An increasing number of studies report more similarities than differences in leadership styles between women and men. However, the evident vertical gender segregation at top management levels still remains a common phenomenon for various organizations. This consistent disparity needs to be addressed by identifying the underlying mechanism embedded in organizational structures that portrays women as less suitable for senior leadership positions than their male counterparts, although evidence suggests that there is no substantial gender difference in leadership styles or behaviors. This conceptual review articulates the deeply rooted gendered social status of organizations by delineating conceptual constructs and relationships regarding women's delayed advancement to senior leadership positions. The resulting model further implies that the gendered social status associated with women could compromise the effectiveness of human resources development (HRD) interventions initially developed to help women. This understanding prompts reexamination of existing HRD interventions to support women's career advancement to senior leadership positions in organizations.

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the fundamental process through which transformational leaders play a significant role in employees’ knowledge sharing by investigating mediating roles of individual affects, particularly psychological empowerment, organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Design/methodology/approach Structural equation modeling, including confirmatory factor and path analysis, is conducted to test proposed hypothesis. Findings The results of this study indicate significant direct effects of transformational leadership on psychological empowerment, organizational commitment and OCB. Moreover, transformational leadership also shows an indirect effect on employees’ OCB, which, in turn, is identified as the primary factor that influences knowledge sharing. However, organizational commitment does not provide a significant influence on knowledge sharing. These findings highlight the importance of mediating roles, particularly OCB, to predict employees’ knowledge-sharing intention. Originality/value Identifying structural determinants of knowledge sharing is an important scholarly agenda. In particular, the mechanisms and processes by which leadership exerts influence to motivate employees to share knowledge deserve scholarly inquiry, and there, is a need for more research to understand the mechanisms and processes through which leadership influences individual motivation and attitudes toward pro-social behaviors, such as knowledge sharing.

A lack of empirical research on career decision-making experience of doctoral students prevents them from developing relevant career competencies to achieve desired career goals. Understanding career experiences and diverse career needs of doctoral students is crucial to better prepare them for varied career paths inside and outside academia. Grounded in social cognitive career theory’s career self-management model, we investigated the association of the personal and contextual factors of doctoral students with their career decision making. To gain a comprehensive understanding of career choices of doctoral students, comparisons are made between academic and beyond academic career groups. Data were collected from 313 doctoral candidates from a research-oriented public university located in the U.S. Midwest. The results of logistic regression analysis show significant associations between career support, marital status, and major and career choice of doctoral students. Implications for graduate education to support doctoral students for diverse career paths are discussed.

Human resource development is known to encapsulate a collection of social science disciplines including communications, psychology, and economics. Since these and other similar areas are the cornerstones of HRD, the changing nature of HRD demands constant reflections on the value and building blocks of contemporary HRD inquiries. This article presents a citation analysis of articles published in Human Resource Development Quarterly from 2007 to 2013 to provide an overview of the various disciplines contributed to contemporary HRD research. A total of 5,807 citations were reviewed. An analysis of the citations was conducted to identify the most frequently cited articles, major themes, and contributing fields to HRD. Psychology remains to be a prominent building block to current HRD research while the presence of other major disciplines such as economics and systems theory was not evident. Further details of key findings, implications of this study for research and practice, and limitation of this study are discussed. Human resource development is known to encapsulate a collection of social science disciplines including communications, psychology, and economics. Since these and other similar areas are the cornerstones of HRD, the changing nature of HRD demands constant reflections on the value and building blocks of contemporary HRD inquiries. This article presents a citation analysis of articles published in Human Resource Development Quarterly from 2007 to 2013 to provide an overview of the various disciplines contributed to contemporary HRD research. A total of 5,807 citations were reviewed. An analysis of the citations was conducted to identify the most frequently cited articles, major themes, and contributing fields to HRD. Psychology remains to be a prominent building block to current HRD research while the presence of other major disciplines such as economics and systems theory was not evident. Further details of key findings, implications of this study for research and practice, and limitation of this study are discussed.