‘Developmentalism – from here to there – is heutagogy the way there for HR?’

Abstract

There have been suggestions in recent times that the traditional criteria for defining professions is outmoded and inappropriate particularly in relation to the new professions, such as Human Resource Management (HRM). Evans (2008b) has suggested that a more appropriate evaluation is in terms of a commitment to professional development and has identified that this commitment be referred to as ‘developmentalism’. There are a number of ways in which professional development can occur and while traditionally this involved almost exclusively, formal experiences, such as courses, current thinking is now moving towards utilising more accessible, practice based, non-formal mechanisms.

The research presented in this thesis investigates how non-formal learning is used to contribute to a climate of developmentalism by Human Resource (HR) practitioners. For this purpose, 17 in-depth semi-structured-interviews with a purposively selected sample of HR practitioners were conducted. The transcripts were analysed based on the four step process of phenomenographic analysis suggested by Marton (1994) cited by Schroder et al (2005) and Soon and Barnard (2002), to discover the qualitatively different ways in which HR practitioners describe, experience, understand and analyse their professional development and the use of non-formal learning in that development.

What emerged from the analysis were two sets of categories of description; one for each of the phenomena namely professional development and non-formal learning. In addition, an outcome space for each of the phenomena emerged, illustrating the hierarchical relationship within each set of categories of description as well as the dimensions of variation relating to the phenomena. Also emerging from the analysis was a conceptualised model for professional development comprising non-formal learning using a heutagogical approach in conjunction with the empirically developed HR professionality continuum as a record of achievement. This model is offered as a means of encouraging HR practitioners to participate in professional development.

Several recommendations arose from this research, and it is anticipated that these recommendations will be of interest to HR practitioners, their employers, HR educators, and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).