Abstract
The Problem
Human resource development (HRD) research and theories often do not adequately capture the holistic and self-directed nature of human beings at work. Likewise, HRD practice can fall short when applying an instrumental stance toward individuals as resources instead of building on the innate strengths and intrinsic areas of interest.
The Solution
The concept of human agency is explored in this article in contrast to narrow and instrumental understandings of the person to propose an ethically and pragmatically more adequate notion for HRD research and practice. Exploring essential elements of human and moral agency affords a view of how individuals might understand themselves in the context of work and opens up the opportunity to build HRD theory and practice based on a holistic understanding of persons.
The Stakeholders
This article has relevance for future practitioners and researchers in university-based HRD programs, for HRD scholars seeking to advance the art and science of the field, and for HRD managers and professionals responsible for the learning and education system and processes in organizations and other work settings.
Given the central role of individuals in the context of work systems and structures, surprisingly little conceptual and theoretical writing in human resource development (HRD) has addressed the assumptions about the central characteristics of persons. Humanistic psychology, existentialism, and the human potential movement in the mid-century were maximally focused on the essence of individuals, and have informed early formulations of the field and especially organization development. Their influence, however, has waned since the 1980s. In its place moved research, theorizing, and prescriptions for practice informed by industrial psychology, organization behavior, and management studies. Summarily called Organization Studies (OS), the field has been characterized by two central characteristics as outlined by Nord and Fox (1999): a trend toward reducing complex human behaviors, such as leadership, to fine-grained categories and themes, and a move toward emphasizing the role of contextual and situational dimensions. These developments have invited the charges of reductionism and irrelevance: Research findings on detailed behavioral categories, for example, those surfaced in questionnaires and surveys on situational leadership, are typically not found in isolation in practice, and thus empirical findings can have limited relevance to practitioners. Settings found in field experiments, important as they may be, rarely transfer beyond the specific study, resulting in insights with limited external validity and without generalizability. The “quest to uncover the essential properties and universal features of the typical human being” (Nord & Fox, 1999, p. 142) of the early years of OS research, has, in contemporary research, given way to the proverbial understanding of more and more about less and less, and has led to the “great disappearing act” (Nord & Fox, 1999, p. 142) of the individual in organization studies. Within the management literature itself, critiques of the state of the art are offered with an increasing frequency, including the shortcomings of the traditional MBA model of educating future managers (e.g., Mintzberg, 2004), the neglect of ethical and moral implications of managerial training and decision making (Bennis & O’Toole, 2005), the poor record of research to practice transfer (Ghoshal, 2005), and the lack of innovative and high-impact research (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2013).
Similar critiques have been leveled against HRD research. Relevance for practice should be improved as noted in a recent editorial by the editor of one of our leading journals (Ardichvili, 2011). A recent analysis of empirical studies shows that—despite its often-claimed interdisciplinarity and multiparadigmatic nature—the majority of HRD research is grounded in organizational psychology rather than embracing the whole range of social and human sciences (Azevedo, 2013). Critical HRD scholars such as Elliott and Turnbull (2005) and Sambrook (2012) have voiced critique over the tendency to limit our understanding of individuals to their instrumental role as means to organizational ends and as resources to be maximized in the service of managers, owners, and stockholders. When issues of central concern to persons, such as learning, well-being, growth, meaning, and spirituality are seen as tools to improve organizational outcomes rather than as values in themselves, then the integrity of HRD scholarship and practice is at risk from ethical and pragmatic points of view.
HRD research and practice stand to gain from a renewed focus on the central dimensions of being human in the context of productive activities, whether working alone, as part of a group, member of an organization, citizen of a country, or participant in the global economy. It is an adequate understanding of the person in his or her totality that is required when collaborating, leading, innovating, negotiating, and engaging in other processes in work environments. As individuals at work, we do not parse ourselves into operational variables and discrete categories, such as continuance commitment and turnover intention when reporting to work in the morning. Rather, we understand ourselves at work in a holistic fashion, bringing the whole range of concerns, hopes, dreams, plans, joys, and sorrows to the worksite. We act, make decisions, and respond to demands and opportunities in the context of the richness of all aspects of our lives, including those related to work, to family, to community, and to our private selves. Yet HRD research is often silent about such a holistic understanding of individuals. A reorientation or broadening to include life, world, and phenomenological dimensions might well provide the quality that allows HRD research and practice to make a valuable contribution and distinguishing feature in contrast to related fields, such as organization behavior and industrial psychology. It may reclaim its place in educational research and provide a much-needed corrective function to the value sets of management research, business schools, and departments of human resource management (see Kuchinke, 2007). While this reorientation is not a call of a return to grand theories, it is a call for careful consideration and discussion of what is meant when we speak about humans in the context of human resource development. Responsible practice and informed research require careful consideration of the foundational features of a domain, and it is in this respect that the concept of human agency is explored in this essay as a central idea for HRD.
What Is Meant by Human Agency?
Human agency is a philosophical concept that signifies the essential quality of human beings to make choices and act accordingly. Individuals are said to have agency as a central and broad characteristic, although we are not reduced to this quality alone. Action philosophers, such as Bishop (1989) and Aguilar and Buckareff (2010), include in the concept (a) the knowledge of one’s choices and actions, (b) ability to govern and control actions based on those choices, (c) ability to distinguish among different choices and actions, and (d) ability and duty to account for and explain one’s actions. The capacities to act independently, to make choices, and to pursue interests that are self-determined are contrasted with determinism, the notion that outward forces have overwhelming power. Determinism underlies, for example, Marxian analysis and postmodernist views of individuals as being under the control, being subjugated, and even colonialized by societal forces (e.g., Deetz, 1992). Human agency is a core element of the philosophy of the enlightenment and forms the basis of theories of modern political theories of the democratic state and of citizenship. As a fundamental quality of human life, agency cannot be surrendered. It remains even if external circumstances prevent its realization, as in the case of an indentured servant or a prisoner where the degree of control over one’s environment might be severely limited. In the hypothetical and extreme case of a person voluntarily submitting to slavery, free will and choice remain as capacities, even though they may become latent and not acted on. Human agency cannot be overcome from the outside for extended periods of time, as shown by the failed histories of totalitarian regimes throughout the ages. Human agency does not imply an individualistic perspective, but positions the individual in interaction with the social environment and addresses the need for negotiation, balance, and mutuality of the claims of the individual and the collective.
In organizational studies, the dynamic tension between agency and structure is perhaps the central area of concern: How can the efforts of individuals be directed toward goals and objectives while at the same time enabling individuals to make autonomous decisions, engage in situations in creative and innovative manner, and draw on inner resources and talents? Conceptual frameworks addressing this tension include, among others, structuration theory (Giddens, 1984), which suggests that structure, such as organizational reporting lines, hierarchies, and policies, and individual action are codeterminant. When individuals follow formal rules, structure is reinforced. When individuals, however, break or circumvent the rules, structure is changed. An example is a frontline employee who communicates a recommendation for service improvement directly to the division executive rather than following established reporting up the line. As a result of this episode, subsequent attempts of direct upward communication may become routine and accepted as part of a new set of rules, or they may be sanctioned as inappropriate, thus reinforcing the existing structure. Another example of a theory addressing the tension between agency and structure is agency theory (Eisenhardt, 1989), the notion that individuals engage in bargaining for the best deal when agreeing to enter an employment relationship, that is, when agents agree to exert effort—and curtail their own actions—on behalf of the owners or principals.
In the mainstream HRD literature, however, human agency has not received the required attention. The dominant view positions the individual as resource, as object of developmental strategies, and as instrument in attaining organizational goals (e.g., Swanson & Holton, 2009). The argument here is not that these perspectives are morally or ethically wrong—although this argument has been advanced by critical HRD scholars (e.g., Elliott & Turnbull, 2005; Fenwick, 2011)—but that it fails to draw on the full range of capabilities and opportunities for contribution and innovation. Expressions of human agency are always “at work,” and include meaning, spirituality, and development. These may be latent and not realized, and they may be supported or suppressed. They may be nurtured or starved by the individual, the organizational environment, or both, but they persist in conditions of all kinds as capacities. The expressions of agency exist in interaction with the more visible concerns of HRD, such as performance, customer service, and general goal attainment, at times in concordance with external conditions (doing meaningful work, feeling fulfilled, being in the flow), at times in resistance (slowing down work deliberately, calling in sick without cause), or at times below the threshold of awareness. Because of the noninstrumental quality of agency, attempts to impose, utilize, or capture meaning, spirituality, or development as a means to an end determined by others and without the active participation of the individual will likely fail. Since human agency is a fundamental characteristic that individuals bring to work, it can only be nurtured, supported, and elicited.
Empirical Studies Addressing Agency
A substantial body of empirical research suggests that individual self-direction and self-expression at work are in fact, everyday occurrences that take place independent of whether they are sanctioned, supported, or in line with organizational goals. The central insight of the Hawthorne experiments, for example, was the realization of the sophisticated mechanism of work regulation among the women at General Electric, mechanisms that operated fully outside of supervisory control, influence, and even supervisory awareness (Mayo, 1949). More recently, the research program on job crafting by Jane Dutton and colleagues (Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001) showed how employees use substantial amounts of discretion about many elements of their jobs, pursuing some tasks with vigor and energy, delaying others, and even shirking unpleasant aspects of the job. Job crafting was observed among a wide range of jobs, including those with outwardly little behavioral discretion, such as work in call centers, hotel front line, and airline reservations. While discretion over one’s job is frequently built into professional level jobs, for example, sales, engineering, and research, employees create ways to act in line with their preferences and personal discretion even in jobs that were tightly scripted through behavioral rules. Supervisory control and job descriptions are rarely sufficiently fine-grained or complete to prevent expressions of personal behavioral preference, styles, or will, nor is such control desirable from an organization’s point of view, for example, in service-related jobs.
Another example of the extent of human agency present in everyday work is the research on cognitive framing by Ashford and Kreiner (1999). Here, human agency is expressed in the valuation of work in line with the need to maintain positive regard for one’s self. In the series of “dirty work” studies, it was found that individuals in socially undesirable occupations, such as garbage collectors, sanitation workers, funeral directors, and even sex workers, uniformly created a positive image of their work as important contributions to the well-being of society. Work that is stigmatized, for example, by parents when asked about the future jobs of their children, is cognitively reframed by those who work in these jobs. “Dirty work” is viewed in a positive light and normalized by those working in those occupations (Ashforth & Kreiner, 1999).
More closely related to HRD research, and as a fourth example is the meaning of work research program (Kuchinke et al., 2011) conducted in eight countries, in multiple industries, in a wide range of occupations and organizational roles, and over several years. These studies showed conclusively that individuals in countries with high levels of commitment to work, where work and career are viewed as central to self-definition, nevertheless define their own lives first and foremost in terms of their relationship with family, friends, and self, and not in terms of work or career. Work centrality, while considered important, was found to be only one among several competing areas of commitment, and ranked second or third in order of importance, even among highly successful and educated professional employees.
Moral Agency
Moral agency, an important correlate to the free-will character of human agency, is the ability to make judgments about right and wrong and to act accordingly. Empirical research supports the notion of human agency, but the boundaries and constraints of free will and self-direction in the context of civil society are central concerns of ethics and moral philosophy. These limits are seen as conditions to actually enable and preserve human agency for everyone and prevent hyperindividualism at the cost of agency by others. Among the best-known ethical frameworks are Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperatives that form the basis of many contemporary formulations of business ethics and corporate social responsibility. As described by Bowie (1998), the ideals of the enlightenment thought as expressed by Kant are fully compatible and actually in support of the goals of the international business community, and can enable business organizations to build and sustain a moral world community. At the center of Kant’s work is the relationship between the individual and the collective, which can be the community, the organization, society, state, or global world. The first formulation of the categorical imperative is, “Act only on that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law” (Kant, 1785/1990, p. 38). The expression of human agency, thus, is not willful or self-centered but should aim at universality, at being worthy to be enacted as a universal law that applies to everyone. The second formulation is, “Act so that you treat humanity whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only” (1785/1990, p. 46). Bowie (1998) pays special attention to the last word in this statement in his discussion of the implication to business relationships and employment. According to this interpretation, it is morally and ethically permissible to use another in an instrumental fashion, say to employ a worker to dig a trench, as long as the legitimate claims of the worker to free will, self-determination, and maturity are not denied. Entering into a contract to perform work for hire, and negotiating terms of employment such as pay, workload, and compensation constitute legitimate expression of human agency and mature contracting behavior between adults. Deceiving the worker about the work, withholding wages for work performed, or breaking the employment contract without valid reason, however, would constitute examples of treating the other only as a means to an end. Kant’s philosophy posits strong levels of reciprocity. Just as the employer is morally obligated to treat the worker fairly, so is the worker bound to treat the employer and, by extension, the employing organization and the coworkers, as an end and not merely as a means to an end. This reciprocal responsibility puts the moral obligation on employees to refrain from shirking their duties, stealing, misrepresenting facts, or acting contrary to the intentions and decisions of the employer.
Interestingly, this second formulation of Kant’s moral imperative is also the foundation for employment relationships in a philosophically much different framework, namely, the economist and Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman’s libertarian philosophy. Friedman’s work is best known from his original New York Times essay titled “The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits” (Friedman, 1970) and has been reprinted many times since. Based on the central idea of human agency, employees engage in contractual employment relationships as mature adults who are aware, or have the duty to become aware, of the conditions of the work they are about enter for hire. The obligations are reciprocal, and either party can alter the relationship, through negotiation or termination of the relationship. Cheaters, be they employee or organization, will become known quickly and suffer loss of reputation and subsequent diminished opportunities. While Friedman, in contrast to Kant, presumes no moral obligation beyond the contract, the presumption of human agency at work underlies both frameworks.
Kant’s third formulation of the categorical imperative poses that one should act “as if you were a member of an ideal kingdom of ends in which you were both subject and sovereign at the same time” (Bowie, 1998, p. 45). For Kant, persons have ultimate value in and of themselves—They are essentially ends in themselves and not means to an end. We live in society and community, the “kingdom of ends,” that require rules. To create an ideal society, we must search for, adopt, and implement laws, and these laws should be such that we would want them for others (as sovereign) and for ourselves (as subject) at the same time. Rules and laws for civil society are not fundamentally different from rules that govern business organizations, families, or other types of assemblies. John Rawls explains in his magnum opus, A Theory of Justice (Rawls, 1970), business organizations are constituted within democratic societies and are, therefore, obligated to uphold basic principles of justice and fairness. Even though firms are privately owned, while societies are public, the mode of ownership does not create the right to special privilege or exception from the ideals of a just society.
Rawls’ extension of Kant’s imperatives is the notion that justice is the primary virtue of civil society and all its institutions. Justice, in Rawls’ framework, is operationally defined as fairness: A just society is a society where rules of fairness are upheld. Two guiding principles are required to enact fairness. First, “each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others.” Second, “social and economic inequality are to be arranged so that they are both (a) reasonably expected to be to everyone’s advantage, and (b) attached to positions and offices open to all” (Rawls, 1970, p. 60). The basic structure of a just society can be made up of a set of rules that “free and rational persons concerned with their own interests would accept in an initial position of equality” (Rawls, 1970, p. 11). Such rules should be selected behind a veil of ignorance where “no one knows his place in society, his class position or social status, nor . . . his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence, strength, and the like” (1970, p. 12, gendered language in the original). Human agency, thus, entails responsibilities as well as rights; it is held in check through the rules of moral and ethical philosophy, and the guiding principles of civil society and organization.
A particular feature of moral philosophy and ethics lies in the fact that their principles rely on the force of the argument and not on empirical fact. Even though speeding on the highway, for example, occurs on a daily basis, it is considered wrong and subject to penalty because of the increased risk of accidents and injury. Even though exceptions are permissible, a higher order good is required to justify the injunction. In the case of the surgeon who is called to the hospital for an emergency operation and is breaking traffic rules, such infraction can be permissible as long as a minimum level of public safety is ensured, speeding occurs solely for the purpose of getting to the hospital on time, and as long as there are no other provisions available to safeguard the patient’s well-being. More complicated is the case of worker ill treatment. Bill Gates, for example, by his own admission, was known to be a strict, demanding, and sometimes demeaning leader in his early years at Microsoft (Rogak, 2012). While such treatment of workers may have led to organizational success, there was regret of part of the founder later on, and it is not clear whether alternatives would not have led to similar outcomes.
The currently emerging field of behavioral ethics attempts to understand behavioral choices through empirical research on hypothetical or actual moral dilemmas, such as the prisoner’s dilemma (e.g., Trevino, Weaver, & Reynolds, 2006), and has been applied in recent HRD research (Ardichvili & Jondle, 2009). The best-known model for explaining moral behavior, however, remains Rest’s four-component model that posits four dimensions that account for moral behavior or its absence: moral sensitivity, moral judgment, moral motivation, and moral character (Rest, 1986).
Human Agency and HRD
The central argument of this essay is that the field of HRD stands to gain by clarifying its images and guiding theories of persons in a holistic fashion and “from the inside out,” that in ways correspond to how individuals might perceive themselves and think about their actions in workplace settings. Current research and theorizing about HRD based on industrial psychology tends to be fragmented by investigating fine-grained and detailed behavioral facets that risk clouding the “big picture,” the question about core and enduring characteristics of what it means to be human and engaged in work. Such a holistic perspective was central to humanistic psychology and existentialism that underpinned early theories of organization development and, to a lesser degree, training and career development. Many of the grand theories of these earlier movements were clearly in need of empirical validation—note the failure to establish the validity of one of its most cherished theories, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (e.g., Wahba & Bridwell, 1976). A return to core theories about human beings and their relationship with work appears to be useful at a time when behavioral science research is criticized, and practitioners, scholars, and HRD students are seeking novel approaches and new directions to build the knowledge base of the field.
Human agency is a construct that allows a deeper discussion and insight into the central dynamics of the importance of HRD. Agency is a holistic notion that emphasizes the free will, individuality, and whole life concerns of individuals. It posits the usefulness of building HRD research and practice on the basis of how individuals understand themselves, in the complexity of their various life roles, as decision makers who navigate and balance a variety of often competing demands, and who exert a quite astounding level of control over their daily activities. Rather than limiting our view of individuals to that of a resource or a hired hand, a more adequate understanding of individuals would start with how we, as HRD scholars, researchers, students, and practitioners, view ourselves in our relationship with work and extrapolate from a point of self-reflexivity to how others, clients, superiors, subordinates, colleagues, might understand themselves in a holistic fashion.
A first implication for research and practice would be the attempt to include broader aspects of self into work. In a time when work and life boundaries are becoming highly permeable and when personal attributes, such as organizational citizenship, commitment, emotional work, and interpersonal competencies, appear central to successful work and successful organizations, organizations stand to gain from inviting the full involvement of personal interests, passions, commitment, and talents. Creating organizations on the basis of the talents of the people in them is a central tenet of emergence and self-design (Wheatley, 2012) and promises results for individuals, business, and society. Appreciating, inviting, and nurturing human agency at work is also a prerequisite for high performance and employee commitment, and should be viewed as a necessary precondition for organizational learning and innovation based on the energies and commitments of employees. Meaning, spirituality, and purpose flow based on the extent to which individuals can exercise agency and draw on their full set of capabilities. Empirical research shows that agency is already at work in multiple forms; therefore, it stands to reason that harnessing its power will promote individuals and organizational well-being.
A necessary correlate to the freedoms of human agency is the notion of moral agency. Moral agency enables the energies of human agency to be channeled productively and fairly in the context of human and civil society. Here again, at issue are higher notions of organizational functioning than traditionally addressed when talking about, for example, the effects of mentoring on employee performance. Principles of justice and fairness should be understood as central features and, indeed, obligations of organizations. When organizational leaders aim at creating just communities as a central value, then the full range of human capabilities and flourishing can be unleashed. I can think of no other function in an organization better suited to drive toward this goal than HRD.
An important and often misunderstood element of ethics and moral philosophy is the notion of responsibility. Just as corporations can embrace their role in social responsibility, so is it incumbent on employees to be fully engaged, make use of their talents, energies, and commitments to further the common good, and act in good faith when accepting opportunities for development, learning, and education at work. Flawed as social institutions, such as companies and firms, may be, Kant’s moral imperatives leave no ethical justification for cynical disengagement, shirking, or abdication of one’s responsibilities. Here again, HRD practitioners have the opportunity and even perhaps the responsibility to act as the moral voice and beacon in service of developing more perfect social organizations that not only excel in terms of providing products and services but also teach by example how ethical principles can and should be enacted. Meaning, purpose, and spirituality ensue when such moral communities exist and are nurtured.
Finally, the focus on human and moral agency has implications for the definition and scope of HRD as a field of research and of practice. In previous writing, the claim was made that human resource development, defined as learning, education, and development in the context of workplace settings, is but a special case of the broader concept of human development (Kuchinke, 2010). In this context, human flourishing represents a worthy and aspirational goal for HRD, one that is inclusive of, though not limited to, the present narrower focus on performance. Human flourishing, according to philosopher John Finnis, aims at well-being and living well in matters public and private, social and economic, and political and spiritual (Finnis, 1993). This approach acknowledges the goals of all stakeholders, such as employees, customers, and owners, as valid and in need to balance. As the developmental economic and philosopher Alkire (2002a) explains, human flourishing, as the goal of human development, addresses the dimensions of life, health, safety; knowledge and aesthetic experience; excellence in work and play; friendship; self-integration; self-expression or practical reasonableness; and spirituality or religion.
Not all dimensions will have equal valence to individuals or organizations; their possible rank order and combination will differ across time and space, and individual preferences may well follow a life-span logic. Human development, according to Amartya Sen (see Alkire, 2002b), means the expansion of human capabilities, and these, in turn, are defined as an expression of human agency. A reorientation of HRD theory and research, or, perhaps more modestly, the opening of dialogue of the role of human agency with its expression in meaning, spirituality, and development appears appropriate as the Academy of HRD celebrates its 20th anniversary. As the field moves from an emerging discipline in need to assert its “place at the corporate table” to a mature status, the liabilities and limitations of a primary orientation on managerialist values can and should give way to a wider footing as an independent field based on solid moral, ethical, and humanistic grounding.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.