Dominant discourses of workplace curriculum in Iranian organizations

The purpose of this paper is to investigate and analyze the dominant discourses of the workplace curriculum in Iranian organizations.

The research data were collected through in-depth interviews with 30 professionals working in the field of workplace curriculum in three groups of consultants, managers and experts who were selected purposefully and with a theoretical sampling strategy. To analyze the data, thematic analysis method was used. The themes are extracted and categorized into three phases, namely, descriptive coding, interpretive coding and determination of overarching theme. To validate the data, collaborative research technique, member checking and researcher review and, to make sure of findings’ reliability, reliability index between two coders were used.

Based on the findings, the kind of planner’s look at the workplace curriculum commonplaces will shape the nature of the curriculum and in terms of this look define and redefine the workplace curriculum discourses. Therefore, based on perceptions and attitudes in these areas, 11 different discourses are recognizable from the workplace curriculum. These include suppression discourse, justification discourse, ceremonial/ formality discourse, administrative discourse, engineering discourse, economical discourse, psychological discourse, partnership discourse, research discourse, developmental discourse and, finally, multi-cultural discourse.

The common goal of all learning professionals in the workplace is to play the role of a strategic partner, or at least be a good partner for the organization. One of the main challenges of learning and development professionals in the workplace is increase in integration and alignment between learning programs and developmental opportunities with business organization strategies. Achieving this important goal is possible when we have a proper understanding of the current situation and condition. Various situations and conditions are identified and described in the form of 11 discourses. If the authors do not look at the context and proper understanding of the main concepts – The main concepts of each discourse are put into a quill – in which any discourse that was created, the authors will not be able to make the appropriate strategies. A good doctor will hear and understand well before the first thing.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the few studies that offer a variety of discourses for the workplace curriculum.