Developing professional HR practice and teaching in the university sector

This submission for the award of Doctor of Professional Studies comprises a collection of the candidate's published work and selected strategy papers with an accompanying context statement.
The key methodology used for constructing this submission is reflective practice and represents further developments in the writer's thinking through the process of compiling this context statement. The author has been introduced to recent work by Whitehead and Mcniff(2006) that gives him
confidence that he can make this claim for a doctoral level award based on his learning journey thus far. In this sense it marks a new beginning in the way in which he will develop his approach to research. Significantly being able to put the "I" into this work, as demonstrated from page 5 onwards, has had a liberating effect on his writing. The publications presented however demonstrate the employment of a range of methodologies including action research, postal surveys with quantitative analysis, qualitative approaches using structured interviews and focus groups.
This statement and the accompanying examples of public works is a narrative that traces the career path of a human resource professional, academic and practitioner as he moves from being a practitioner, to being an academic leader and teacher, to being a senior policy maker and then returning to his current role as an academic and teacher. He shares an emerging body of theory supported by a range of selected publications.
The central theme of this account is how an HR practitioner tries to live out his values and beliefs as he seeks to influence the practice and development of both his colleagues and students within a rapidly changing world. Some of these changes come from the external environment, for example, the reducing resources threatening the viability of universities coping with large numbers of students. Other changes are within the writer himself as he moves from being an academic to being a policy maker and demonstrates what Mcniff and Whitehead (2006) would term his "living contradictions". The story tells how he has attempted to address this contradiction through maintaining the integrity of his values by working through a range of issues that are the subject of supporting publications:
• How to cope with increasing number of students without compromising quality
• How can academics best prepare and support students independent study
• How to ensure learning resources are allocated in a fair and equitable way
• How to support staff and colleagues in encouraging them to
disseminate good practice
• How to use case studies as a method for both inquiry and development of practice in the context of supporting the human resource function in small business
• How to create HR strategy in a collaborative and inclusive way
• How to encourage employment diversity in the small business sector
• How to develop rewards for teachers that also have benefits for student learning.