Sustaining the critical in CHRD in higher education institutions: the impact of new public management and implications for HRD

Adoption of Critical Human Resource Development (CHRD) and its capacity to change practice is influenced by the political context. HRD professionals learn to challenge their political context through CHRD teaching and research in the ‘safe space’ of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Yet, the increasingly global discourse of New Public Management (NPM), associated with what we call new performance measurement, constrains engagement with CHRD. This paper demonstrates the impact of NPM and research performance measurement on HRD scholarship, CHRD agendas, HRD professional development and HRD practice through discourse analysis of Impact Case Studies and their underpinning research as presented in the UK government’s 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF 2014). Use of national research evaluations with a focus on impact is currently spreading across the globe, and so is of international significance. We identify that although CHRD is consistently adopted in underpinning academic research publications it does not transfer into written impact cases. We conclude that context has the power to silence CHRD, and we challenge CHRD scholars to seek alternative formats to inform practice that do not disguise potential negative impacts. We also caution that silencing critical academic voice diminishes the ability of pedagogic curriculum to challenge and enhance HRD practice.