Revealing the dominant anthropological consideration of humankind in the teaching of Human Resource Management: A critique of individual performance evaluation

Taskin, Laurent [UCL] Ndayambaje, Juvénal [UCL]

For many, as is clear from the contents of the most widely disseminated publications on human resource management (HRM) in English-and French-speaking countries, the teaching and practices of HRM are amoral. They believe there is no underlying political project or ideological vision of humans in the workplace in HRM as it is taught and practised in the West. When it comes to management techniques, there is nothing surprising about this acceptance: the question is not even raised. It is a managerial self-evidence. Based on a textual analysis of nine English-and French-language HRM textbooks among the most widely disseminated worldwide, we set out to denaturalise this presupposition. With a particular focus on one HRM practice –performance evaluation–as presented in these texts, which shape the perceptions heldby tens of thousands of students and practitioners each year, we demonstrate that HRM is not amoral. On the contrary, it is the bearer of a univocal political project marked by objectification (i.e. the reduction of humans to consumable objects) and subjectification (i.e. the production of subjectivity in line with company strategy). Adopting a phenomenological perspective, necessarily distant from the usual theories and critiques of management,this article offers a fresh look on the normative foundations of HRM theories and practices. Building on an awareness of these normative presuppositions, we invite readers to build a body of knowledge in the field of management based on other presuppositions about humankind.