The recent vehement and highly visible critique of the North American business school curriculum illuminates core tensions in the field of human resource development (HRD) related to the role and responsibility of the profession in for-profit organizations and the educative process by which future practitioners are prepared. If the business school critique, raised by eminent management scholars in the academy, has validity, then an instrumental and functionalist orientation to HRD is not adaptive but, in fact, is counterproductive and shortchanges the needs of business organizations for transformational change and development. Based on a review of the business school critique and research on HRD academic programs in the United States, the author argues for a broader emphasis on systemic change and the transformative potential of the profession based on critical human resource development and positive organizational scholarship.
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