Critical Thinking in Human Resource Development

Carole Elliott, Sharon Turnbull

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• Topic: Business
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134332045
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

This book provides a reflexive critique of the assumptions of orthodox HRD research and practice and questions the conception of humans as resources, as well as the conventional performative focus of HRD. Examining the broader social, political and economic contexts, the book offers alternative perspectives for considering both the needs of individuals and the sustainable development of organizations in post-industrial economies.

1 Critical thinking in Human Resource Development: An introduction

Carole Elliott and Sharon Turnbull

Over recent years there has been a growing interest by a number of researchers regarding the aims and purpose of HRD theory and practice. Many of these researchers have practical and theoretical roots in other areas, and have demonstrated a concern to challenge traditional notions of HRD practice, particularly that which is characterised by the performance metaphor. To confine HRD theory and practice to the strictures imposed by a particular financial management framework is, critical researchers would argue, to condemn HRD to a minor functional role whose specificity renders it incapable of moving beyond the boundaries of any one organisation. Many authors now argue that HRD must become more strategic (Walton, 1999; Grieves, 2003), that it is not a ‘sub-set’ of HRM (Stewart and McGoldrick, 1996) and that it must reflect more critically on, for example, its emotional (e.g. Turnbull, 1999) and ethical (e.g. Hatcher and Lee, 2003) impact, as well as its broader political (e.g. Vince, 2003), historical–cultural (e.g. Stead and Lee, 1996) and historical–political (e.g. Hamblett and Thursfield, 2003) contexts.

There is, therefore, now the development of a significant body of work within HRD that might broadly be described as critical. In relation to its disciplinary status, certainly in the UK context, obvious links can be made to the ‘critical turn’ in management studies. Due to UK HRD’s location in business and management schools many HRD authors, whom we would describe as critical, also work within the critical management studies area. We are examples of this ourselves, oscillating between HRD and management studies conferences and texts. However, despite the influence of the critical turn in management studies on HRD in the UK, HRD has nevertheless neither been subject to the same degree of critical scrutiny as management and organisation studies, nor has it gathered together a significant mass of followers that might constitute it as a ‘movement’ in its own right.

With this observation in mind, we ran an ‘Innovative Session’ at the 2002 annual Academy of HRD (AHRD) conference called ‘Critical Thinking in HRD’. This began with presentations from an international panel of researchers who each gave their individual perspective on the characteristics and attributes of critically informed HRD research, and was followed by a lively and creative discussion involving panellists and session participants. Many of the presenters and participants in that session are contributors to this edited collection, which we believe, constitutes the first collection of critical HRD texts.

Being critical in HRD

The chapters forming this book draw on a number of theoretical perspectives to inform their examination of concerns that have both a practical and theoretical interest. The variety of perspectives drawn upon by the authors reflects the critical turn’s refusal to search for theoretical commensurability, and range from post-sructuralism to depth psychology, from critical theory to theology. Within the broader setting of critical approaches to management and organisation studies can be found researchers influenced by numerous epistemological positions such as postmodern, poststructuralist, post-Marxist, feminist and postcolonial as well as those whose critiques are predominantly influenced by the Frankfurt school of Critical Theory. Inevitably, ontological differences exist between researchers working from within such a range of perspectives, but what the chapters here have in common is a concern to question HRD’s ‘taken-for-granteds’. A critical perspective on HRD therefore does not assume that HRD’s raison d’être consists solely to provide tools and methods principally designed to improve organisational performance. Taking a critical perspective involves researchers in the questioning and examination of HRD practices that are generally regarded as a ‘good thing’. As Linda Perriton notes, organisations that provide training and development are automatically perceived as virtuous because learning is seen as intrinsically good. Little consideration, however, is given either to the ethical position that ensues for HRD, or to constructions of the learner that emerge from such a philosophical positioning. Similarly, Finian Buckley and Kathy Monks critique many organisations’ use of training and development as a ‘fix-it’ solution for what is often entrenched organisation dysfunction. A high level of staff turnover may not be due to employees lacking necessary skills, which can be ‘rectified’ by re-training or re-education. Rather, employee dissatisfaction may lie within implicit or explicit organisational structures, policies and strategies.

For us, being critical emphasises the necessity for continuous examination of HRD’s received wisdoms. This book stems from our concerns that the methodological traditions of the majority of HRD research does not allow researchers to engage in studies that challenge its predominantly performative and learning-outcome focus. We see evidence for this in leading publications and journals, as well as the content of AHRD conference proceedings. This book seeks to unpick the assumptions behind the performative orientation that dominates much HRD research by exploring whether this tradition is conducive to what we perceive is the greatest tension in HRD, the struggle to reconcile the needs of the individual with the needs of the employing organisation, the tension between autonomy and community (Elliott and Turnbull, 2003). For example, the emancipatory ideal, sometimes touched upon by those interested in individuals’ aspirations to find spirituality and meaning at work (e.g. Chalofsky, 2001), challenges the performative view. If we are indeed witnessing a turn towards the sacralisation of work by organisations keen to co-opt the creativity and commitment of individual employees to an even greater degree, how does HRD respond to this? The traditional methodological frameworks utilised by HRD scholars, we argue, cannot adequately assess the impact of these moves upon the self. HRD theory, we suggest, subsequently needs to open itself up to, and equip itself with, a broader range of methodological perspectives and theoretical interpretations.

The structure of the book

We have divided the chapters that follow into two sections: theoretical debates and debates on practice. The division is in many ways a forced one, and we discussed at length the positioning of many of the chapters, which could quite comfortably sit in either section. By structuring the book in this way we do not intend to suggest that theory is divorced from practice and vice versa. Inherent to our notion of critical is the recognition that any practice engages a particular form of knowledge, and that theory derives from observations of practice(s). As such, the structure of the book is not intended to support the (artificial) division between objectivism and subjectivism. Rather, critical thinking in HRD seeks to examine the experience of practice, and requires that the theoretical presuppositions taken in these examinations be critically examined themselves.

Debates on practice

The overarching theme of this section, and one that preoccupies many of the writers whose work is included here is the set of issues around reflective practice in HRD and learning. For example, Kiran Trehan and Clare Rigg examine the notion of reflection that has primarily been employed in order to work towards the resolution of organisational problems, and compare this to critical reflection. They introduce the unspoken aspects of critical self-reflection through an analysis of the student experiences of critical reflection whilst undertaking a Masters programme in HRD. In suggesting that reflective practice has been unquestioningly appropriated within HRD, they argue for the examination of political and cultural processes affecting learning and development. They reflect on their concerns as educators about the powerful impact of introducing critical reflection to a post-experience programme, and the potential dissonance that this may unleash. Despite their examination of these concerns they suggest that the emancipatory objective of this approach is at least partially fulfilled, and conclude that the theoretical speculations on the hazards of critical reflection are overly pessimistic.

Russ Vince also examines critical reflection but from the perspective of critical practice and critical practitioners. His ideas are the outcome of what he calls a ‘temporary community’ of ten academics and practitioners, who came together for a two-day period, in order to discuss the future practice of HRD. These critical practitioners see themselves as playing an important role in challenging and examining the way HRD is configured in specific organisation settings. They often find themselves acting in a negotiating capacity, as the interface between powerful interest groups at all organisation levels. They seek to understand how organising avoids and excludes learning, and see HRD as speculative – as creating opportunities rather than seeking to control and regulate.

Clare Rigg develops further these debates by working to understand the relationship between these forms of critical pedagogies and their impact on managers’ practice. Focussing on management education in particular, she concludes that there is not an inevitable link between critical pedagogy and critical management practice. Transformatory learning, whilst often producing individual feelings of empowerment and personal emancipation may not always lead to the broader change at an organisational or societal level to which it often aspires.

Finian Buckley’s and Kathy Monks’ chapter enquires about the implications of adopting management education as a panacea for all organisational ills. Based on a case study of a customised management education programme that took place over one academic year they found that the organisation ascribed problems to individuals, such as the lack of participation by women at senior levels, to women’s perceived competency gaps. However, as Buckley and Monks discovered, the management education intervention was founded on false premises since the problem lay within the organisation’s patriarchal culture, climate and the corresponding structures created and supported by top management.

Sally Sambrook and Jim Stewart draw on a pan-European research project set across seven European countries to form the basis of their chapter. They critically reflect on their experiences of researching in a cross-cultural context, as well as examining the concepts of HRD, learning organisations and lifelong learning. The chapter provides reflections on the possibilities of researching HRD, particularly in collaborative and comparative research projects. They highlight issues of interest and relevance to others wishing to adopt critical approaches to the study of HRD.

The chapter by Rob Poell questions the accepted notion of the roles and responsibilities of the HRD function, and suggests instead that HRD is about how workers learn and organisations work. He, therefore, places workers and learners at the heart of the HRD process. In his chapter he proposes an alternative framework for HRD, based on everyday learning and development activities often occurring informally and on an ad hoc basis. This proposed model aims to contribute to debates on critical HRD, by providing a means to discuss learning in organisational contexts as a contested domain heavy with often ignored power issues and conflicts of interest.

Ginny Hardy and Colin Newsham focus on the concept of ‘place’ as a departing point for learning, in order to work towards an alternative critical perspective to HRD practice. Adopting place as a central theme they suggest that connection to place both from an individual and organisational perspective may be a more powerful approach to thinking critically about issues. Highlighting the dangers of tackling organisational contexts as separate from us, and the organisations in which we work, they advocate the immediate connection between our experience of our own place and the immediate connection to the wider environment.

Debates on practice concludes with Monica Lee’s chapter, which draws on personal experiences to critique the role of codes of ethics as a constituent part of the HRD role. She challenges the notion that codes of ethics are problem free and neutral, suggesting that they are inevitably culturally bound, reflecting the values of current society. As a collective statement of responsible behaviour, they are susceptible to reification, are time dependent, and unable to respond to the emotions that are inevitably generated by questions of ethical decisions. She argues for the incorporation of individual difference and flexibility in such codes in order to enable them to develop as ethical practice itself develops.

Theoretical debates

From the chapters forming this section emerges a concern to engage with the self, to examine how it is conceived in organisational constructs and to consider alternative more complex conceptualisations. The chapter by Heather Höpfl argues that conventional patriarchal representations of the organisation reduce the notion of ‘organisation’ to abstract relationships, rational actions and purposive behaviour. These inevitably present themselves as a quest for the good. In this context, she argues, regulation and control are achieved primarily via definition and location. Administration then functions in a very specific sense to establish a notion of ‘good’ order, to establish what is ‘ordinary’ in administrative and managerial practice. In contrast, Höpfl seeks to explore ways in which it is possible to restore the (m)other to the text of organisation, to restore the body. To work towards this, the chapter considers the possibility of a discourse of maternity and moves from this position to examine concepts of matrix reproduction and conditions of exile.

Christina Hughes’s chapter that begins this section questions the assumptions associated with specific concepts, in this case with the perception of human resource development as egalitarian and gender neutral. She suggests that this has happened because the term ‘human’ has replaced more sexist terms such as manpower planning. However, rather than being gender neutral, she argues that major conceptualisations of human resource development are gender blind. In demonstrating that the concept of the human at the centre of discourses of human resource development privileges the masculine subject, she addresses a number of issues. These include an examination of Enlightenment and Cartesian rationality in the development of the humanist subject, and of the concept of the person in humanist discourses. The chapter goes on to present an alternative, post-structuralist understanding of the subject, as one who is constructed through discourse. One consequence of this understanding of the subject as multiply located is that the strive towards more egalitarian workplaces and HRD practices requires practitioners to engage in the tasks of critical literacy.

Peter Kuchinke’s chapter continues the examination of the conceptualisation of the self, its relationship to work, and the subsequent implications this holds for HRD. How the self is constructed is, he argues, of key importance. In the literatures on HRD, HR and management, an instrumental view of personhood predominates and alternative discourses are foreclosed and ignored. This limits understanding, theorising and practical application. To begin to counter this, Kuchinke explores alternative theories of the self through an examination of developments in classic and postmodern philosophy and social science. He then goes on to address the implications this holds for HRD in both theory and practice. A more philosophically informed understanding of the subject he concludes has the potential to broaden HRD’s range of options. This might include the possibility to create more humane workplaces, and a conception of HRD in line with the notion of the German idea of Bildung whose ideal encompasses a more general goal of education or self-development in the context of social institutions.

John Dirkx also problematises modernist assumptions present within the discourses of workplace learning such as rationality, and the progressive accumulation of knowledge and skill. He challenges these notions through reference to work informed by depth psychology, theology and postmodern thought, proposing an alternative ‘discourse of desire’. This discourse allows a conceptualisation of our sense of self that acknowledges the ways in which it is bound up in the process of making meaning in work, and that it is a process fraught with uncertainty, contradiction and paradox. Dirkx observes that individuals’ search for meaning in work is not served well by workplace learning programmes that continue to conceptualise their efforts within functional, performance-based and instrumental frameworks. He concludes by suggesting some implications for HRD practice, including the development of more constructivist perspectives on workplace learning, that engage workers more fully in determining their learning needs.

Linda Perriton’s chapter concludes this section and challenges the idea that development should necessarily be considered a ‘good thing’. Coupled with the adage that ‘you can never have enough of a good thing’ this has, she argues, been reflected in the lack of engagement with questions surrounding the moral and ethical boundaries of development. Her concern is to redress some of the neglect shown to these issues, and she does so by exploring eighteenth century ideas of sensibility and their applicability to some of the approaches to HRD in the twenty-first century. With reference to examples of HRD interventions, she questions whether HRD hasn’t abandoned sense for sensibility in some contemporary and development practices and philosophies.

We conclude the book with a discussion of the socio-political implications of the processes and content of HRD interventions in different contexts. We conclude that programmes designed to empower and transform may lead to unintended outcomes relating to identity and participants’ political responses, as a result of a lack of reflexivity in respect of pedagogic methods.

The chapters in this book have provoked a number of important issues for HRD practice and have provided a challenge to mainstream HRD theory. By drawing on a broad range of disciplines we have been able to re-conceptualise some of the age-old debates in HRD, and this has opened up further questions for future critical researchers. These might include, for example, further critical study of our HRD interventions, our understanding of work and the nature of organisations, the values inherent in organisational structures and practices and the meaning of ‘emancipation’, ‘motivation’ and ‘self-actualisation’. This also suggests the need for a wider variety of methodological frameworks such as critical discourse analysis, poststructural or narrative analysis. Within this new research agenda we also propose a greater recognition of the socio-political and economic conditions within which HRD must necessarily operate.

References

Chalofsky, N. (2001) (interviewed by Callahan, J. and Ward, D.) ‘A search for meaning: revializing the “human” in human resource development’, Human Resource Development International, 4, 2: 235–42.

Elliott, C. and Turnbull, S. (2003) ‘Reconciling autonomy and community: the paradoxical role of HRD’, Human Resource Development International, 6, 4: 457–74.

Grieves, J. (2003) Strategic Human Resource Development, London: Sage.

Hamblett, J. and Thursfield, D. (2003) ‘Other voices: a short case for the development of an historical dimension to the study of workplace and lifelong learning’, Human Resource Development International, 6, 2: 167–86.

Hatcher, T. and Lee, M. (2003) ‘Ethics and HRD: a new approach to leading responsible organizations’, AHRD International Research Conference, Minneapolis, MN, 27 February–1 March, 2003.

Stead, V. and Lee, M. (1996) ‘Inter-cultural perspectives on HRD’, in J. Stewart and J. McGoldrick (eds) Human Resource Development. Perspectives, Strategies and Practice, London: Pitman.

Stewart, J. and McGoldrick, J. (eds) (1996) Human Resource Development. Perspectives, Strategies and Practice, London: Pitman.

Turnbull, S. (1999) ‘Emotional labour in corporate change programmes: the effects of organizational feeling rules on middle managers’, Human Resource Development International, 2, 2: 125–46.

Vince, R. (2003) ‘The future practice of HRD’, Human Resource Development International, 6, 4: 559–63.

Walton, J. (1999) Strategic Human Resource Development, Harlow, Essex: Pearson Education.

Part I: Debates on practice

2 Beware the unbottled genie: Unspoken aspects of critical self-reflection

Kiran Trehan and Clare Rigg

Introduction

Reflective practice has become almost obligatory within HRD but the instrumental reflections of what did I do, what did I learn, what would I do differently have been found to be limited. In a search for more challenging self-development tools, critical self-reflection has seen considerable recent growth. The field of critical reflection is imbued with hopes of transformational flow from individual learning and development to changes in HRD practice. Critical reflection has been central to definitions of critical management as epitomised, for example, by Reynolds’ (1997) distinction between content radical and process radical pedagogies. Content radicals disseminate radical material, in the sense of crit...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Routledge Studies in Human Resource Development
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Illustrations
• Contributors
• 1 Critical thinking in Human Resource Development: An introduction
• Part I: Debates on practice
• Part II: Theoretical debates