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Critically challenging some assumptions in HRD
Author(s) -
O'Donnell David,
McGuire David,
Cross Christine
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
international journal of training and development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.558
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1468-2419
pISSN - 1360-3736
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-2419.2006.00243.x
Subject(s) - dialectic , scholarship , value (mathematics) , sociology , human capital , perspective (graphical) , human resources , relation (database) , human resource management , capital (architecture) , management , epistemology , economics , economic growth , computer science , philosophy , archaeology , database , machine learning , artificial intelligence , history
This paper sets out to critically challenge five interrelated assumptions prominent in the (human resource development) HRD literature. These relate to: the exploitation of labour in enhancing shareholder value; the view that employees are co‐contributors to and co‐recipients of HRD benefits; the distinction between HRD and human resource management; the relationship between HRD and unitarism; and the relationship between HRD and organizational and learning cultures. From a critical modernist perspective, it is argued that these can only be adequately addressed by taking a point of departure from the particular state of the capital–labour relation in time, place and space. HRD, of its nature, exists in a continuous state of dialectical tension between capital and labour – and there is much that critical scholarship has yet to do in informing practitioners about how they might manage and cope with such tension.