25 January 2010

The Inaugural Lecture of Running Stream Professor Jim Stewart took place on Thursday 21 January 2010 at the Rose Bowl. The theme of Jim Stewart′s lecture was Managing talent and managing diversity: illustrating the ethics of Human Resource Development.

The lecture looked at the ethics of Human Resource Development (HRD) within a business environment, challenging traditional thought and demonstrated how HRD is an ethical and moral endeavour. Through audience participation Jim explored our own levels of subjectivity and ability to manage diversity, highlighting the difficulties and pitfalls involved in treating people the same.

The purpose of Jim′s lecture was to show how HRD can be the driver to achieve change. By understanding the relationship between how we ’Think, Feel and Do‘, we can change our behaviour.


The lecture included very unsubtle (but humorous) use of subliminal images throughout, designed to exaggerate the impact of how we are thinking and feeling, whilst also getting us used to the unexpected.

The closing quote returned to the role of HRD; by substituting the word ’child‘ with student, employee, or learner, an ethical goal can be defined:

’The best gift that can be given to a child is the happiness that comes from being able to cope successfully in a complex world.‘

Patrick Bateson and Paul Martin (2000)

About Jim Stewart
Professor Jim Stewart′s role at Leeds Metropolitan University is threefold firstly, he works with the Institute for Enterprise on researching and evaluating the impact of enterprise education; secondly he leads the HRD and Leadership research group in the Faculty of Business & Law, overseeing recent projects for the LSC, SSDA and NLA and links with Morrisons; finally he works on personal research projects and through that establishes research links outside of Leeds Met including a project on supervisor-student relationships in doctoral programmes and, the subject of his lecture, the connections between managing talent and managing diversity.

Jim Stewart worked first in the retail industry and then local government before becoming an academic. He worked for 15 years at Nottingham Business School prior to joining Leeds Met as Running Stream Professor in HRD. He led design and approval of the DBA in Leeds Business School and recruited and led the first two cohorts as well as establishing agreements with two partner organisations to deliver the DBA to students from Taiwan, Thailand, China and Mauritius.

Jim′s research into and publications on the meaning and practice of HRD have been influential in shaping the subject internationally as well as in the UK. This influence has also been extended by his work with the University Forum for HRD. Jim was a founder member and served for a number of years as Vice Chair for Research, and has been elected Chair of the Forum for the last eight years. He helped to establish the Forum′s highly successful joint European conference with the US based Academy of HRD and was a founding member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the journal Human Resource Development International.

He has a number of national roles with the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and has undertaken with colleagues two major research projects for the Institute. He is also an appointed member of the Advisory Board of the HE Academy BMAF Subject Centre, has acted as advisor on training for PhD supervision to Business Schools in Institutes of Technology in Ireland and is a Visiting Professor at Newcastle Business School.

Jim has carried out research commissioned or funded by the European Commission, UK Government Departments, the NHS, Management Charter Initiative, the ESRC and the Learning and Skills Council and has advised and conducted consultancy for Barclays Bank, Mothercare, Lloyds TSB, the Local Government Training Board and the National School of Government among many other organisations.