Yesterday was a busy day. I attended my first B810 lecture and wrote to Dr. Carol Gill, from the University of Melbourne, whom I mentioned in a previous OU Blog post. This was what I wrote:
"I came across a point you made regarding developmental humanism, which prompted me to ask - what kind of philosophy are you an advocate for with respect to the spectrum between developmental humanism and harder forms of HRM?"
To my surprise, Dr. Gill sent me this email reply last night:
"There is a debate between Pluralism and Unitarianism with the latter suggesting they are not mutually exclusive I.e. if you go for developmental humanism you will achieve organisation productivity through commitment and engagement of the workforce that use their discretionary effort towards organisation goals and values. I hold this view - it is also the ethical path. However, instrumentalism may work if discretionary effort is not required.
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This post was written by Alfred Anate Mayaki, a student on the MSc in HRM, and was inspired by the work of Carol Gill in a Human Resource Management Review article entitled: “Don't know, don't care: An exploration of evidence-based knowledge and practice in human resource management”