The international nature of HRD scholarship

In the UK, human resource practitioners and academics alike are becoming more aware of the emergence of managing diversity. But what does managing diversity actually mean, how does it translate into practice, and what does it matter? The following paper briefly debates the rhetoric of managing diversity and considers whether managing diversity is a distinct approach to managing people or a means of diluting equal opportunities in UK organizations. With respect to the realities of the concepts in UK organizations, empirical data from a survey of sixty UK human resource professionals and general line managers is presented. We pose a number of cautionary questions, including what does it matter and to whom? By doing so we intend to encourage further critique and challenges in respect to the concept of managing diversity in organizations.     

Employees' perceptions of skill and some implications for training in three UK manufacturing firms

The concept of skill has been the subject of much debate in academic literature, particularly in relation to the proposed shift between the Fordist and post-Fordist production paradigms. In the context of this debate, this article explores the perceptions of skill held by employees in three UK manufacturing organizations. It shows that, in some firms, the nature of work remains Taylorist, and that this can have implications for employees' perceptions of skill and firms training practices.     

Diversity Networks: Networking for Equality?

In recent years, the use of diversity networks as diversity management instruments in organizations has increased tremendously. Diversity networks support the needs of employees with different social identities, such as women, ethnic minorities, LGBTs, disabled and young people. The aim of this study is to come to a better understanding of how diversity networks contribute to equality by examining how diversity network leaders discursively construct the value of their networks against the backdrop of discourses on diversity and equality. We conducted a multiple case study of five different diversity networks in a financial service organization in the Netherlands. Our results show that network leaders tend to construct the value of their networks primarily in terms of individual career development and community building, to prevent their members’ isolation. However, they are much less articulate about removing the barriers to inclusion in the organization as a core value of their networks. We conclude that the value of diversity networks is limited when these networks only address the individual and group levels of equality and leave systemic inequalities at the organizational level unchallenged.     

Men Doing and Undoing Gender at Work: A Review and Research Agenda

While research on gender in organizations has not only documented sustained gender inequality, it has also offered an understanding of how gender is enacted through doing and undoing gender. An underexplored aspect concerns how men can do and undo gender to support or hinder gender equality processes in organizations. Doing gender is then understood as creating gender difference while undoing gender would conversely mean to reduce gender difference. The former is supporting gender inequality while the latter means moving toward gender equality. This article therefore provides a systematic review of empirical articles that discuss how men are doing and undoing gender within an organizational context. It is shown that undoing gender practices of men in organizations are under‐researched and a research agenda of how men can undo gender at work is thus developed. This article makes a two‐fold contribution: first it offers a refinement of doing and undoing gender approaches and second, it develops a research agenda for exploring how men can undo gender at work.     

Top management team diversity and ambidexterity: The contingent role of shared responsibility and CEO cognitive trust

Earlier research has suggested that diversity is a double-edged sword when achieving organizational ambidexterity. While it may contribute to the development of new combinations of exploration and exploitation, it may also lead to disagreements and potential conflict within top management teams (TMTs). To improve our understanding of the effectiveness of diversity in ambidextrous organizations, we develop a synergistic perspective on TMT diversity and examine how two types of diversity – functional and age diversity – affect the achievement of organizational ambidexterity. We also identify shared responsibility and CEO cognitive trust as important contingencies that may complement the effects of diversity within TMTs in terms of resolving potential conflicts and managing tensions between exploration and exploitation effectively. Based on multisource data, our study shows that CEO cognitive trust and shared responsibility moderate the relationship between different types of diversity and ambidexterity. Our study has important implications for research on organizational ambidexterity, diversity, and senior leadership.     

Diversity Management and Fairness in Public Organizations

Diversity management was initially adopted in the pursuit of fairness and equality and the promotion of an inclusive workforce by public organizations. However, previous studies regarding diversity management have focused on job performance or job satisfaction. Thus, in this article, we attempt to examine whether diversity management advances organizational fairness in public organizations. By examining data from the 2013 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS), we find that diversity management is positively related to the perception of organizational fairness in the federal workplace. In addition, we also find that female and minority employees perceive diversity management in terms of fairness differently.     

The high cost of low wages: Economic scarcity effects in organizations

Due to current economic circumstances (e.g., stagnating wages, increasing material aspirations, mounting student debt), an increasing number of employees are prone to experiencing economic scarcity, defined here as the perception that one has fewer financial resources than one's needs require. In this paper, we focus primarily on an under-studied population in the organizational sciences: The working poor—employees who hold jobs but do not earn enough to sustain a reasonable standard of living for themselves and their dependents. Taking into account recent research suggesting that scarcity can have profound psychological consequences, we argue that organizations have a vested interest in reducing feelings of financial deprivation among its employees because the psychology of scarcity has the potential to spill over into organizational functioning. Furthermore, we assert that most organizations’ approaches to managing low-wage work are not only ineffective at reducing the spillover effects of scarcity on organizational outcomes, but also increase their endurance because they do not account for the behavioral consequences of financial deprivation. As such, we present more sustainable initiatives through which organizations can reduce scarcity among its employees. Finally, we discuss ways in which organizational researchers can become more involved in relevant public policy debates.     

Does Management Development Add Value?

While the act of faith approach to management development assumes that training and development will improve performance, and that attention to the people factor will give organizations a competitive advantage, there has been little systematic study of the business benefits of management development. The extent to which competence-based management development made identifiable improvements to individual, organizational and business performance was examined in sixteen organizations using an in-depth embedded case-study protocol developed following the preparatory work of an expert group convened by the Department for Education and Employment (DfEE). Interviews were conducted with senior strategic managers, line managers and members of management work teams, and triangulation was sought with documentary evidence. Case reports were validated with the organizations, then evaluated and ranked by an independent consultancy not involved in the fieldwork. The results provide support for attributing business benefits to management development, particularly in relation to individual and business performance. The performance improvements were found to be most significant where management development is linked with organizational strategy and where Human Resource Development (HRD) systems and processes adopt the management standards developed by Management Charter Initiative (MCI).     

Thank you!

The study focuses on the question of how HRD personnel employed in a large multinational company perceive learning at work. We are interested in how HR development staff describe learning at the individual, collective and organizational levels. The participants were Finnish and Chinese human resource professionals (n?=?17) who used an asynchronous web-based tool to study adult education. The empirical data consist of all the texts sent to a web-based discussion forum. The findings showed that the HRD practitioners' views of learning covered quite evenly all three levels of organizational learning. The practitioners paid special attention to practical learning taking place in connection with everyday work activities, to communication and collaborative learning and to the development of a learning organization. This reflects the multifaceted nature of learning at work and the necessity of using HRD to integrate individual- and organizational-level needs in order to enhance organizational learning. The participants frequently reported that they found this a demanding task that required a clear 'understanding of humans, people in the organizations and their learning'. If organizational learning is to meet its current challenges it should take note of messages like these from HRD practitioners, which emphasise the diversity of learning experiences. Promoting a shared understanding and especially awareness and recognition of the fundamental issues associated with learning at work is a possible first step.     

Assigning migrants to customer contact jobs: a context-specific exploration of the business case for diversity

Ethnic diversity of both their labor forces and customer bases presents a challenge for companies and fuels debate on the business case for diversity: the view that diversity positively impacts firm performance. This study enriches the business case debate by focusing on a particular organizational activity, customer contact. It combines theory from strategic human resource management (SHRM), research on diversity, and research on marketing to analyze what drives companies to assign migrants to customer contact jobs and which performance impacts ensue. We test our hypotheses in data from 338 German business companies. Companies that recognize the value in ethnic diversity and seek to respond to customer diversity are especially likely to assign migrants to customer contact jobs. The analyses reveal a positive impact of migrants in customer contact jobs on company profitability. This impact is enhanced by a broad range of equality and diversity practices and a supportive works council. These moderators have stronger effects than two other moderators related to business strategy: the market served by a company, and its competitive strategy. The paper contributes to SHRM research in general and diversity research in particular through its original examination associating the business case for ethnic diversity with the role of equality and diversity practices and institutions. The study findings can help managers to decide whether to leverage staff ethnic diversity and show that collaboration between HR management and marketing functions is useful to achieve a strategic fit among practices.     

Redefining,relooking, redesigning,and reincorporating HRD in the post Covid 19 context and thereafter

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought several challenges to the way organizations were functioning globally. Considering the case of India, this is a time of complete work transformation for the entire workforce across all sectors of work. As the work from home scenario has never been a part of the functioning of Indian organizations, whether public or private, there are serious concerns of managing the same particularly in time of this crisis. Thus, the present article provides an insight into the response of Indian organizations in combating the repercussions that the COVID-19 pandemic has drawn with it as well as the challenges being faced. In line with the same, we propose the adoption of a 4-R Crisis-Normalcy Model of HRD that can be used by the HRD professionals to redefine, relook, redesign, and reincorporate the HRD interventions in the COVID-19 context. This model not only provides the basis for managing the COVID-19 pandemic aligned to organizational functioning but is a way forward to dealing with any type of crisis situation that may affect an organization.     

Critical Theorist,Postmodernist and Social Constructionist Paradigms in Organizational Analysis: A Paradigmatic Review of Organizational Learning Literature

In an effort to clarify alternative approaches to organizational analysis, this paper is concerned to stimulate the debate on how an inquiry into organizational phenomena, in general, and organizational learning, in particular, can be accomplished. Encouraging attention to different aspects of various paradigmatic approaches, the paper focuses on critical theory, postmodernism and social constructionism and how these paradigms have contributed and can contribute to the research in the subject domain of organizational learning. To this end, a paradigmatic review of the literature on organizational learning is offered in this paper. Organizational learning, as the study of learning processes of, and within, organizations, has attracted significant attention in academe since the early 1980s. There is a plethora of studies on organizational learning, which offer rich material for a paradigmatic review. This study highlights the need for further development of the field from alternative paradigmatic perspectives, with a view to generating more insights into the multifaceted, complex and changing nature of learning in contemporary organizations.     

Mapping and managing productive organizational energy over time: The Energy Pattern Explorer tool

To strategically manage the deployment of collective human resources toward performance, managers must recognize, interpret, and align the volatile resources of productive organizational energy. Despite relevant prior work, research and practice still lack a comprehensive approach toward analyzing and managing energy patterns over time. We develop a framework for temporal configurations and prototypical trajectories of productive organizational energy. We then introduce the ‘Energy Pattern Explorer’ as a strategy tool to: (1) identify and predict actual patterns of productive organizational energy in organizations, and (2) suggest energy leadership activities specific to current and anticipated changes and patterns of productive organizational energy. We provide examples of how managers can use this tool and conclude with suggestions for research and practice.     

Transformations and Legitimacy in Nonprofit Organizations—The Case of Amnesty International and the Brutalization Thesis

This paper looks at organizational change in voluntary nonprofit organizations. Their 'purposive' nature makes voluntary organizations difficult to change while their tendency to oligarchic control results in this change often being imposed from the top. Amnesty International's death penalty work demonstrates the complexity of organizational change, as well as the accountability for and the legitimacy of change in nonprofits. Legitimacy should not be equated with organizational strength, and will remain subject to shifting, contested social norms concerning standards of behavior.     

Changing Public Service Organizations: Current Perspectives and Future Prospects

As governments and public service organizations across the globe engage in strategies of institutional and organizational change, it is timely to examine current developments and a future research agenda for public governance and management. The paper commences with reflections on the state of the field, based on an analysis of papers published in the British Journal of Management over the last decade. While there was some variation apparent across the set, the 'typical' article was found to be influenced by the discipline of organizational behaviour, set within the health-care sector, using case-study methods within field-based studies, and investigating shifts in roles and relationships and the management of change. It has also in the past been UK-centric, though the journal editorial policy and our own article call for a stronger international and comparative focus in the future. The second section of the article summarizes the articles and themes contained in this collection of papers on public service organizations. The third section explores a possible research agenda for the future, arguing for the significance of public sector research for the understanding of management more generally, and for examining the interface between private and public organizations (an increasingly common phenomenon). We suggest the need to set public services research in policy and political contexts, and suggest this may reveal organizational processes of wide interest. We call for a wider set of disciplines to engage in public management research, and to engage in moving the agenda from the study of efficiency to effectiveness as defined by a variety of stakeholders. We address the issue of how far public management researchers should become directly engaged with the world of policy and suggest that whether researchers engage in Mode 1 or Mode 2 research, their work would benefit from a stronger theoretical base.     

Human resource development in small organizations

This article draws upon case-study research into human resource development (HRD) within three small organizations in the north west of England. It positions the case-study work within an overall framework of doctoral research and summarizes the research design; discusses the characteristics and values of small organizations and how they influence HRD policies and practices: presents findings and conclusions about HRD in the case-study organizations, focusing in particular upon one case in the voluntary sector; compares and contrasts the different models of HRD in the three cases; and concludes with some suggestions for further research.     

A Contradiction in Terms? Making Sense of Emotional Intelligence in a Construction Management Environment

Emotional intelligence (EI) has been hailed as being critical to individual performance within organizations. However, recent theoretical debates indicate that scholars need to apply a more differentiated lens when examining the utility of EI in a particular organizational context. In this study, we seek to contribute preliminary empirical evidence to this debate. Drawing upon an interpretivist approach and a narrative analysis, we examine how UK construction project managers make sense of EI, and how this shapes their receptiveness to the construct. Our data analysis suggests that there are enduring, albeit changing, characteristics of the industry and the sensemaking processes of project managers that renders the construct, at least for the time being, of limited utility. Thus, our analysis is a cautionary tale for those management scholars and practitioners who argue for the ‘trainability’ of EI.     

Lessons Learned from Community Organizations: Inclusion of People with Disabilities and Others

Workforce diversity requires broader vision and scope in managing diversity so that there is greater inclusion inside and outside organizations. This paper provides this vision by extending the stream of workforce diversity research to community‐oriented inclusion and its processes. The authors interviewed 34 people with disabilities and 40 people without disabilities who were stakeholders of community arts and sports organizations. The participants with disabilities were mainly arts audiences, artists and sports athletes, and the participants without disabilities were mainly managers and government officials. The key findings report the importance of inclusion through common interest groups being facilitated by (1) non‐minority specific communal activities, (2) listening to minority voices, (3) multidimensional accessibility, (4) availability of organizational and natural champions and (5) cross‐boundary networks and collaborations. In order to create more inclusive organizations, the authors suggest that private organizations need more community‐oriented values, goals and strategies that foster boundaryless inclusion of people with disabilities and other minority groups in organizations and society.     

Complexity theories and organizational change

Complexity theory or, more appropriately, theories, serves as an umbrella term for a number of theories, ideas and research programmes that are derived from scientific disciplines such as meteorology, biology, physics, chemistry and mathematics. Complexity theories are increasingly being seen by academics and practitioners as a way of understanding and changing organizations. The aim of this paper is to review the nature of complexity theories and their importance and implications for organizations and organizational change. It begins by showing how perspectives on organizational change have altered over the last 20 years. This is followed by an examination of complexity theories and their implications for organizational change. The paper concludes by arguing that, even in the natural sciences, the complexity approach is not fully developed or unchallenged, and that, as yet, organization theorists do not appear to have moved beyond the stage of using it as metaphor rather than as a mathematical way of analysing and managing organizations.