Through the looking glass: challenges for human resource development (HRD) post the global financial crisis – business as usual?

Abstract

An important question for human resource development (HRD) concerns how its practices may have contributed to the global financial crisis. Commentators have highlighted that HRD must take some of the blame. First, we consider whether HRD's traditional role of contributor through performance-based development interventions, may have facilitated questionable practices in organizations. Second, we reflect on whether HRD was an irrelevant spectator through being benign and impotent; rather than challenging the status quo in organizations. Third, we contemplate the protagonist role and argue that HRD practitioners pursued short-term performance-based wealth maximizing objectives with scant regard for the long-term organizational or societal impact. We conclude by considering how HRD scholars can engage tomorrow's business leaders in critical reflection and how HRD practitioners can pursue a strategic decoupling position which allows for challenging the status quo without alienating their professional status in the organization and ethical standing in practice.

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