Eunbi Sim and Laura L. Bierema
Precarious workers in academia represent most employees in higher education institutions (HEIs), and women and historically excluded groups are overrepresented in these positions…
Abstract
Purpose
Precarious workers in academia represent most employees in higher education institutions (HEIs), and women and historically excluded groups are overrepresented in these positions, oppressed by intersecting inequities, such as sexism and racism. There is a need to comprehensively understand how precarity operates within academia from an intersectional perspective and how it oppresses marginalized and precarious workers.
Design/methodology/approach
Following the PRISMA guidelines, this paper systematically reviewed 22 articles that discuss academic precarity through an intersectional lens.
Findings
Studies have shown that (1) the uncertainty and insecurity in modern academia are driven by global forces and ongoing crises; (2) systemic intersectionality entrenched in HEIs influenced the shaping of their academic experiences and positionalities; and (3) intersectionality could be used as a reflexive tool to resist the precarious academy.
Originality/value
This paper is the first systematic review examining the intersectionality in precarious academia. By synthesizing articles highlighting precarity and intersectionality in academia, the paper contributes to theories of academic capitalism and intersectionality and offers comprehensive and critical implications for research and practice in higher education. This study illuminates how neoliberalism, global capitalism and intersecting inequities are deeply rooted in academia and how academic workers could challenge such issues.
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Laura L. Bierema, Eunbi Sim, Weixin He and Alexandra B. Cox
The purpose of this paper is to interrogate the “double-jeopardy” in widely adopted women’s leadership development interventions aimed at “fixing” women, explore critical feminist…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to interrogate the “double-jeopardy” in widely adopted women’s leadership development interventions aimed at “fixing” women, explore critical feminist coaching (CFC) perspectives and practices and offer more equitable and just alternatives for developing women leaders.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper includes a literature review of post-feminist and critical feminist perspectives and a critical examination of coaching for women leaders from each perspective.
Findings
Postfeminist approaches in organizations are little scrutinized because of the dominant postfeminist discourse that women's subordination and oppression have been “resolved” through neoliberal, individualistic interventions, such as postfeminist coaching programs. Infusing the message of “fixing women” through emphasizing “4 C’s” – confidence, control, courage and competition – postfeminist coaching programs have been submitting women leaders to “double jeopardy.” The authors critique this postfeminist coaching paradox from a critical feminist perspective foregrounding “4 R’s” – reflecting, reforming, raising and rebuilding – promising more equitable, just development.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt to describe CFC and presentation of a conceptual and practical model of the process. The authors define postfeminist coaching as the disavowal of feminist values and failure to challenge gender hegemony in the coaching process. The authors propose a model of CFC defined as the explicit embrace of feminist values and challenge of gender hegemony in the coaching process. The authors offer alternatives for developing women leaders amid paradoxical, complex, capitalist systems, with a critical lens challenging postfeminism.
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Thomas N. Garavan, Colette Darcy and Laura Lee Bierema
This article introduces the special issue of Learning and Development in Highly-Dynamic VUCA Contexts. The issue reviews the concept of VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity…
Abstract
Purpose
This article introduces the special issue of Learning and Development in Highly-Dynamic VUCA Contexts. The issue reviews the concept of VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity), highlights its implications for the learning and development function and argues that learning and development play a critical role in helping organisations, people and the societal context in which they operate to work within and navigate VUCA contexts.
Design/methodology/approach
The contributions to this special issue propose a novel learning and development framework that will inform L&D as the provision of training, learning and development activities in organisations within highly dynamic VUCA contexts and ensuring a strong external focus including organisational, people, community, economic and societal sustainability.
Findings
We, the authors, propose seven features of a strategic sustainability L&D function and L&D professional role that are a fit with highly dynamic VUCA contexts.
Practical implications
The proposed framework has important implications for the way in which L&D is structured, its key priorities and plans and the competencies of L&D professionals to add value to all stakeholders. We also emphasise that the work on the L&D function in highly dynamic VUCA contexts needs to be broader and move beyond a performance orientation.
Originality/value
The proposed strategic sustainability role for the L&D function expands theoretically our understanding of how L&D can have impacts at the nexus of the organisation and highly dynamic VUCA contexts, in addition to broadening the constellation of stakeholders that it potentially enhances.
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The purpose of this paper is to empirically illustrate how human resource development (HRD) resists and omits issues of diversity in academic programs, textbooks, and research;…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to empirically illustrate how human resource development (HRD) resists and omits issues of diversity in academic programs, textbooks, and research; analyze the research on HRD and diversity over a ten‐year period; discuss HRD's resistance to diversity; and offer some recommendations for a more authentic integration of diversity into HRD research, teaching, and practice.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper analyzes common HRD textbooks and refereed diversity research over a ten‐year period to examine the amount of HRD research is being conducted in the area of diversity.
Findings
The paper found that HRD overwhelmingly omits diversity topics, in contradiction to its claims of “diversity” as a legitimate part of the field. The paper concludes that HRD's omission of diversity is a form of resistance since fundamentally addressing diversity threatens HRD's performative frameworks and practices.
Practical implications
The paper has implications for scholars and practitioners who are interested in not only producing more robust diversity scholarship, but also improving practice. The paper challenges HRD researchers to more systematically examine diversity and practitioners to be more cautious consumers of diversity practices.
Originality/value
The paper is original in its premise that HRD resists diversity and in its illustration of how glaring omissions of diversity are in HRD scholarship.
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Kecia M. Thomas, Laura Bierema and Harriet Landau
Women are underrepresented in the leadership ranks across society. Research and the development of strategies to assist corporate women in breaking the glass ceiling is frequent…
Abstract
Women are underrepresented in the leadership ranks across society. Research and the development of strategies to assist corporate women in breaking the glass ceiling is frequent and ongoing. Less prevalent has been a similar exploration of the barriers that women in academe confront in regards to their upward mobility and subsequent leadership. This article analyzes how academic women experience the glass ceiling, how research done on corporate women can inform much needed study of barriers to academic women’s upward mobility, and finally, how human resource development practices may benefit advancing women’s leadership in higher education.
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Chang-kyu Kwon and Matthew Archer
The complex world in which we reside is calling for more critical approaches to address the precarity experienced by the most marginalized in social systems. However, human…
Abstract
Purpose
The complex world in which we reside is calling for more critical approaches to address the precarity experienced by the most marginalized in social systems. However, human resource development (HRD) lacks empirical data to describe, define and project the objectives and future directions of Critical HRD in today’s turbulent and volatile times. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the historical and contemporary progression of Critical HRD, as described by nine of its most well-known scholars.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected through semistructured interviews, and a constructivist grounded theory coding approach was applied during analysis to identify themes and patterns.
Findings
The findings of this study highlight the persistent scholarship versus practice divide among Critical HRD scholars, suggesting that Critical HRD may merely be an academic undertaking and something not practiced within the public domain. The authors call for an evolution of Critical HRD toward more practice- and action-oriented approaches to scholarship and teaching so that meaningful changes can take place in actual organizations and workplaces.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study was the first to empirically show that there is a real research–practice gap, particularly among Critical HRD scholars. Critical HRD scholars need to take these findings seriously as an opportunity to reflect on how they can take Critical HRD to the next level beyond academic discourse.