States (Hoffman & High-Pippert, 2005, 2009), Australia (Moloney, Horne, & Fien, 2010) and Japan (Maruyama, Nishikido, & Iida, 2007), forming part of a more distributed rather than centralised pattern of energy generation. For Seyfang and Smith (2007) they potentially represent examples of ‘grassroots innovation’, forms of niche-based social experimentation with wider significance for the emergence of forms of transition towards sustainable socio-technical systems (Smith, 2007).

As the first decade of the 21st century drew to a close, the threats associated with economic crises, social inequalities, and human-induced environmental change focused unprecedented attention on global development trajectories. While questions about how the nature and impact of economic growth should be managed have long featured in environmentalist thought, the stark conditions created a new policy landscape of opportunity for alternative development strategies. National governments around the globe began to disseminate policy statements calling for ‘green growth’ and some, for example the United States, even developed stimulus packages aimed at restructuring economies towards a low carbon future. At the same time international non-governmental organisations such as the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) have developed entire initiatives focused on shaping what has come to be termed the ‘green economy’ (UNEP, 2011). Even large multinational corporations, such as Shell and their dialogues mechanism, are engaging with green economy discourses. New partnerships are emerging across governance sectors with Microsoft Corp and UNEP signing an agreement in 2009 to share knowledge collaboratively around green economy issues. In the United States, the BlueGreen Alliance is consolidating activity of labour unions and environmental organisations in order to maximise the number and quality of jobs in the green economy. With such a broad spectrum of actors and interests involved, it is unsurprising that there is no one agreed vision for a green economy. Some argue for development scenarios that promote reduced or no-growth pathways (Scott-Cato, 2009), others see the current crises creating innovation opportunities for new growth in different areas through processes of ‘creative destruction’ (Florida, 2010).

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 paper is to conclude this special issue on innovation in qualitative research by addressing the preceding papers in relation to the work of Human Resource Development (HRD) scholars and scholar-practitioners, consider the implications to the field of HRD and point to additional directions for innovative qualitative approaches. The authors use the term “innovative” to mean either an approach (or technique) that is newly conceived or one that is new to HRD (or little used).

The authors reviewed the papers in the special issue, identified other innovative qualitative approaches from the HRD literature and described briefly additional innovative approaches from other fields to suggest future directions for HRD professionals.

In this review, the authors noted the relatively few approaches to qualitative research that have been used regularly in HRD literature and suggested further innovative approaches that could deepen the understanding of organizations, including narrative, visual and indigenous methods, among others.

This paper provides for HRD scholars an overview of a few qualitative research methodologies that are new to HRD and identifies additional approaches and epistemological challenges that could be valuable for future inquiry into complex organizations by HRD scholars and practitioners.

The authors suggest various feasible approaches and tools for HRD professionals to inquire into their practice in organizations to identify needs, evaluate outcomes and inquire into socially complex issues.

This study’s intent is to encourage the use of various innovative qualitative inquiry approaches when appropriate to understand and transform organizations. In particular, this study encourages the approaches that center the voices and experiences of those being studied and emphasizes the ways of listening to voices from the margins that may have been ignored previously.

The purpose of this study was to investigate South Korean women entrepreneurs’ motivations to start a business, the challenges they faced in business development and key factors that contributed to their career success.

The authors conducted semi-structured interviews with 23 women entrepreneurs to gather qualitative details on their experiences and performed a survey with 125 women Chief Executive Officers who are affiliated with the Korean Venture Business Women’s Association.

The authors found necessity-driven push (e.g. economic necessity for family) and opportunity-based pull (e.g. a strong sense of self) motivational factors, challenges (e.g. gender stereotypes) and opportunities (e.g. creating a family-like organizational culture) and key success factors (e.g. personality and loyal employees) for their career success.

There is a strong need to emphasize the import of culture at the national level that would impact women entrepreneurs’ careers and business success. A majority of the studies on HRD in small- and medium-sized enterprises shed light on individual owners’ perspectives only. Researchers need to take multiple-level (i.e. national, organizational and individual) factors into consideration in research on women’s entrepreneurship. Quantitative analysis in this study did not have any statistical significance and there were a few inconsistent findings (e.g. disadvantage as woman Chief Executive Officers) between quantitative and qualitative analysis. Future research is called for to investigate where and why different results occurred by using a mixed-methods research design and inferential statistical analysis for significance.

The increased support at the national level for entrepreneurship education before and after school that has not received sufficient attention in Korea will allow aspiring women to embark on entrepreneurial career paths from early on. At the organizational level, women entrepreneurs’ efforts to create a family-like organizational culture can be used as references for aspiring women who want to start and develop a business. At the individual level, HRD practitioners can develop leadership programs to share internal and external success factors so that aspiring women entrepreneurs can develop required individual (e.g. personality attributes) and social competencies (e.g. networking) in business development.

The two unique study findings that reflect the importance of cultural context include: our study showed how women entrepreneurs in Korea transformed the challenges they faced in business development into opportunities that can be used for entrepreneurship education for aspiring women entrepreneurs; and women entrepreneurs in Korea were humble enough to ascribe their career and business success to their loyal employees who have stayed in their companies with commitment, which has not been captured in research on women’s entrepreneurship in western contexts.