Abstract
Calls for a critical HRD began appearing in the 2000’s at HRD conferences and in the literature (e.g., Elliott & Turnbull, 2002; Fenwick, 2004). A critical HRD (CHRD) challenges the dominant notion that advancing training and development, career development, and organization development should solely benefit the bottom line and organization. Contrarily, worker wellbeing should not be an afterthought in the work of HRD since we are the field best positioned to advocate for workers, organization health, and workplace justice. Critical HRD questions the performative, shareholder orientation of traditional HRD and critiques its view of workers as commodities, omissions of discussions of power, and failure to provide alternative conceptions of the field that are more inclusive and concerned with social responsibility and sustainability (Bierema 2009; Bierema & D’Abundo, 2004; Fenwick & Bierema, 2008).
The purpose of this guest editorial is to connect this issue’s critically framed articles concerned with critical action research, LGBT careers, and transgender issues to the larger spectrum of CHRD. These articles offer important critiques and fresh perspectives on challenges impacting the margins of both organizations and HRD. Each has answered the call for more research and theory on practices and groups the field has overlooked or perhaps avoided (Gedro, 2013; Schmidt, Githens, Rocco, & Kormanick, 2012).
Overview of Articles
Githens’ article, “Critical Action Research in HRD,” takes a tested organization development model for conducting research in organizations and refocuses it to be more critical. Launching from the standpoint that HRD practice and research is traditionally functionalist (seeking regulation and control of organizations) and interpretive (making deep understandings of local settings without directly influencing larger systems) while largely devoid of radical humanist (seeking potential through transcending existing forms of domination) and radical structuralist (advocating radical changes to social systems to correct social ills) approaches. The CAR approach is not unlike participatory action research inspired by Paulo Freire and Miles Horton that seeks to democratize the learning process and challenge dominant institutions’ control over society. This article provides a framework that draws on the radical humanist standpoint to shift from improving organizational performance in functional and interpretive ways to more critically addressing previously undiscussable issues such as power, politics, class, alternative work structures, sexism, racism, and heterosexism (p. 185). Githens argues that critical action research (CAR) helps ground researchers in practice and prevents elitism.
McFadden’s article, “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Careers and Human Resource Development: A Systematic Literature Review,” scans the business, management and broader social science literature from 1985 to the present on LGBT workers to give more attention to sexual and gender identity. He found increasing academic interest in LGBT issues although noted the relative scarcity of studies about this population in the management literature. The article is presented according to the themes of the literature: identity, sexual orientation discrimination, career/identity overlap, and social issues. McFadden calls for more research and offers recommendations for practice.
The final article in this series, “The Problem of Transgender Marginalization and Exclusion: Critical Actions for Human Resource Development,” (Collins, Rocco, McFadden & Mathis), addresses a little-explored area of transgendered workers that should be of concern to organizations and HRD professionals. Even McFadden had difficulty finding empirical studies addressing transgender workers in his systematic literature review, so this work makes a needed contribution. In fact, McFadden’s article further highlights the challenges raised by Collins, Rocco, and McFadden in their article who present an overview of trans* issues that include transitioning, formal and informal discrimination, and economic disparities. They outline what it means to be critical, especially as it pertains to this relatively unexplored issue of trans* workers in terms of the Merriam and Bierema (2014) framework according to Critical Theory, critical thinking, and critical action that must be engaged in if HRD is to meaningfully and authentically address trans* issues.
Themes
Three themes emerged through these articles that can potentially shape the future agenda for CHRD. These themes include embracing higher levels of reflexivity, changing the discourse, and adopting a call-to-action agenda.
Embracing Higher Levels of Reflexivity in HRD Research and Practice
The need for reflexivity was highlighted by each of the articles. If we are to take a more reflexive, critical approach to research and practice, how do we do it? It requires critical thinking, a key aspect of being critical (Merriam & Bierema, 2014) and asking tough questions. Critical thinking is a cognitive process of assessing assumptions, beliefs, and actions—both those we hold as individuals and those at play within HRD and organizations. Brookfield (2012) observed that critical thinking “is a way of living that helps you stay intact when any number of organizations (corporate, political, educational, and cultural) are trying to get you to think and act in ways that serve their purposes” (p. 2). Management often seeks to convince workers to go along with policies and practices that may ultimately hurt individual workers while benefiting the organization. We have seen examples in HRD of inequitable distribution of training and developmental opportunities, or policies that hurt underrepresented groups of workers. One example of growing concern is workplace surveillance. Although most of us probably appreciate organization-provided technology and embrace its use, it opens us up to 24-hour surveillance as so pointedly discussed in a recent Harper’s Magazine feature, “The Spy Who Fired Me” (Kaplan, 2015).
To engage in critical thinking involves reflection on assumptions and beliefs. This might take the form of asking, “What do my HRD actions say about my underlying assumptions?” or “What does my organization believe about HRD?” Brookfield (2012) classified assumptions into three categories: Prescriptive, paradigmatic, and causal. Prescriptive assumptions are our beliefs about how we should behave. As HRD professionals, we may have certain prescriptive principles about practice (“I should be able to facilitate group conflict,” “I need to treat everyone equally,” and so on). What are some prescriptive assumptions you hold? Paradigmatic assumptions are strongly engrained opinions and values that influence how we view the world. These assumptions are so deeply embedded, it may be challenging to name them, or startling once we uncover them. A mental model or paradigmatic assumption that is dominant in HRD is performativity—the dogged pursuit of organization performance that leads to profits. This relatively unquestioned paradigm has bred modern HRD practices such as human performance technology, talent management, leadership development, and downsizing. Causal assumptions allow us to both explain and predict events. For instance, if I do “A,” then “B” will occur. Most of us have heard the adage, “What’s good for GM Is good for America.” Yet, we live in an age where corporations haves more rights than humans and support of the corporation may not be in the best interest of the worker, customer, or environment. Embracing higher levels of reflexivity in our research and practice can help us be more mindful and critical.
Changing the Discourse
We talk HRD into being. How we speak about things is discourse. Perry (1992) suggested that theories do not simply exist in the abstract until they happen to be scientifically discovered. Rather, theories are social constructions created between people as a means of making meaning about the world. Humans create shared interpretations that shape how they perceive, experience, and understand the world. People socially construct and share meaning through discourse. Discourse is not a neutral, common understanding of social phenomena, but typically a byproduct of the assumptions and worldviews of the most privileged and dominant members of the society or social group.
The discourse of HRD becomes the research and practice of HRD (Bierema, 2009; Storberg-Walker & Bierema, 2008). If we fail to reflect on the words we say and how we use them, we unconsciously create an HRD that falls short of considering unconscious or unexamined assumptions. For example, a highly visible issue for the transgendered population is what we label public restrooms. Organizations can signal more sensitivity by providing individual unisex bathrooms for individuals going through transition. Labels like “men” and “women” actualize our unspoken assumptions about sexuality just as “white” and “black” signs signaled assumptions about race and privilege during the U. S. civil rights era.
Those who practice CHRD are deliberate about their word choices. Take for example the issue of “work-life balance.” Although few of us have likely thought about it, the term, “work-life balance,” privileges work by putting it first. That the term “work” needs to be mentioned at all signals allegiance to organizations and suggests that work is the priority. I have made a conscious choice not to use that terminology when discussing or writing about the issue, instead referring to it as “life balance.” Other terms occurring in the HRD literature that are deserving of vigorous critique include: “human performance technology,” “broker of productivity,” and even our uncritical use of “human resources.” Our field’s work in organizations focuses on “human development” and that description of our focus is explicit enough without adding the idea of a people as a “resource” to be bought, sold, or even exploited. Perhaps it is time for us to consider a CHD: Critical Human Development.
Discourse also shapes our field by what we do not say. The dominant heteronormativity of management scholarship has made research on LBGT, particularly transgendered people, practically absent from the literature. By not speaking about something, HRD and organizations render the issue invisible and by default fail to have any sensitivity or support of the matter in either research or practice. Githens and Collins, Rocco and McFadden point out the lack of attention given to power relations in our field. A friend of mine, Dr. Susan Dougherty, conducted dissertation research on power (Dougherty, 1990) and once confided, “power is the last dirty word in business.” What she meant was that everyone knows about power, navigates around it, but is afraid to actually talk about it (personal communication, n.d.). It seems that power is also a dirty word in research and practice. A CHRD will help embed power into the discourse and practice of HRD and make it acceptable to discuss it and change it.
Adopting a Call-to-action Agenda that Moves Beyond Critique Rhetoric to Action and Advocacy
One of my enduring complaints about critical approaches is that they are short on action steps to remedy the marginalization and exploitation they so vehemently expose. Each of these articles effectively provides a roadmap for action whether it is in conducting research, developing workplace policy, or creating a research agenda for change. To be a critical person from a critical theory perspective, requires “tak[ing] action to create more democratic, collectivist, economic, and social forms” (Brookfield, 2012, p. 49). Critical scholars who are serious about advocating for change need to be willing to push their ideas into actualization.
All authors in this issue embrace the vision of a “Critical OD Consultant” detailed in my 2010 book (Bierema, 2010), Implementing a Critical Approach to Organization Development, where I defined the role as assuming practitioners possesses traditional competencies plus:
Serving as stewards of organization wellbeing and social responsibility;
Advocating for stakeholder interests;
Interrogating reality; and
Working as tempered radicals for change ranging from awareness to activism.
Githens positioned his critical action research proposal as similar to radical humanism that advocates “making positive social changes in the organization from within a grassroots effort, while considering larger social systems” (p. 192) yet it “emphasizes small-scale, local changes” (p. 189). He sites what might be considered as micro changes through critical reflection, small wins (Weik, 1984), tempered radicalism (Meyerson, 2001), and acting locally. The CAR model stops short of the radical reformation of society posted by the radical structuralism philosophy defined in Githens article. To those pursuing a CHRD agenda, I wonder if the CAR approach is enough? I think CHRD has to advocate for structural change in both research and practice. Otherwise, the dominant populations that have always controlled organizations will continue to benefit and perpetuate sexism, racism, heterosexism, and classism.