“Man, Have I Got a Story for You”

Abstract

Despite the potential value of narratives to inform and change workplace culture and practice, many stories from individuals at the margins of organizations often go untold or unheard. Based on a methodological framework of existing narrative approaches—autoethnography, guided autobiography, and narrative inquiry—we present in this article a new, emerging methodology: facilitated autoethnography (FAE). We suggest that FAE has the potential to offer human resource development (HRD) scholars and practitioners a new approach for exploring, collecting, and disseminating workplace narratives to a broad audience. The article concludes with a discussion of the emerging methodology and potential implications for its application in the field of HRD.

Using Interpretive Methods to Unleash the Potential of Human Resource Development

“…This has resulted in a recent, and in our eyes welcomed, re-turn toward more qualitative approaches in Human Resource Development (see Discetti & Andersen, 2023; Gisby et al, forthcoming; Kuchinke, 2023; Lester et al, 2023; Li, 2023; and Lochmiller, 2023). Indeed, the few recent articles that have heeded the call to explore qualitative methods in relation to Human Resource Development (ibid; see also Gibson & Hanes, 2003; Githens, 2015; Grenier & Collins, 2016), have been relatively bold; embracing research methods not commonly seen in the broader fields of management and organization studies (see Lê & Schmid, 2019; Lê & Schmid, 2022). Specifically, papers have centered on autoethnography (Grenier & Collins, 2016), phenomenology (Gibson & Hanes, 2003; Kuchinke, 2023) and associated techniques of lived experience (Lochmiller, 2023), discursive methods (Lester et al, 2023), critical action research (Githens, 2015), visual analysis (Gisby et al, forthcoming), and diffractive analysis (Li, 2023).…”

On becoming a better supervisor: A deconstruction of autoethnography as method for professional development

“…Over the past couple of years there has been a growth in the publication and application of autoethnography to many fields, including higher education (Learmonth and Humphreys 2011;Tillman 2011;Van Amsterdam 2014). Despite gaining much ground in the past decades to become an established qualitative inquiry method (Adams et al 2015), there are only a few published examples of autoethnography being used explicitly in a professional development context (see Chang, Longman and Fanco 2014;Grenier and Collins 2016;Kempster and Iszatt-White 2012;Kinchin and Cabot 2015). Kempster and Iszatt-White (2012) introduced coconstructed autoethnography as a form of leadership development.…”

“…Similarly, Chang et al (2014, 386) note the unexpected leadership development that occurred in mentoring relationships when mentee and mentor engaged in collaborative autoethnography: "Although we did not begin with collaborative autoethnographic research as an action to solve an identified problem, the process provided us an opportunity to engage in scholarly endeavours at a very human level that enriched our lives personally and strengthened us professionally." Facilitated autoethnography is proposed by Grenier and Collins (2016) for use in human resource development practices. In facilitated autoethnography the co-constructer takes the role of a facilitator who through probing and guidance supports the story-teller (also referred to as the lead) in creating a story.…”

“…Although the processes of using autoethnography for professional developmental differ between Kinchin and Cabot (2015), Chang et al (2014), Kempster and Iszatt-White (2012) and Grenier and Collins (2016), the interaction between mentor and mentee or interviewer or interviewee is seen as the main contributing factor of the method that facilitates professional development. For all of the methods described, although they focus on the exploration of the professional experiences of one individual and therefore not collaborative autoethnography in the traditional sense as described by Chang, Ngunjiri and Hernandez (2013), the professional development takes place in dialogue with someone else who guides the process (Blalock and Akehi 2017).…”

Crossing Boundaries: How Are We Doing in HRD?

“…Furthermore, in the areas of research methods and foundations in HRD where pushing boundaries might be challenging, I was glad to see evidence of nontraditional work. In the methodological space, for example, several alternative approaches have been introduced to HRD research, including scientometrics for evaluating research (Wang, Gilley, & Sun, 2012), critical action research (Githens, 2015), autoethnography (Grenier, 2015; Grenier & Collins, 2016), and the qualitative metasynthesis approach to literature reviews (Beigi, Shirmohammadi, & Stewart, 2018).…”