The demise of inquiry-based HRD programmes in the UK: implications for the field

Abstract

We have written this article both to honour a form of educational practice and to invite debate in the field of Human Resource Development (HRD). We begin with the observation that a number of postgraduate programmes in the UK whose pedagogies were characterized by inquiry-based, action-oriented experiential learning, which were thriving when Human Resource Development International (HRDI) was first developed, have now closed. These programmes enacted HRD as an approach to adult learning and teaching through educational practices mirroring the topics explored. As authors with some 40 or more years' combined experience as staff on such programmes, we aim first to set on record the nature and significance of the pedagogical approaches involved, which participants often experienced as transformational. We then consider how the changing climate of UK higher education, reflected in mechanisms like the Research Excellence Framework, may have influenced the demise of such programmes. The paper reflects on the significance of the pedagogies, outlines potential implications of their demise for the practice and scholarship of HRD as a field internationally, and considers the role that HRDI, as a leading journal in the field, might play in addressing the paper's concerns. ARTICLE HISTORY

Critical Management Education in challenging times

“…There have been many changes in HE since 2000, and particularly in management education. Increased marketisation, coupled with internationalisation of the student body – most noticeably at taught postgraduate level – have led to a more homogeneous degree programme offering, with many smaller, post-experience programmes that were based on or related to critical pedagogy being squeezed out of the sector (Gross and Hogler, 2005; Sambrook and Willmott, 2014; Tosey and Marshall, 2017). While there is evidence that the CME community is all too aware of the changing external political and educational environment, there are few papers that specifically tackle CME in its middle age or that problematise its underpinning theoretical assumptions in relation to difference and/or the role of the critical educator given other changes around it.…”

“…The differential fees effect on the market has also resulted in programmes that recruited smaller numbers, or traditionally attracted part-time post-experience UK domiciled students, largely disappearing from the management education offering. In many cases, these discontinued programmes were the ones dedicated to fostering CME approaches and used group work to explore issues of difference and diversity and democracy (for an account of the UK programmes closed or revised see Sambrook and Willmott, 2014; Tosey and Marshall, 2017). The removal of the smaller, post-experience and part-time programmes that catered to training and development, organisational development and human resource development practitioners has been especially damaging to CME practice around difference.…”

The History Boys: Critical reflections on our contributions to Management Learning and their ongoing implications

“…Business and Management Schools are different places now and the educational and political context has changed, not entirely (we fear) for the better. Rising fees, a concern with maximising student numbers, the unsophisticated measurement of student satisfaction, pressures to publish and growing international competition have contributed to an educational ethos of diminished tolerance for programmes, particularly smaller programmes, based on critical pedagogies (Perriton and Reynolds, 2018; Sambrook and Willmott, 2014; Tosey and Marshall 2017). What has not changed however is the ongoing importance of CME in making clear the modes of domination that exist in organisations and classrooms, that both management and learning are not about techniques but values, and that freedom and control are both intimately bound up with the role of management educator and the political context of management education.…”