Generating New HRD Knowledge: Discourse, Gender, and Theory Building

For this manuscript, a classic management text was deconstructed using postmodern methods. The purpose was twofold: to gain an understanding of how this text connected knowledge and gender; and to provide readers with a sample of deconstruction. The value of this type of analysis for HRD will be made clear. Unsurprisingly, because the manuscript was published in 1945, findings suggested that knowledge was linked to a masculine epistemology. This analysis provides implications for contemporary HRD.