An Analysis of Award-Winning Refereed Articles From the Journals Sponsored by the Academy of Human Resource Development

The purpose of this study was to examine the citation frequency and key themes of award-winning refereed journal articles from the journals sponsored by the AHRD. The research questions guiding the study were: (1) How many awarded articles were cited? and (2) What key themes/trends emerged over time among award-winning articles? Data were collected from 86 award-winning referred articles published from 2002 to 2013 in the four HRD journals, including ADHR, HRDI, HRDR, and HRDQ. The findings included (1) that the article about supervisory coaching behavior by Ellinger, Ellinger, and Keller (2003) in HRDQ was the most frequently cited (174), and (2) that learning is a common theme across the four journals. Action learning, employee engagement, leadership, mentoring, employee/job satisfaction, and training were common themes between two journals. The implications and limitations are discussed, along with recommendations for future research.