Strategic Intellectual Capital Development: A Defining Paradigm for HRD?

The performance paradigm of human resource development (HRD) prac-tice has served the field well, particularly in enhancing the relevance and impact of HRD interventions. However, in this article, it is argued that the time has come for a new defining paradigm to advance the field of HRD to a higher level of organizational impact. This article proposes that strate-gic intellectual capital development (SICD) should be that new paradigm. The argument for SICD is built by merging two streams of research. First, the development of human capital theory is traced through to its expanded conceptualization of intellectual capital theory. Second, the argument for a strategic approach is built off the strategic human resource management literature. The SICD perspective is offered as a robust and broad concep-tualization that is essential for HRD to provide organizations the intellec-tual horsepower to achieve their strategic objectives