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CURRICULUM VITAE

Leonard Michael HOLMES D.O.B. 31st May 1948

WEBSITE: http://www.re-skill.org.uk/

EMAIL: len.holmes@luton.ac.uk

HIGHER EDUCATION:

University of London, Institute of Education

PhD, 2002: 'Towards a Relational Perspective on Higher Level Skill and Learning: Graduate Employability and Managerial Competence'

Lancaster University (Centre for Study of Management Learning)

M Phil (awarded with distinction), 1987: 'Management: A Radical Critique': study of organisation and management in two major community-based urban regeneration initiatives

Lancaster University (Centre for Study of Management Learning

Diploma in Management Learning, 1980

Diploma in Management Studies (awarded with distinction), 1976
Certified Diploma in Accounting & Finance, 1976

Nottingham University

BA (Hons) Philosophy, 1969

2005- present University of Luton

Principal Lecturer in Human Resource Management

 

1988- 2005 Londn Metropolitan University (University of North London until August 2002)

Current post: (from April 2001): Director, Management Research Centre

Previous positions include: Principal Lecturer, Employment Studies & Human Resource Management (1996-1999) and Faculty Co-ordinator, Enterprise in Higher Education (1991-1996)

1987 (April-Dec) London Institute, College for the Distributive Trades

Lecturer II (Training & Development)

1985-1987 visiting lecturer at three London polytechnics (Middlesex, Central London, North London)

1986 Transport Studies Unit, Oxford University;

Research Associate, undertaking empirical research on employers' transport needs in London Docklands
 

1985-1986 Local Economic Policy Unit, Polytechnic of the South Bank

Research fellow, undertaking research on organisation and management GLC-funded training centre; research project funded by Greater London Training Board

1983-1985 HPCC Stonebridge Community Complex

Employment & Training Co-ordinator, for large community enterprise project (in London Borough of Brent); two year contract (extended) funded by European Social Fund; led successful bid for further ESF project funding (100,000), and for REPLAN project with Kilburn Polytechnic

1977-1982 Hotel & Catering Industry Training Board

Senior Training Adviser, lead officer for development work on trainer training and development; programme leader for Development Programme for Training Specialists; Board representative on Manpower Services Commission Steering Committee on training officer development; acted as consultant to a number of major companies on analysis of training needs, development of training strategy, evaluation, etc

RESEARCH AREAS:

The phenomenology and social morphology of 'higher-level' expertise (ie managerial and professional knowledge, skill, competence, learning):

This work includes:

• The development of a relational (ie social process) theory of skill and learning: the relationship between education/ training processes and professional-managerial occupations; social nature of learning, skill and competence, and social processes that facilitate or inhibit entry to, and performance and progression within, occupational arenas.
• Exploration of the potential and affordances of new information and communication technology for enhancing social inclusion and extending participation: the implications of an essentially distributed technology for current and emergent social formations.
• Study of participative modes of organising and managing, and of the barriers to these, particularly in respect of the dominance of centralised and hierarchical forms of managing and organising.

RESEARCH ACTIVITIES:

Co-convenor of 'Electronic Ontologies' stream at colloquium of Asia-Pacific Region Organisation Studies (APROS)Network, Syney, December 2000

Convenor of workshop on e-collectivism: a reformation, Ely, Cambridgeshire, August 2000

Co-convenor of workshop on Cyberontology, University of North London, October 1999

Convenor of workshop on Relational Skill and Electronic Communication, UNL/Aston Virtual Working Group on Relational Skill, held in Ithaca, NY, August 1999

Led Leonardo-funded research project on Agents and Agencies in Employment-Oriented Local Economic Development (partners include University of Valladolid, Spain, and Womens Training Centre, West Athens) - report presented September 1998

Led project funded by Government Office for London, on Graduates in SMEs - report presented August 1998, 'Graduates in Smaller Businesses'

Member of Management Research Centre and Centre for Equality Research in Business, The Business School, University of North London

Initiated 'Alternatives in Management Special Interest Group', a Faculty-recognised group of staff engaged in research on alternative perspectives on management and management education. Wrote the published responses to consultation by ESRC's Commission on Management Research.

Organised internal 'colloquium' in Sept 1994, for members of staff to present papers on work-in-progress.

Organised seminar 'A Qualified Success: Critical Perspectives on Competence-Based Education and Training', Sept 1990.

Member of Manpower Services Commission Steering Committee for Registration Scheme for Providers of Training Officer Training (1979-1982)

Member of National Advisory Council on Industrial Training, Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staffs (1981-1987)

Member of Management Committee, Brent Local Economic Resource Unit (1984-1986)

Committee Member, North London Branch of Institute of Personnel Management (1990-1992, 1998-9 )

Consultant to Amnesty International (International Secretariat); projects include development of discussion leading skills for Research and Membership Department, design of members' conference in Caribbean, advising on recruitment process for Personnel Officer

Member of development team for UK site for Global Learn Day II 1998 (http://uk.geocities.com/global_learn_uk)

Member of Committee of British Academy of Management Special Interest Group on Knowledge and Learning (from 2001)

University of West of England, MA Management Learning (1992)

Swansea Institute of Higher Education, MA in Management of Human Resources (1992-93)

Sheffield Hallam University/ Office for Public management, Diploma in Voluntary Sector Housing Management (1994)

EXTERNAL EXAMINER:

Centre for Labour Market Studies, Leicester University, MSc in Training (by distance learning) (1992-1996)

Bournemouth University, MA Human Resource Management (1997- present)

Nottingham Trent University, Pg Diploma in Personnel Management (1998- present)

University of Hertfordshire, MA Human Resource Management and Industrial Relations (2000 - present)

Fellow of Royal Society of Arts

Chartered Management Institute

Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development

British Universities Industrial Relations Association

British Academy of Management

European Group for Organisation Studies

Society for Research into Higher Education

Royal Institute of Philosophy

PUBLICATIONS:

'Abilities, skills and selction d ecision making', in D Hosking and S McNamee (eds.) Organisation behaviour: Social constructionist approaches, Liber, 2006

'The learning turn in education and training: liberatory paradigm or oppressive ideology?', in Journal of European Industrial Training, (vol. 28 no. 8/9, 2004, pp. 625-638)

'Reaching in, reaching out: metadata, popular planning and social capital development', in European Spatial Research and Policy, vol 10, no 2 (2003)

Organising in the Information Age: distributed technology, distributed leadership, distributed identity, distributed discourse:, joint editor with M Grieco and D M Hosking, in Voices in Development Management series, Ashgate Press, 2002;
this included:

'Archiving social practice: the management of transport boycotts' (with M Green and M Grieco),and
'Relational identity and relational technology: implications for everyday life' (with M Grieco)

'Reframing the skills agenda in higher education: graduate identity and the double warrant', in D. Preston (ed.), University of Crisis, Rodopi Press (2002)

'The power of transparency: the Internet, e-mail, and the Malaysian political crisis'(with M Grieco), in Asia-Pacific Business Review, special issue, (vol 8, no 2, winter 2001)

'Calling up culture: information spaces and information flows as the virtual dynamics of inclusion and exclusion', (with S. Little and M. Grieco) in Information Technology and People, vol 14 no. 4, 2001

'Reconsidering Graduate Employability: The Graduate Identity Approach', in Quality in Higher Education, vol 7, no 2, 2001

'Calling up culture: information spaces and information flows as the virtual dynamics of inclusion and exclusion', (with Stephen Little and Margaret Grieco), in Information Technology and People, vol. 14, number 4, 2001

'Reconsidering Graduate Employability: the Graduate Identity Approach', in Quality in Higher Education, vol. 7, no. 2, July 2000, pp. 111-120

‘Island histories, open cultures?: the electronic transformation of adjacency', (with Stephen Little and Margaret Grieco) in Southern African Business Review, 4 (2) (December 2000)

Guest editor (with Margaret Grieco and Stephen Little) of Special Issue of Urban Studies , ‘Intelligent Urban Development: the Emergence of 'Wired' Administration and Management', (Sept 2000)

‘Intelligent urban development: introduction to a participatory approach', (with Jeff Turner and Frances Hogson), in Urban Studies, in special issue (as above)

‘Questioning the Key Skills Agenda', in S Fallows and C Steven (eds) (2000), Integrating Key Skills in Higher Education: Employability, transferable skills and learning for life, Kogan Page

'What can performance tell us about learning? Explicating a troubled concept', in European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, vol. 9, no. 2, June 2000

‘Looking to Initiatives in Communications Technology to Overcome Social and Gender Inequalities', with Jeff Turner, Margaret Grieco, Nana Apt, in Local Economy, vol 15, no 1, (May 2000)

'Competence and Capability: from 'Confidence Trick' to the Construction of the Graduate Identity', published in D. O'Reilly, L Cunningham, and S. Lester (eds.) (1999) Developing the Capable Practitioner: professional capability through higher education, London: Kogan Page

'Skills - A Social Perspective', in A. Assiter (ed), Transferable Skills in Higher Education, Kogan Page (1995)

'HRM and the Irresistible Rise of the Discourse of Competence', Personnel Review, special edition on 'The Rhetoric and Culture of HRM', vol 24, no 4, 1995

'The confidence trick of competence', in 't' magazine, Nov 1995

'Is Competence a "Confidence Trick''?', in Proceedings from What is Competence? inaugural conference of the Competence Network, Centre for Labour Market Studies, University of Leicester, December 1994

'Competence, Qualifications and Transferability: Beyond the Limits of Functional Analysis', in Bridges, D. (ed.) (1994) Transferable Skills in Higher Education, Norwich: University of East Anglia

'Rescuing the Useful Concept of Managerial Competence: From Outcomes Back to Process' (with P Joyce), Personnel Review, vol 22, no. 6, 1993

'Talking of Competence: How to Rescue a Useful Concept', in Papers from Innovations at the Crossroads Conference, University College of North Wales, Bangor, January 1993

'Taking the Lead on Professional Standards', Personnel Management, Nov 1992

'Overt Funding, Buried Goals, and Moral Turnover: The Organizational Transformation of Radical Experiments', (with M. Grieco), Human Relations, vol 44, no.7 1991

'Radical Beginnings, Conventional Ends?: Organisational Transformation - A Problem in the Development of Radical Organisations', (with M. Grieco), in New Forms of Ownership, eds M. Poole and G. Jenkins, Routledge, 1990

'Trainer Competences: Turning Back the Clock?', in Training and Development, April 1990

'Successful Trainer Styles' (with R Stuart), Journal of European Industrial Training, vol 6 no 4 1982

Training Your Staff, Hotel and Catering Industry Training Board, 1981

FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS:

The Dominance of Management: A Participatory Critique, currently under preparation for publication in the Voices in Development Management Series, Ashgate Press; publication expected mid-2005

'Beyond Learnerism: Learning, Practices, Emergent Identity', forthcoming in International Journal of Learning and Intellectual Capital (2005)

'Beyond Learnerism: Learning, Practices, Emergent Identity', presented at Fifth International Conference On HRD Research And Practice Across Europe, University of Limerick, May 2004

'The learning turn in education and training: liberatory paradigm or oppressive ideology?', presented at 'Critique and Inclusivity: Opening the Agenda', 3rd International Critical Management Studies Conference, Lancaster University, July 2003

'Higher Education and the Learning Agenda: a Degenerative Programme?', presented at Students and Learning: What is changing? Annual conference of the Society for Research into Higher Education, Glasgow, December 2002

'Participation in an e-age: negotiation and the Moor Park Explore Club', (with M Grieco and Moor Park Explore Club), paper presented at British Academy of Management Annual Conference, Sept 2002, 'Voice Off: Management at the Margins' sub-theme

'Can only managers (learn to) manage?: Management, practice and trajectories of emergent identity', presented to 3rd International Connecting Learning and Critique Conference Cambridge University, July 2002

'Emergent identity, education and distributed assessment: an ethnomethodological exploration'
presented at Ethnomethodology: A Critical Celebration conference, University of Essex, March 2002

'E-rules for radicals?: community organising in an e-world', presented at "Organization Theory in Transition: Transitional Societies; Transitional Theories", the 9th International Congress of Asia-Pacific Researchers in Organisation Studies, December 2001, Hong Kong

'E-experimenting: building the Centre for Social Policy Studies (University of Ghana) website', (with Nana Araba Apt and Margaret Grieco), presented at "Organization Theory in Transition: Transitional Societies; Transitional Theories", the 9th International Congress of Asia-Pacific Researchers in Organisation Studies, December 2001, Hong Kong

'Decontaminating the concepts of 'learning' and 'competence': education and modalities of emergent identity', presented in Education stream of Second International Conference on Critical Management Studies, Manchester 2001

'Meeting the moment: Microfinance, ICT and the social exclusion agenda' (with Margaret Grieco) presented at Ethics, ICT and Social Exclusion Conference, Bolton Institute of Higher Education, Bolton, Feb 2001

Relational identity and relational technology: Distributed responsibility and action in modern commerce and administration (with Margaret Grieco), presented at colloquium of Asia-Pacific Region Organisation Studies network, Sydney, Dec 2000

Archiving social practice: the management of transport boycotts (Miriam Green and Margaret Grieco), presented at colloquium of Asia-Pacific Region Organisation Studies network, Sydney 2000

'Is 'learning' a contaminated concept?', presented at 'Learning and Practice' one-day conference of the Learning and Critique Network, Manchester, 8th November 2000

‘Reframing Learning: Performance, Identity and Practice', presented at Critical Contributions to Managing and Learning: 2nd Connecting Learning and Critique Conference, Lancaster, July 2000

‘The Sociality of Learning: identity, practice and the construction of competence', presented at colloquium of European Group for Organization Studies, Helsinki, July 2000

‘Calling up culture: information spaces and information flows as the virtual dynamics of inclusion and exclusion', (with Steve Little and Margaret Grieco), presented at IFIP WG9.4 Conference: Information Flows, Local Improvisations and Work Practices, Cape Town, May 2000

‘Reframing the skills agenda in higher education: graduate identity and the double warrant', presented at The Future Business of Higher Education conference, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, March 2000

'The Making of Black Managers: Unspoken Issues of Identity Formation' (with Gilbert Robinson), presented at First International Conference on Critical Management Studies, Manchester School of Management, July 1999

Tele options for community business: an opportunity for economic development in Africa. (with Margaret Grieco) paper presented to BITWorld '99, Cape Town - South Africa, 30th June-2nd July,1999

The power of transparency: the Internet, e-mail, and the Malaysian political crisis (with Margaret Grieco) presented to Asian Management in Crisis seminar, Association of South East Asian Studies, UK, University of North London, 12th June, 1999

‘Research alternatives to grail search: graduate employability and the graduate identity approach as an alternative to the skills agenda' (with M.Green and S. Egan), presented at joint SEDA / SRHE Conference ‘Research and Practice in Educational Development(s): exploring the links', April 1999

No space is an island: ICT, electronic adjacency and civic empowerment (with Margaret Grieco), presented at Conference on 'ICT Strategies for Islands and Small States', UNESCO, Malta, March 1999.

'Learning as a "Confidence Trick": Exorcising the Ghost in the Machine', presented at conference on 'Emerging Fields in Management: Connecting Learning and Critique', Collaborative Conference organised by Lancaster and Leeds Universities, July 1998

'One more time, transferable skills don't exist (...and what we should do about it)', paper presented at conference on 'Embedding Skills Across the Curriculum', Higher Education for Capability, Nene College, Northampton, Feb 1998

'W(h)ither the Personnel Profession?', paper presented at conference on 'The Strategic Direction of HRM: Academe meets Practice', Nottingham Business School, Dec 1997

'What's the Connection? Performance, Assessment and the "Confidence Trick" of Competence', paper presented at Higher Education for Capability Expert Seminar on the Conceptualisation of Competence, York, June 1996

'Reframing the Ability-Based Curriculum in Higher Education', presented at workshop of the Ability-Based Curriculum Network (DfEE funded, convenor Lawrie Walker at Oxford Brookes University), May 1996

'The Making of Real Managers: Ideology, Identity and Management Development', paper presented at conference on 'The Strategic Direction of HRM', Nottingham Business School, Dec 1995

'Competence and Capability: from 'Confidence Trick' to the Construction of the Graduate Identity', paper given at Higher Education for Capability conference 'From Competence to Capability and the Learning Society, UMIST, Nov 1995

'The Capability Curriculum, Conventions of Assessment, and the Construction of Graduate Employability', paper presented at 'Understanding the Social World' conference, University of Huddersfield, July 1995

'Transferable skills and competence: some epistemological considerations', symposium (with Professor David Bridges, UEA, and Dr Alison Assiter, UNL), at Critical Thinking and Education joint conference, University of East Anglia- University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate, 1994

'Knocking on the Door and Ringing the Bell: Higher Education, Graduate Employment, and the Double Warrant', paper presented at Recording Achievement in Higher Education conference, Higher Education for Capability/ University of North London, March 1994

'The Domestication of Management? Recent UK State Interventions in Management Education and Training', presented at The Production and Diffusion of Organisational and Managerial Knowledge colloquium, European Group for Organizational Studies, Paris, July 1993

' "Seeing" the Need for Training', paper presented at Policy Studies Institute Skills Focus conference, Dec 1993

'Understanding Professional Competence: Beyond the Limits of Functional Analysis', paper presented at IPM Course Tutors' Conference, July 1992

'Soft Heads, Brick Walls? Open Learning, Competences, and Occupational Closure', presented at Open Learning in the 1990s conference, University of Lancaster, Sept 1990

'Dysfunctional Analysis? A Critical Analysis of the Standards in Training and Development' (with S. Marsh), paper presented at A Qualified Success? Critical Perspectives on Competence-Based Education and Training seminar, Polytechnic of North London, Sept 1990

'(Re)producing Managers', presented at Critical Stances in Management Learning conference, Borwick Hall, Sept 1987