Responsible leadership development - crucible experiences and power relationships in a global professional services firm
Responsible leadership development - crucible experiences and power relationships in a global professional services firm
There is increasing consensus that Human Resource Development (HRD) has a central role to play in promoting the principles and practices of corporate responsibility (CR). An important HRD intervention involves developing responsible leaders able to attract support for CR throughout the organisation, but empirical research is lacking in this area. This article contributes to the theoretical and practical knowledge of responsible leadership development (RLD) by addressing two questions: first, how does RLD engender learning that goes beyond basic cognitive awareness? Second, what affects participants’ abilities to manifest this learning in the workplace? A review of the RLD literature reveals a ‘knowing-doing gap’, which, it is posited, may be linked to a lack of theorisation around power. This issue is investigated by means of a case study on a responsible leadership development programme run by a professional services firm. Drawing on Bourdieusian concepts of language and power, the study reveals some of the mechanisms that inspired new socially responsible values whilst also demonstrating some of the contextual barriers inhibiting their manifestation in the workplace. It is argued that HRD professionals need to engage with Bourdieusian ideas of language and power to promote deeper learning around responsible leadership, which can more easily be embedded into the workplace
responsible leadership, leadership development, HRD, corporate social responsibility, corporate responsibility, Bourdieu
560-576
Blakeley, K
0db7037f-dcd4-48f9-a0ed-941e7b3ab321
Higgs, Malcolm
bd61667f-4b7c-4caf-9d79-aee907c03ae3
Blakeley, K
0db7037f-dcd4-48f9-a0ed-941e7b3ab321
Higgs, Malcolm
bd61667f-4b7c-4caf-9d79-aee907c03ae3
Blakeley, K and Higgs, Malcolm
(2014)
Responsible leadership development - crucible experiences and power relationships in a global professional services firm.
Human Resource Development International, 17 (5), .
(doi:10.1080/13678868.2014.954192).
Abstract
There is increasing consensus that Human Resource Development (HRD) has a central role to play in promoting the principles and practices of corporate responsibility (CR). An important HRD intervention involves developing responsible leaders able to attract support for CR throughout the organisation, but empirical research is lacking in this area. This article contributes to the theoretical and practical knowledge of responsible leadership development (RLD) by addressing two questions: first, how does RLD engender learning that goes beyond basic cognitive awareness? Second, what affects participants’ abilities to manifest this learning in the workplace? A review of the RLD literature reveals a ‘knowing-doing gap’, which, it is posited, may be linked to a lack of theorisation around power. This issue is investigated by means of a case study on a responsible leadership development programme run by a professional services firm. Drawing on Bourdieusian concepts of language and power, the study reveals some of the mechanisms that inspired new socially responsible values whilst also demonstrating some of the contextual barriers inhibiting their manifestation in the workplace. It is argued that HRD professionals need to engage with Bourdieusian ideas of language and power to promote deeper learning around responsible leadership, which can more easily be embedded into the workplace
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Accepted/In Press date: 22 July 2014
e-pub ahead of print date: 25 September 2014
Keywords:
responsible leadership, leadership development, HRD, corporate social responsibility, corporate responsibility, Bourdieu
Organisations:
Faculty of Business, Law and Art
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 377077
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/377077
ISSN: 1367-8868
PURE UUID: 1d819fd9-2b4a-4a32-9465-80bc50aec0b5
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Date deposited: 19 May 2015 11:54
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:30
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Author:
K Blakeley
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