Managerial Imagination

This article analyzes the links between imagination and humanresource management. The concept imagination has received little scholarly attentionwithin the field of management, despite its potential to inform a number of lines ofinquiry. At the present time, much of the research literature on imagination is confinedto the visual arts, literature, and education. Human resource (HR) professionals couldplay a part in aligning employees with organizational goals and bring aboutorganizational change if they developed their thinking in a more imaginative way.Developing managerial imagination can help solve the dilemmas and contradictions theyface. A diagram is developed, which maps the development of the personnel function andoffers four possibilities within a framework. They are biography, personal framing,history, and social structure. The outcome of this analysis provides a development ofthe personnel function one of which is a globally imaginative HR management. Within sucha framework, the concept of “the imaginative performer” is discussed. The implicationsof combining imagination with management may provide a theoretical and practical way tounderstanding HR management