ETHICAL LEADERSHIP IN EMPLOYEE DEVELOPMENT 205capital of employee development. In both companies, exercise of innovative
leadership style could have further developed its system strengths in the rigour
and daily detail of the implementation of flexible training methods. The
implementation of up-to-date but unproven training technologies can be tar-
geted to development goals where achievement is evident both for individual
learners and their work groups. Failure to achieve training objectives can be
addressed by dealing with obvious bottlenecks and constraints on develop-
ment such as the line managers’ and supervisors’ refusal to release employees
from production tasks and employees’ unavailability or reluctance to attend
open learning activities.
Ways that employees have developed habits of thinking and communities of
practice which fail to effectively use available cultural benefits of technology
tools need to be better understood. The tactics employed by HRM have to
move beyond stereotyping ‘technology literacy’ into being the premium terri-
tory for young people, and instead treat the issue as a collective responsibility
for continuous learning and adaptation. This means interpreting the cultural
capital of employee development as requiring more democratic distribution
rather than overconcentration in the hands of arbitrary elites, for example,
managers, technical specialists, young or old groups of people (Pinnington
1992).
The stance adopted during the time of the case study research in the
telecommunications company was more typical of a hard HRM focus on
employees as resources and a means to the achievement of the strategy of
the organization (Gratton et al. 1999). During the period of the case study
research, they were one of the largest in-house groups of developers of TBL
content in the UK and were under pressure to optimize the utilization and
returns from the training materials development. The organization has a long
history in training technologies (Bayraktaroglu 1999; Hawkridge, Newton,
and Hall 1988) and the company’s experience in using educational and train-
ing technology at the time of writing stretches for over three decades (Pinning-
ton 1990). It was a pioneer user in the UK of programmed learning (TICCIT
and PLATO) during the early 1970s.
The vigorous pressure from top management to focus on costs and the
continuous cycle of organizational downsizing had had its effect on morale in
the company (Stiles et al. 1997) so that employees working in the HR function
were encouraged to think very much in market terms converting issues of
employee development (cultural capital) into issues of internal and external
markets for their products and services (economic capital).
The structure of the HRM group (known at the time of the case study
research, ‘Group Personnel’) was subdivided into two areas: HR and devel-
opment services. This structural division stimulated a business-dominated
focus within the function because it was widely understood that productivity
and profitability of the groups was key to determining budget allocations