Ethical Issues in Contemporary Human Resource Management

Diana Winstanley and Jean Woodall have compiled an interesting, thought‐provoking book. They have achieved a careful balance between the necessary theoretical discussion underpinning ethics and the practical application of ethics. This will undoubtedly make the book relevant to post‐graduate and post‐experience students on MBA, specialist Masters and professional hr/personnel courses.

The editors rightly claim that ethics has not been on the human resource management (HRM) agenda and that the welfarist and humanist elements of personnel policy and practice are often downplayed in texts on HRM. They argue there is a need to redress the balance and that “employee well‐being and ethical treatment are as justifiable a focus as strategic fit and best practice” (p. 5). To this end they outline in Chapter 1 the main theoretical ethical frameworks and approaches, in order to establish the backdrop against which all the discussion and analysis in subsequent chapters takes place. Essentially each contributor uses some or all of these ethical frameworks to explore their particular topic.

In Chapter 2, Karen Legge offers a dystopian view of the future. Her concern is that the trajectory towards globalisation, boundaryless organisations, flexibility and customer sovereignty is likely to produce some of the worst excesses of employee exploitation. She provides the example of using child labour to stitch footballs, and persuasively argues that in such instances there is little evidence of ethics being considered by the multinational corporations (or indeed, business in general). Her argument is that although there are various ethical frameworks which could be applied to business activities, there is currently little reason for business to do adopt these, and no mechanism within globalised capitalism to compel them to do so (save for the relatively rare examples of consumer boycotts). In this respect her chapter points to the futility of arguing about competing ethical frameworks – deontological versus teleological approaches – when “ethics” is not even on the agenda. She ends with the poignant yet bleak comment:

Similarly pessimistic is Tim Claydon (Chapter 12) who convincingly argues that underpinning HRM is ethical egoism – it provides the rationale for many of the key HRM components such as individualism, empowerment and enterprise culture. Other ethical frameworks are merely lame attempts to mask the contradictions and tensions embedded in the employment relationship. Like Legge, his contention is that apparently successful attempts to convince employees that HRM is ethical can be explained as false consciousness.

In contrast, the other chapters are far more optimistic about the potential for an ethical enactment of HRM. Indeed, this is the preferred stance of the editors who argue that:

Most of the chapters are dedicated to showing how this is possible, although some of the authors remain very cautious for example, Ed Heery on new pay (Chapter 10) and Diana Winstanley (Chapter 11) on performance management.

Other contributors are more optimistic about how ethical principles can be brought to bear on HR practices. Laura Spence (Chapter 3) focuses on the selection interview and identifies four types of interview evident from a case study of a company recruiting graduates from Germany, The Netherlands and the UK. She then applies various ethical frameworks to assess the grounds on which they might be justified, and tentatively draws some cross‐national comparisons. Barry Baker and John Cooper (Chapter 4) explore the development of psychometric testing in organisations and assess it against various ethical approaches. They report the findings of a survey into the use of tests that reveal consensus amongst test users about the rights of those being tested. Both chapters end with some normative guidelines.

These two chapters reveal a theme that is replicated across many of the subsequent chapters: that at least one of the alternative ethical frameworks always provides an ethical justification for any action or policy. A prime example is Chapter 9 where Ruth Simpson explores the growth and effects of long hours cultures within organisations. She explains how presenteeism not only intensifies managerial work, but has a greater detrimental effect on women. However, her analysis suggests there can be no consensus as to whether such practices are ethical or not, because the interpretation depends on the particular analytical framework being adopted.

Given this relativist theme in many of the chapters, the key issue is not whether a particular policy or practice is ethical, but whether the ethical framework against which it is evaluated is deemed acceptable or appropriate. This echoes the frustration of Legge – that in a postmodern world of no absolutes or universal truths, all actions can be construed as ethical.

In Chapter 6, Noeleen Doherty and Shaun Tyson address the issue of employee health. They suggest that HR developments such as the individualisation of the employment contract, concern with employee values and attitudes, and an emphasis on emotional labour, necessarily bring employee mental well being under the remit of the employer. However, this raises the question of whether it is legitimate to seek to manage the psychological state of the employee. The answer again depends on the ethical framework adopted.

In a similar vein, Jean Woodall and Danielle Douglas (Chapter 7) assess the responsibility the employer has when delivering various methods of HRD. The fashion for organisations to use techniques such as outdoor management development to instil particular values and behaviour in employees also brings with it new ethical challenges. In particular it means that those delivering HRD are required to adopt a ethical framework that emphasises care of the participants a concern well beyond that which is normally expected in other aspects of HR practice.

Whilst the refrain “it depends on the ethical framework” is a consistent theme for the book, it tends to make for somewhat repetitive reading. It also makes those chapters that take a different approach stand out. For example, Sonia Liff and Linda Dickens (Chapter 5) are concerned with exploring the way that the social justice (deontological) arguments for equal opportunities have been counterposed with the business needs/efficiency (teleological) arguments. They consider this to be a false dichotomy both in empirical terms (judged by how employers think and behave) and in theoretical terms. They suggest (cautiously) that stakeholder theory might provide a means of moving beyond the dichotomy.

Faith in the stakeholder framework as a way forward is also advocated by Celia Stanworth (Chapter 8) in relation to the growth of numerical flexibility and its tendency to produce a disadvantaged, vulnerable and marginalised workforce. But, she argues, like other aspects of equal rights, it needs to be underpinned with legislation to oblige employers to comply with minimum standards.

In the final part of the book, two case studies are included. Maria Sillanpaa and Charles Jackson explore The Body Shop (Chapter 13) and Paul Taylor and Peter Jones (Chapter 14) examine the Royal Brompton hospital. Although essentially descriptive accounts, these chapters are ideally suited for teaching seminars, since they raise a host of issues concerning how ethics might be applied and the difficulties that can result. Chapter 15, a defence of whistleblowing by David Lewis, could also be used as a teaching aid, with students being asked to evaluate his viewpoint according to the various ethical frameworks.

Winstanley and Woodall conclude (Chapter 16) that ethical intervention is possible and that HRM can be made more ethical through a combination of statutory intervention, voluntary codes of practice, and professional integrity. Although uplifting, this inevitably ducks the central problem that many of the contributors are grappling with: by which ethical framework should we judge an intervention ethical? The editors seem to be suggesting, along with many of the contributors, that the best hope for ethical HRM lies with stakeholder theory.