Author: Christine Edwards
Edwards, Christine, 2019 The nature of ‘care’ as experienced with-in the context of Human Resource Management (HRM) in Higher Education: a hermeneutic phenomenological inquiry, Flinders University, College of Education, Psychology and Social Work
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ABSTRACT
Those working in Higher Education are familiar with the promise, ‘People are our most important asset’ that lies at the heart of what Human Resource Management (HRM) stands for. HRM care for employees is written into policies and procedures and documented in the governance of employee safety and well-being in Higher Education. The theory, practice and language of HRM include the understanding of care and being caring of people in Higher Education as important elements in leading and managing HRM. But how does this bear out in the experiences of those working in this context?
This phenomenological inquiry sought to uncover taken for granted understandings of the nature of care in HRM in Higher Education. This inquiry sought to understand how HRM care is experienced by people working in Higher Education as they encounter HRM care every day. This inquiry presents a philosophical interpretation of the meanings of the nature of care in participants’ stories in answer to the hermeneutic questions of ‘what is mattering?’ and ‘what is being shown?’ The philosophical works of Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer influenced the hermeneutic phenomenological interpretations as the participants’ stories opened new understandings of the phenomenon of care in the context of HRM in Higher Education.
This inquiry reveals care and concern as always mattering. Alarmingly however, in the telling of stories in this interpretive hermeneutic phenomenological inquiry, the phenomenon of care often shows itself in its absence. This inquiry reveals the absence of care in Higher Education as HRM continually privileges ontic understandings of care over ontological understandings of care. In taking for granted the ontology of care, HRM care is revealed as a grievous phenomenon in Higher Education where care is contrived and humanity is buried in technicist, rationalistic thinking. The appearance of HRM care for well-being and safety is heartlessly bound by economic imperatives.
The play of HRM care compels individuals towards an averageness of being and knowing. In the play of HRM care unique understandings, which go against the norm, are shunned. HRM care in Higher Education is not only revealed as being ‘at odds’ with its own rhetoric but also contrary to the purposes and values of education. This inquiry calls for a re-imaging of the nature of care in HRM in Higher Education as an urgent consideration of the ontology of care, of what it is to be human, in both HRM practice and leadership and management research.
Keywords: Care, HRM, Hermeneutics, Phenomenology
Subject: Education thesis, Psychology thesis
Thesis type: Doctor of Philosophy
Completed: 2019
School: College of Education, Psychology and Social Work
Supervisor: Professor David Giles