Considerable attention has been focused on human resource capacity (HRC) development in the South African public service and although significant strides have been made in recent years in some departments, the delivery of meaningful results in others is still lacking. With claims of HRC contributing to underperformance in service delivery, there has recently been an outcry from the public for this issue to be addressed. Concomitant to this, higher education transformation initiatives during the previous decade emphasised the contribution of research towards HRC development. Amongst the research fraternity, however, there are various research approaches towards HRC development, of which only a selected few have proven effective. With a global trend of resources for research becoming limited, higher education institutions (HEIs) cannot continue to afford themselves the luxury of trial and error. In terms of HRC development, it should b