Ethics In Human Resource Management
Alisha Wood
Saint Augustine’s University

Ethics and Human Resource Management Wikipedia, defines ethics as: "…a study of values and customs of a person or a group. It covers the analysis and employment ofconcepts such as right and wrong, good and evil, and responsibility." Wikipedia, defines utilitarianism as: “…ethical doctrine of greatest good. The ethical doctrine that the greatest happiness of the greatest number should be the criterion of the virtue of action The complexities of business and our human/social society makes corporate ethics a very interesting study. To a practicing manager in the working world today, this becomes critically important, especially if they don’t get it! And many obviously have not and still do not. The questions are really simple to ask - yet hard to answer: What does good business today really mean? What does ethics have to do, if anything, with good business? What impact can the human resource function have on either? Within business, what is my responsibility as a human resource professional? Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is known as one of the areas that has drawn many attentions in the business environment over the last twenty years. Carroll (1991) argued that corporation should be addressed not only from economic and legal perspectives but also from ethical and philanthropic perspectives; the idea of CSR’s pyramid is then derived. Furthermore, the efficiency theory and the social responsibility theory have influenced the debate on corporate ethical and social responsibility. The efficiency theory represented by Milton Friedman (1970) portrayed the idea that business’s social responsibility is to use its resources to increase profits as long as it stays within the law and in an ethical manner which has the utilitarian and narrow view of shareholder value