To boldly go?

Abstract

The argument presented in this paper engages with what the authors define as the orthodox account of EDAP-style employee development initiatives (ED). That discourse is articulated around the assumption that it is feasible to describe the relationship between employer and employee by reference to the notion of ‘mutuality’. This central assumption holds aloft a ‘virtuous circle’style argument wherein individual employee development is synergistically linked to organizational efficiency. It is our argument that the orthodox account is open to question on two analytically distinguishable, though practically inter-related sets of grounds. Firstly, we claim that the orthodox account is conceptually under-developed. Secondly, we maintain that it generates predictions which are consistently confounded by empirical developments. Our argument contra the orthodoxy begins with the propostion that the study of work should be seen as the study of capitalism at work. We make this argument by means of both a theoretical critique of the orthodox literature, and by reference to original empirical research conducted at a recently privatized utility (Utility).

Keywords:

• Employee development
• mutuality
• learning
• interests
• capitalism
• contradictions
• realism