Leadership, learning, & human development
I research human development, global leadership, and the changing nature of work, with deep roots in Southeast Asia.
I'm Associate Professor of Leadership and Human Resource Development at Louisiana State University, Visiting Professor at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok (2025–2026). My work brings the lens of adult learning and human development to questions of leadership and the changing nature of work, across organizations, institutions, and cultural contexts.
Featured book
A Holistic Framework for the ASEAN Community
Palgrave Macmillan, 2021
The first systematic framework for understanding human resource development at the regional level in Southeast Asia. Argues that ASEAN's HRD ecosystem is a complex adaptive system shaped by the ASEAN Way of musjawarah and mufakat — deliberation and consensus.
Bangkok Skyline
Bangkok, at dusk
What I work on
My scholarship moves between regional comparative work, the development of leaders and adults across cultures, and the rapidly shifting nature of work itself.
Comparative work across the ASEAN 11 on how nations build human capability — through institutions, education systems, leadership, and culture. The regional context generates dynamics that single-country research and Western frameworks regularly miss.
Leadership development and adult learning as developmental, transformative processes — especially in complex cross-cultural settings and in service of paradox, ambiguity, and change.
Workplace learning under digitalization, remote and hybrid work, and emerging employment arrangements — including gig economies, AI-augmented work, and what it means to develop a worker now.
Recent scholarship
A handful of papers that capture where the work is going. The full record lives on the publications page.
01
Human Resource Development Review
Crocco, O. S., Mohd Rasdi, R., & Garavan, T. N. (2026). Responsible AI in non-empirical research: Guidance for authors, reviewers, and editors in HRD.
Offers authors, reviewers, and editors clear guidance on when using AI tools in review and conceptual research is acceptable, questionable, or off-limits.
doi.org/10.1177/1534484326144553102
Human Resource Development International, 28(4), 543–566
Crocco, O. S., Aroonsri, P., & Isna, N. (2025). Communicating a vision for human resource development in Southeast Asia: A thematic analysis of the speeches of ASEAN secretaries-general.
Reads 132 speeches by three ASEAN secretaries-general to trace how their words shaped who counts in developing Southeast Asia's workforce, and why.
doi.org/10.1080/13678868.2024.244108903
Journal of Workplace Learning, 36(1), 77–95
Aroonsri, P., & Crocco, O. S. (2024). Workplace learning and information exchange among gig workers: Crowdsourcing and the social media advantage.
Gig workers in Thailand, shut out of formal training, use social media groups to teach each other the job, often helping rivals even when it costs them.
doi.org/10.1108/JWL-03-2023-004904
Human Resource Development International, 25(1), 40–58
Crocco, O. S., & Tkachenko, O. (2022). Regional human resource development: The case of Southeast Asia and ASEAN.
Examines how Southeast Asian nations build human capability together through ASEAN, and names and defines a new concept: regional human resource development.
doi.org/10.1080/13678868.2020.185826105
European Journal of Training and Development, 45(4/5), 436–448
Crocco, O. S., & Cseh, M. (2021). Learning, development, and change in a community-based enterprise in Myanmar.
When members of a community enterprise in Myanmar brought back what they learned in a training program, that shared learning helped drive large-scale change.
doi.org/10.1108/EJTD-12-2019-0198Get in touch
I'm available to collaborate on research with scholars and practitioners working on similar questions. I am also open to speak, conduct workshops, or provide journalistic comment.