Social theory and liberal adult education perspectives on work training and human resource development: towards a balanced relationship

Abstract

This paper attempts to relate the process of restructuring the Australian political economy, in particular the emphasis upon micro reform at the workplace through industrial relations and training, to the conceptual fields of social systems theory and human resource development. The point is made that the underlying value assumptions of the human resource development mission and policy to practice agendas comes from a social theory perspective that treats as unproblematic the nature of work in a capitalist economy. This bias is criticised for representing an imbalanced view of the ‘real world’ complexities of human resource development and other strategies for changing thebehaviour of theworkforce. The paper then takes issue with the rather mechanistic thinking that seems to dominate the work training agenda and argues fora more organic or holistic approach derived from the values and practices of liberal adult education.