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Ideology in HRM Scholarship: Interrogating the Ideological Performativity of ‘New Unitarism’

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Abstract

In this paper we seek to uncover and analyse unitarist ideology within the field of HRM, with particular emphasis on the manner in which what we call ‘new unitarism’ is ideologically performative in HRM scholarship. Originally conceived of as a way of understanding employer ideology with regard to the employment relationship, unitarist frames of reference conceive a workplace that is characterised by shared interests and a single source of authority. This frame has continuously evolved and persistently formed thinking about HRM; however, this influence has been largely covert and unexamined. Using an epistemic analysis informed by theories of knowledge, we examine new unitarism against three types of validity claims—descriptive, normative, and instrumental—in order to understand how it has been ideologically constitutive of HRM scholarship. We consider the implications of this analysis for HRM research and practice and contend that an alternative frame, namely ‘new pluralism’, has potential to offer a more valid account of the employment relationship, to provide a framework for assessing how power affects the pursuit of employee interests, and to allow space for taking up deeply ethical questions related to employment.

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Notes

  1. In expounding what he means by the neologism ‘governmentality’, Foucault (1991, p. 88) says, somewhat rhetorically, ‘the problem [of government] comes to pose itself with this peculiar intensity, of how to be ruled, how strictly, by whom, to what end, by what methods, etc.

  2. For a comprehensive overview in the context of organisational studies of paradigms (meta-theoretical assumptions) see Burrell and Morgan (1979) or of epistemology (the study of ‘justified true belief’ or knowledge) see Scherer et al. (2015).

  3. We avoid the word ‘technical’ favoured by Lyotard (1984, p. 44) to describe this type of language game as Habermas (1972, p. 308) used the same term to refer to the category of interests associated with different game, namely the ‘truth’ game.

  4. We thank the editors of this special issue for raising this important point.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management, Faculty of Business and Economics, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

    Michelle Greenwood

  2. Anderson School of Management, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 87131-0001, USA

    Harry J. Van Buren III

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  1. Michelle Greenwood
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Correspondence to Harry J. Van Buren III.

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Greenwood, M., Van Buren, H.J. Ideology in HRM Scholarship: Interrogating the Ideological Performativity of ‘New Unitarism’. J Bus Ethics 142, 663–678 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-016-3084-z

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