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Understanding of HRD in SMEs has frequently been based on impoverished research resulting from underdeveloped theory. This article argues for the potential offered to researching, understanding and practising HRD in small organisations, of taking a discourse perspective on organisation, learning and development. Through a comparative interpretation, from a traditional and a discourse perspective on HRD, of research material collected ethnographically in three small companies, the article aims to contribute to an approach which can deepen understanding of HRD in SMEs by combining three strands that have not generally been integrated: ideas from recent debates on what HRD comprises, perspectives on learning, and a discourse perspective on organisation. The implications for research indicate a need for methods that enable the study of HRD in action – the micro‐processes of development.

The intentions of this article are to contribute reflections of an empirical account of working with critical reflection within an organisational development programme, addressing the following questions: What space is there for critical reflection in organisational development? What issues are raised for in‐company developers and providers by advocating critical reflection in organisation practice?

A case study approach is taken, presenting an empirical account of a management and organisational development programme that integrated action learning and critical reflection.

The account illustrates difficulties of employing critical reflection within the workplace arising from the more complex power relations between the multiple stakeholders in a commercial context. In particular, dissonance provoked by critical reflection confronts the client with a tension over whether to see organisation members primarily as customers to please or as participants in a change process which inevitably will disrupt.

In making sense of the perspectives of different stakeholders a model is presented to help practitioners in development of this kind to anticipate potential issues.

The paper presents a rare account of employing critical reflection in a work organisation development programme.

This paper aims to advance theoretical understanding of the concept of “critical human resource development”.

This is a conceptual paper.

Foregrounding questions of power, emotions and political dynamics within the analysis of organisational learning and development activity, critical approaches in HRD pay particular attention to the importance of context, interests and patterns of inter‐relationships amongst organisation stakeholders. It is notable that much of the work in this area operates on a theoretical plane, and is often light on practical guidance or recognition of the distinctive contexts of HRD practice, compared to other areas of critical learning.

Empirical investigations that have systematically applied critical approaches to HRD are in short supply, and their potential to enrich HRD practice has rarely been explored. This paper contributes to addressing these gaps.

Firstly, it elucidates the concept of critical HRD through illuminating the diversity of theoretical perspectives; secondly, it demonstrate some of the intricacies and discrepancies within current theorising on critical HRD; thirdly, it raises questions for the practical significance of tools and insights informed by critical HRD.

The purpose of this paper is to provide small business and entrepreneurship researchers with insights to help them undertake life story interviewing, in order that this can subsequently advance understanding within the field.

The authors describe, and reflect upon, the use of a life story interview approach that formed part of the data collection process for a research study into dynamic capabilities in micro-organisations.

The life story interview approach the authors utilised can generate benefits for both the purposes of the research study and the interviewee. Nevertheless, “unexpected lack of time” and “owner-managerial control”, two common contextual factors within micro-organisations, are factors that may raise challenges for successfully undertaking life story interviewing in such organisations. Ultimately the interviewer needs to respond to such challenges by making “stick or twist” decisions with regard to the interview format being used.

The authors provide an example of an interview approach that researchers can use for future research within the field of small business and entrepreneurship. The authors also prepare interviewers for challenges they may experience within the field and the potential need for them to make “stick or twist” decisions.

The authors explicate a specific life story interview approach which is new to the field of small business and entrepreneurship. Furthermore, the authors highlight potential complexities in undertaking this interview approach within micro-organisations. Prior work within the field has tended to give little consideration to challenges of undertaking life story interviews.

This chapter investigates the ways in which transnational practices of Chinese migrants can contribute to our understanding of how migration and entrepreneurship operate in superdiverse urban settings. ‘Superdiversity’, as outlined by Vertovec (2007), draws attention to the new and complex social formations, characterised by a dynamic integration of variables (e.g. race, ethnicity and social class) in European cosmopolitan cities. Increased diversity has created a complex range of under-explored challenges to immigrant entrepreneurs, who work within and, most importantly, for such communities. Importantly, for migrant groups in the current climate of austerity, enterprise may be a way of promoting employment and local development, while also kick-starting broader business regeneration. The focus of the chapter is based on the transnational practices of immigrant enterprises through the intersectionality of gender and ethnicity. The study focusses on Chinese entrepreneurial owners of small transnational enterprises (STEs) living in Birmingham, UK. Despite the fact that the Chinese STEs have been documented elsewhere including Canada (e.g. Wong & Ng, 2002), the USA (e.g. Sequeira, Carr, & Rasheed, 2009; You & Zhou, 2018), Australia (Wang & Warn, 2018) and some South-east Asian countries including China (Tan, 2006; Weng, 2014), very little empirical research has been conducted in the UK to document and explore the existence and characteristics of the Chinese STEs. Timely empirical studies are called for which illuminate the contemporary development and dynamics of the businesses run by the new Chinese immigrants in the west Midlands UK.

The purpose of this paper is to ask how we can think about critical reflection as a pedagogical practice given the “confessional turn”. By the “confessional turn” the author refers to the idea that “subjective, autobiographical and confessional modes of expression” have expanded exponentially across a wide range of social spheres, including education, the legal system, the media and the workplace. Examining these developments, this paper asks what these debates on critical reflection and confession mean for pedagogical practice.

The main approach is a review of key debates in the literature on critical reflection and also in the wider social sciences.

The discussion compares different debates. Thus it shows that for critics, the turn to the “first person” technologies is narcissistic, psychologistic and de‐politicising. On this view, critical reflective practice might be understood as an individualistic and individualising pedagogy in spite of its claims to be critical. The paper discusses how in contrast, others see this move to talk about the subjective and the self as an extension of the feminist project of the personal is political – i.e. that personal stories, feelings and issues have social and political roots and consequences. For them, reflection can be critical, leading to political consciousness‐raising, i.e. a new awareness about social, political and personal processes. It finishes by examining the view that the idea of reflexivity might help us out of the conflict between these debates.

The paper poses a number of questions in relation to critical reflection that can be taken up by practitioners in the field.

The paper brings new literature to bear on the practice of critical reflection and raises important questions relevant to academics and practitioners.