Building the identity of teaching and research of HR management in a faculty of Economics and Business Administration: a socio-analytical exploration of its history

Abstract

This article is concerned with the recovery and discovery of conscious and unconscious meanings in the construction of the identity of the Human Resource Management (HRM) discipline at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Universidad de Chile. The article is based on a research exploring the role of collective memory in the construction of that identity, from its inception in 1958 until 2017. A socio-analytical approach was applied to understand the dynamics implied in the construction of the identity of HRM. The results of the research show the existence of silenced meanings about that construction as a consequence of an unconscious political memory operating at the faculty that restricted the access and understanding of unexamined institutional knowledge. Such censorship is thought to be associated with the transformations that occurred in Chilean society and the faculty before and after the coup d’état that took place in 1973.