Management education through autoethnography

ABSTRACT

This paper proposes autoethnography as a novel form of management education. Autoethnography is a different way of researching, writing and learning, all inextricably linked. It enables the researcher/learner to turn the lens on their own self and consider their management/human resource development (HRD) practice – whether in the classroom or staffroom. Autoethnography enables both personal learning and contribution to sociological understanding in the local context, thus transcends dominant Western thinking. This offers an indigenous form of learning, and thus is especially pertinent to HRD in any international context. Writing about self both requires and fosters greater critical reflection, reflexivity, and ethical consideration. To demonstrate this, I make two contributions. First, I share and reflect on my own pedagogic experiences to illustrate some of the benefits – and risks – of autoethnography. In doing so, I expose some of the challenges for both students and staff from my local experiences. Second, to address these, I propose a model for more carefully and creatively incorporating critical reflecting and writing skills to develop autoethnography in the management/HRD curriculum to enable more meaningful learning to ‘fit’ both the learner and their local culture.

KEYWORDS:

• Autoethnography
• teaching
• assessing
• management research
• reflecting and writing skills

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).