Jim Stewart

Monica Lee

Jean Woodall

Factors such as globalisation, restructuring, casualization of employment and the erosion of pension rights have led to massive tensions in contemporary organizations. By exploring the boundaries of the field of Human Resource Development this book asks where is HRD in the middle of all this and presents an innovative and challenging approach to HRD theory and practice. With contributions from a number of leading international scholars, the chapters draw upon a range of epistemologies and adopt a critically reflective perspective on the field. The chapters are divided into four sections moving from a critical perspective on the definition and boundaries of the field of HRD, through a re-thinking of the human-centred nature of HRD, and the organisational context within which HRD takes place, to, finally, perspectives on the future role of HRD in the changing knowledge economy. The book's main conclusion is that HRD remains a contested concept within the more broadly contested field of organisation and management theory. Yet this is neither a drawback nor weakness on the one hand, nor an advantage or strength on the other. Both threats and opportunities present themselves for the future growth of HRD as an academic field, and as an arena of professional practice

New Frontiers in HRD

In this book Dr Woodall analyses the political implications of the pursuit of industrial growth for the authority of the Polish United Workers' Party. She argues that political constraints on the available options for economic reform have encouraged a policy of merger of industrial enterprises into large `corporate' units since 1958. Although they are only a shadow of their Western counterparts, these socialist corporations' nevertheless pose considerable problems for the role of a Marxist-Leninist party in industry. While this does not manifest itself in the emergence of a clearly identifiable 'technocratic' class of managers challenging the legitimacy of the Party, it does involve difficulties caused by an increasingly 'technicist' ethos of industrial management which eschews the possibility of meaningful workforce participation. Dr Woodall thus shows how the over-zealous pursuit of industrial integration and concentration in the 1970s was, despite attempts by the Polish United Workers' Party to reformulate its 'leading role', one of the major factors contributing to the industrial unrest which brought about the fall of the Gierek leadership in 1980.

Jean Woodall

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