Sharon Turnbull

Corporate Ideology – Meanings and Contradictions for Middle Managers

This paper describes an investigation into corporate ideology and control and the responses of the ‘middle managers’ in a large engineering corporation. The paper explores the creation of meaning and values in the organization through a large-scale ‘corporate values’ programme aimed at 1500 middle managers, and asks to what extent the priorities of these managers match those of the organization, and whether the creation of meaning through an ideological values programme carries risks that have not been considered by the organization adopting this approach. The findings suggest six individual response types amongst the delegates on the programme: ‘evangelists’, ‘actors’, ‘sceptics’, ‘open cynics’, ‘critical thinkers’ and ‘untouched professionals’. The influences upon these responses are considered, and a number of key factors identified as important in affecting perceptions of and response to the programme. The paper concludes that today more than ever, corporate ideologies are becoming an increasingly dominant influence on our organizations, causing mixed and confused responses amongst the middle managers who are required to disseminate these messages.

A Meta-Review of the Management Development Literature.

An appraisal of recent reviews of the literature on management development demonstrates the existence of a number of perspectives on the topic, and this lack of a uniform approach has contributed to confusion about the subject. This article examines a series of recent and existing literature reviews on the topic of management development. It reviews existing and current syntheses of the management development literature and typological models of management development. The aim of the article is to critically analyze these reviews, with the intention of providing an overview of what has been written about management development during the past 25 years. The article unearths core issues and trends that have emerged in the various “literatures” and provides a synthesis of the concepts and paradigms that emerge from these research literatures. The metareview concludes by proposing a framework/model, within which contributions to the literature on management development can be placed.

Emotional labour in corporate change programmes: The effects of organizational feeling rules on middle managers

This paper addresses the effects of corporate change programmes on the emotions and ultimately the performance of the so-called ‘middle managers’ within these organizations. Drawing on empirical data from a recent case study in a large engineering company, the paper addresses the extent to which Hochschilds highly original writing on the commercialization of human feeling (1983) and the concept of emotional labour is applicable to managers in todays organizations. Emotional labour is defined as: ‘the management of feeling to create a publicly observable facial and bodily display’ requiring one ‘to induce or suppress feeling in order to sustain the outward countenance that produces the proper state of mind in others’ (Hochschild 1983: 7). The conclusion reached is that emotional labour appears to be a growing but much ignored phenomenon in organizations today, which is worthy of attention and further research by the HRD community.

Leadership Development for Organizational Change in a New U.K. University

The problem and the solution. This article reports on the findings of a case study of an organizational development intervention within a new university in the United Kingdom. Previous research into the leadership of higher education has highlighted a number of apparently inevitable tensions. The findings of the case study uncovered a number of complex and interrelated tensions. The article concludes by discussing the implications of these tensions for organization development and human resource practitioners, theorists, and consultants.

Reconciling autonomy and community: the paradoxical role of HRD

This paper examines the competing discourses of autonomy and community, so long a concern to social theorists but which we argue have been under-theorised by researchers of HRD. We argue that it is this tension, embedded in the assumptions and behaviours of those working within organisations, which has informed a growing concern by HRD practitioners to balance the needs of the individual with those of organisations, a preoccupation which dates at least to the appropriation by organisations of the socio-psychological theories of the human relations movement. The paper examines the most recent attempts to reconcile autonomy and community through the emergence of the new managerial discourses of spirituality and organisational citizenship. We conclude that this quest is inevitably elusive, based as it is on assumptions of trust within organisation relationships which are increasingly challenged by the short term nature of our post-bureaucratic organisational relationships and the fragmentation, instability and the blurring of boundaries. We conclude with a call for HRD to take on the mantle of critical educator and moral conscience raiser to encourage a deeper engagement with social, existential and philosophical questions that lie at the heart of organisational life.

Bricolage as an Alternative Approach to Human Resource Development Theory Building

This article argues for a liberal and pragmatic approach to human resource development (HRD) theory building, which, while retaining academic rigor, celebrates difference and allows learning from more than one ontological paradigm. The author argues that the paradigmatic struggle between positivists and constructivists for supremacy in the HRD field is futile because each ontology draws on such different political positions, discourses, and languages. The possibilities of rigorous and innovative theory building within the constructivist paradigm are both exciting and important for developing new knowledge in HRD, allowing both creativity and imagination to flourish in the research process. The author illustrates the richness of this approach through her own experiences of qualitative theory building from a single case study and suggests that the metaphor of research as bricolage can offer many new and refreshing possibilities for researchers in the field of HRD.