ABSTRACT
It is now recognized within management, organizational behavior and human resource management literatures that the relational component is key to understanding individual, collective and societal behavior. Individuals, groups, processes, and organizations always exist in a relational system and artificially separating a thing (person, process, or group) from its system will produce a flawed understanding (Oshry 1996). The HRD field also recognizes the importance of relationships for HRD research and practice, though the extent of research is still limited (Gubbins and Garavan 2005; Korte 2012; Morton et al. 2004; Storberg-Walker and Gubbins 2007). The emerging challenges facing HRD include developing not only the human capital of organizations, but also the social capital, or the “asset value of human relationships” embedded in the informal structure of the organization (Harrison and Kessels 2004:88).
