Russell Korte

Activities & Honors

• Member of Board of Directors: Academy of Human Resource Development, Academy of Human Resource Development, 2010-2013
• The Helen Plants Award, Korte, R. F. & Smith, K. A. (2009) Special Session: Developing the Skills of Philosophical Inquiry for Engineering Educators and Students. Frontiers in Education Conference 2009., Frontiers in Education, 2009-

Research Statement

My interests include investigating and understanding the social dynamics of learning and working in organizations. Recently, I have been studying the socialization and on-boarding experiences of newly hired professionals, engineering and medical students; specifically how they learn the cultural, social, and political norms (i.e., the unwritten rules) of the organizations in which they learn and work. Related to this I have conducted research with the Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education and the Collaborative Research Lab at Stanford University. This work entailed studying the experiences of engineering students as they learned their profession in school. Both of these streams of research indicate the primacy of social systems in forming workers' and students' knowledge and practices. My long-term interests focus on developing a better understanding and explanation of the effects of social systems in the workplace and in higher education.

Publications

• Korte, R. (2012). Exploring the social foundations of Human Resource Development: A theoretical framework for research and practice. Human Resource Development Review. 11(1), 6-30.
• Korte, R. (2011). Learning how things work here: The socialization of newcomers in organizations. In Poell, R.F. & M. Van Woerkom. (Eds.) Supporting workplace learning. Dordrecht: Springer.
• Korte, R. (2010). First, get to know them: A relational view of organizational socialization. Human Resource Development International, 13(1), 27-43.
• Korte, R. F. (2009). How newcomers learn the social norms of an organization through relationships: A case study of the socialization of newly hired engineers. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 20(3), 285-306.
• Korte, R. F. (2007). A review of social identity theory with implications for training and development. Journal
  of European Industrial Training, 31(3), 166-180.
• Korte, R. F., & Chermack, T. J. (2007) Changing organizational culture with scenario planning. Futures, (39), 645-656.
• Korte, R. F. (2003). Biases in decision making and implications for human resource development. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 5(4), 440-457.

In The News

'Social capital' key to workers' success on the job, according to study by Russell Korte and Shumin Lin Apr. 10, 2013 APRIL 9, 2013, UI NEWS BUREAU, CHAMPAIGN, Ill., Sharita Forrest — The quality of the social relationships that newly hired people develop with other employees in their work groups is critical to newcomers’ job satisfaction, learning their responsibilities and their ability to fit in to the workplace culture, a new study suggests. Read more...