Human Resource Development Should Aim to Make Closed Contexts More Open: A Meta Reaction to Wang and Doty, Russ-Eft, and Yoon

In this meta reaction paper, I reflect on the initial paper by Wang and Doty (2022a), the two responses (Russ-Eft, 2022; Yoon, 2022), and the final response-to-respondents (Wang & Doty, 2022b). I focus on two observations that stood out for me, encompassing: (1) how HRD is defined; (2) what HRD should contribute to and to what extent the initial authors’ theorizing of HRD is actually “emancipatory.” First, I conclude that Wang and Doty’s systems perspective leaves little room for the individual agency and legitimate interests that various stakeholders have around the ways in which employee learning is organized. Connected with this, their treatment of “the mainstream HRD literature” is not convincing, which limits the rationale for and contribution of their own theorizing efforts. Second, I conclude that Wang and Doty’s work violates the ethical core of HRD and, moreover, falls short of being about “emancipatory theorizing” as they claim.