Foucauldian Studies and HRM Essay

When leaseing to the highest degree gay resource management (HRM) being still as talk over, it is necessary to connect Foucault s supposition on preaching with employee selection as a crucial part of clement resource management. Though Foucault himself not a specialist in HRM, it appears that numerous arranging studies scholars tend to drawn on Foucaults ideas for the purpose of re-analyzing and re-understanding HRM. (Barrantt, 2001) The reason is that Foucaults understanding of the family relationship among dissertate, truth and origin implies how we should regard HRM from distinguishable perspective and deposit it into re-consideration.Gener aloney, discourse could be understand as a set of concepts, expressions and statements that constitutes a way of talking or writing approximately an aspect of the world, thus framing the way slew understand and make believe with regard to that aspect of the world (Watson, 2002 118). And in Foucaults cipher, discourse is a flexible term. In one of Foucault s book, The Archaeology of Knowledge, published in 1969, was an outstanding work of post-structuralism example. He believes that discourse is a statement unity. It negotiation about the statement (enonce), which is a rule for the discursive expression to decease meaningful.In Foucault s view, the statement has some special archeological meanings. The rules slide by the meaning of its existence. The meaning of the statement is dependent on the context where it presents. So discursive framing provide a language to representing a depicted object (Foucault, 1969). So discourse is more than language. It is the way we understand or project the world. Due to discourse is shaped or unshaped by purchase order and culture, there are various discourses. The same as for HRM, it erect be understand and interpreted from a contrastive perspective. There is no head that Foucaultdian studies give crude understanding of HRM.This paper bequeath analyze and critically think of three contri butions of reframing HRM Foucaultdian studies give. The first part will analyze clement resource management as discourse. It focuses on how Foucualtdiansm understand HRM in divergent perspectives. The second part will discuss the relationship between HRM and agency, which includes how Foucault decodes post, its relationship with noesis or truth, and how HRM associated with power. The third part will focus on one important aspect of HRM, employee selection, to explore how employee selection smoke be tacit and interpret in different ways.Finally, a conclusion will be drawn based on previous discussion. HRM as intervention Generally, HRM are treated as a set of practices that regard gentleman as resource to achieve companies targets or interests. It is a product of upstart society. From managerial perspective, human resource management featured with rationality, optimism and authoritarianism (Legge, 1995). numerous scholars have explored human resource management from Foucualdian perspective. Generally, the discourse in HRM is associated with power.Poole (1999) argued that it is believably happened that the discursive analysis contains the description of the HRM discourse related occasion. It will conjure up the issue between the surveys who have the right to speak and its influence on employees. When it comes to Foucault, he did not study in HRM but attracts a subjugate of scholars of HRM. Townley (1993) was a representative who put the relation between HRM and Foucault s corrective power into consideration. She argued that HRM could be best comprehended as a discourse and provides Foucauldian analyses of distinctive feature of HRM.Because Foucault provided a hint that there are inter joinings between discourse, power and truth. So Foucault gave HRM discourse much place to be considered from new perspective (Du Gay et al, 1996). From Foucauldian perspective, HRM is to impose order on the inherently undecidable-the involvement contract (Legge, 2005345). It is excising of power that allow managers to manage. Following Foucaults theory, it is argued here that the theme plays a critical role in HRM. To support this, Foucauldian studies lay tension on the influence of the subject in HRM.In human resource management, the subject plays a more active role (Barratt, 2003). The process of HR management witnessed examination and identification of the subject. Foucualt (1988) himself argued that individuals are influenced and influence others by their authoritative means. All aspects of HRM including employee selection, companys culture and performance appraisal are the product of subjectivity. Take performance appraisal for example, employees have to subject to an haughty appraisal system to confess their performance at work (Townley, 1993).It rouse be regarded as an action of subjective power. Emphasizing on subject gives space for diverse understandings and interpretations of HRM. Despite of the dominant understanding of HRM from managerial perspective, HRM can be something else because post-structuralism and Foucaudian studies propose that there is no definite understanding of a topic. For example, Nayab (2011) argued that HRM could be interpreted in five ways. The fist is normative perspective, which separates HRM as personnel management and strategic human resource management.The second is to consider HRM in a critical way. It is believed that the reality showed the contradiction between handed-down HRM and the new one. The behavioral Perspective is different from others. It put more strain on their performance. The purpose of HRM is to guide and manage employees in order to fulfill the desired performance (Nayab, 2011). Seen from the systems perspective, HRM concerns about the outcome of human resource. It is a factory that using employees as material and producing organizational turnover.The last one is berth or transaction cost perspective (Nayab, 2011). This un derstanding is putting HRM as a mediator of conflicts for the purpose of minimizing the cost. The five understandings of HRM are thinking HRM from different perspective, which inspire the new understandings or some changes against the dominant way of managing human resource. However, the most important stakeholder in HRM may be employee, because it is the opposite envenom against managers also the employees voice is increasingly needed in new HRM. The dominant understanding of HRM is hinking and defining from a managerial perspective. Actually, the employees view on HRM varied based on the HRM models (Whitener, 2001) Fiona Edgar and Alan J. Geare (2005) did some research on exploring employees voice on HRM. The result showed that employees tend to keep a positive attitude towards soft HRM model and resist the traditional and sternly one. However, the current HRM needs some change in order to follow employees need for self-development. It is possible that the different understan dings of HRM push the revolution in some(prenominal) theoretical and practical field.HRM and power Michel Foucault is famous for his critical studies on power, knowledge and discourse. However, according to Foucault (1980), discourse has no definitive explanation. It could be unders in any cased in various perspectives. There is no definite truth in the world. People always impose their subjective consciousness upon the truth. So it is touchy to keep the right way to the truth seeking. (Wetherall, 2001) Classical theory be by Marx implied the traditional understanding the relationship between knowledge and power (Barratt, 2003).Ideology is regarded as a tool for power. It covers the truth so that people who are governed subject to managing without resistance (Braverman, 1976). However, one main defect of his theory is that he neglects the subject. He defined individuals at work as federal agency of economic or employment relations (Knights and Willmott, 1985, 1989). In Foucaults theory, the connection between power and knowledge is complex. Power is everywhere. Also, we have to put human subject into consideration.The reason why discourse is important is that the point of Foucaults theory not sole(prenominal) lies in how the language expresses meanings but also in what is the relationship between the discourse and the objective behind, or what bod of power imposed (Luke, 1999). In the Order of dissertate, Foucault (1971) claimed that the notion of exclusion is soundly known in our society, but the most obvious one is prohibition. In other words, not all the topic is allowed in a certain occasion and not everyone is tending(p) the right to speak out everything. parley itself is not an important issue.However, the prohibition behind the discourse surprised us due to its connection with the desire and power. In addition, there is another strain of exclusion principle, which is the opposition between reason and betise. On one hand, the discourse of a m adman no doubt will be regarded as invalid and unreliable. On the other hand, the madman is given the gift of predicting and revealing the truth. So in fact, there is no definite so-called madness(Foucault, 1971). The abnormal itself presents the control from a certain group of people.Or in other words, power defines the truth the madness to convince people. In cost of knowledge, Foucault (1971) argued that power create knowledge, they are connected with each other. Also, knowledge is only available to the public only when utter within discourse. He claimed that knowledge and truth are not independent and objective. They are connected well with power and suffer the legitimate protection for power operating. As Foucault stated it in The History of Sexuality Discourses are not once and for all subservient to power or raised up against it, and more than silences are.We moldiness make allowances for the complex and unstable process whereby discourse can both an instrument and an ef fect of power, but also a hindrance, a stumbling-block, a point of resistance and a starting point for an opposing strategy. Discourse transmits and produces power it reinforces it, but also undermines and exposes it, renders it fragile and makes it possible to thwart it. (Foucault, 1980) Also, the power displayed in Discipline and Punish helps us to critically think about the self-regulation, which can be applied into workplace.It mentioned the disciplinary power. As Foucault (1977) observed, the prison knowing by Jeremy Bentham is a technique of the panoptic gaze. The central tower makes prisoners to theme themselves. So when it comes to the workplace, the panoptic gaze also normalizing individuals behavior. In 1950, Elton Mayo and Fritz Roethlisberger put forwarded the Hawthorne effect (French, 1953). They observed the performance of labors in an electric factory. They found that when the lights become brighter, workers tend to discipline themselves and the production will inc rease.This kind of self-regulation also can be seen in modern workplaces where CCTVs and call centers are facilitated. It is a descriptor of info-normative control (Frenkel et al, 1995) that evaluates employees performance objectively. But also the monitoring may damage the culture of leaning form each other and lay too much stress on workers (Knights & McCabe, 2003). However, it seems that power is everywhere but it does not mean power is everything. Knights and McCabe also argued that power is not have by certain group of people, even the disciplinary power cannot solve the individuals behavior.Foucault (1980) supposed that when individuals put power into action, they are given their own identity and meaning. Subjects are getting gradually split from the collective class, but it is neither individualism nor collectivism (Knights, 1994). It should be treated dialectically. So the power has its influence on knowledge and discourse. Or even the disciplinary power promotes sel f-regulation and make employees subject to the power. However, the impact of the subject cannot be neglected. It interacts with power and discourse.