Conducting engaged human resource development scholarship with a detached mindset

Abstract

When I received an invitation from the editors of Human Resource Development Quarterly (HRDQ) for writing an article for the journal's 35th Anniversary Forum Series, I was about to finish the publication work for a book titled Engaged Scholarship (Van de Ven, 2007). The book was authored by Andrew Van de Ven, based on his over 30 years teaching and field experience, and it took me almost 10 years to translate the English version to Chinese version. For a classic book such as Engaged Scholarship, which is probably one of the most valuable texts in social sciences, it was a real challenge for me to convert the principles of the engaged scholarship into Chinese language suitable to the particular context, and yet the process of this translation was both joyable and rewarding. Engaged scholarship offers principles and ways to strengthen the oftentimes-tenuous links between theory and practice. The engaged scholarship is particularly valuable for a recent call for indigenous research in the field of human resource development