ABSTRACT Leadership aspiration is not simply a product of ambition or capability, but a dynamic, context‐sensitive phenomenon shaped by how individuals understand leadership and whether pursuing it feels feasible, meaningful, and sustainable. Using phenomenographic analysis of semi‐structured interviews with 23 employees and drawing on Leadership Identity Development Theory and Social Cognitive Career Theory, we identified four themes shaping aspiration: leadership conceptualization, self‐efficacy and identity, outcome expectations, and contextual enablers and constraints. These themes constitute an outcome space mapping the qualitatively distinct ways leadership aspiration is experienced and structured. A central finding is that what may appear as withdrawal or career plateauing often reflects intentional recalibration—an agentic renegotiation of the scope and conditions of leadership pursuit in response to contextual realities and identity alignment. Human resource development practitioners should foster inclusive messaging, flexible development opportunities, and relational supports that accommodate the diverse ways individuals navigate leadership aspiration.
ABSTRACT Reviewing is the science and art of scholarly judgment, which forms a core pillar of knowledge production. Generative artificial intelligence (AI) poses a risk to this judgment during the review process. Evidence from outside HRD shows that AI‐assisted reviews are generally more lenient and converge on one another. This editorial develops reviewer‐facing guidance for human resource development (HRD) by identifying three points at which AI might enter the review process: the transmission of the manuscript, the expression of the report, and the formation of judgment. Transmission is prohibited across nearly all current policies; expression may be assisted and disclosed; and judgment must remain the reviewer's own. The argument we make here rests on research into cognitive offloading and expertise, and therefore on what a reviewer loses by delegating parts of this process to AI. We close with a research agenda to explore the potential for responsible AI use in reviewing.
This study extends Conservation of Resources (COR) theory by examining how perceived hierarchical threats experienced by supervisors cascade through dyadic relationships to shape subordinates' career self-management. COR posits that resources are embedded within social passageways-relationships that enable or constrain their flow. Drawing on this logic, we conceptualize supervisor-subordinate dyads as resource passageways through which resource threats can cross over from one actor to another. Using time-lagged, multi-source data from 233 supervisor-subordinate dyads, we find that supervisors who feel their hierarchical position threatened engage in knowledge hiding as a resource-conserving behavior, restricting subordinates' access to developmental resources. This defensive behavior produces a crossover effect: resource loss for supervisors triggers resource depletion for subordinates, prompting compensatory self-management strategies. Specifically, subordinates high in status striving respond with careerist behaviors aimed at preserving external advancement resources, whereas those high in achievement striving adopt protean, self-directed approaches to replenish internal resources. By extending COR beyond its traditional individual-level application, this study illuminates how resource protection and loss spirals unfold relationally, offering a resource-based explanation for divergent career orientations. The findings underscore the importance of HR systems and leadership development initiatives that mitigate hierarchical threat perceptions and sustain resource-enabling passageways for employee growth.
