Problematizing people management practices: a critical realist study of knowledge sharing

ABSTRACT

Within the field of Human Resource Management (HRM), it is assumed that people management practices, including teamworking and cultural initiatives, enable knowledge sharing because they encourage employees to work collaboratively. Perhaps less well understood are occasions when such efforts fail to deliver knowledge sharing arrangements. Here we employ the critical realist concept of emergence to situate the introduction of people management practices in support of knowledge sharing, to examine how such efforts create the emergent properties to either share or not to share knowledge. Then we refine the critical realist concept of communicative reflexivity to explain why employees decide to engage or withdraw from collaborative work. By focusing on reflexivity as not just an ‘internal dialogue’ but also as an ‘external conversation’ we demonstrate why the situated circumstances of work interactions is a significant form of mediation between social contexts and practice in support (or not) of knowledge sharing.

KEYWORDS:

• Human resource management
• people management practices
• communicative reflexivity
• emergence
• knowledge-sharing

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the guidance and support provided by Dr Anna Galazka and the two reviewers involved in the development of ideas in the paper.

Disclosure statement

The authors confirm that the research was conducted with the full co-operation of the research participants. There are no conflicts of interest in so far as the research was independently conducted without research funding from other partners. The authors also confirm that this a joint piece of research with the submitted manuscript agreed upon by both contributors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tim Edwards

Tim Edwards is Pro-Dean for Research Impact and Innovation at Cardiff Business School. He has published in a range of leading journals including, Journal of Business Venturing, Organisation Studies, Human Relations, Management Learning and Journal of Management Inquiry. He is also an Associate Editor for Organisation and consulting editor for the International Journal of Management Reviews. He is a Public Value Fellow at Cardiff Business School and works closely with Cardiff-based stakeholders to support the refugee community through positive action.

Konstantinos Kakavelakis

Konstantinos Kakavelakis, in the recent past, Kostas’ research has focused on situated/workplace learning, informed by a relational perspective accounting for inter-connections between levels of analysis (workplace, organization, sector) and focusing on the interplay of agency and structure over time. He is currently interested in applying this relational approach to the area of HRM. He is also looking at leadership to assess the broader institutional – and often taken for granted – context in which leadership is situated and simultaneously exploring the scope for leaders to exercise their reflexive capabilities, enacting their roles in modes which eschew established norms. Kostas has published in a range of journals including: Management Learning, Work, Employment and Society, Personnel review and the Journal of Education and Work.