To Lyle Yorks, Associate Professor of Adult and Continuing Education at TC, human resource development is the key to creating and sustaining high-performance organization-and to managing workplace change in the 21st century.

In his new book, Strategic Human Resource Development, Yorks says he seeks to "strike a balance between a traditional textbook that reviews the literature and one that is application oriented." Addressing a gap in the literature, he argues that human resource development should focus strongly on learning, particularly in organizations that seek to promote their strategic imperatives to their own workforces. The book also outlines the foundations of HRD practice and summarizes differing perspectives on its role in modern organizations.

The book includes case studies, some written by doctoral students in the Adult Learning and Leadership program. "The book has created a vehicle to give voice to some of the innovative pieces of work these students are doing," he says.

Published Wednesday, Apr. 20, 2005