The ethical dimension of human resource management
Human Resource Management Journal
London 2000

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Authors: Diana Winstanley

Authors: Jean Woodall

Volume: 10

Issue: 2

Pagination: 5-20

ISSN: 09545395

Subject Terms: Studies Human resource management Business ethics

Classification Codes: 9175: Western Europe 9140: Statistical data 6100: Human resource planning 2400: Public relations

Geographic Names: United Kingdom UK

Abstract:

The relative absence of debate about ethical issues within the area of human resource management is addressed. IT is argued that ethics is not about taking statements of morality at face value; it is a critical and challenging tool. The discussion starts with what should be familiar terrain: ethical arguments that uphold a managerialist position, such as ethical individualism, utilitarianism, and "Rawlsian" justice. Other theories are then introduced that broaden the field of ethical concern in an endeavor to be more socially inclusive: stakeholding and discourse theory. Copyright Eclipse Group Ltd. 2000

Full Text:

Until very recently the field of business ethics was not preoccupied with issues relating to the ethical management of employees. Apart from the development of ethical awareness among managers (Snell, 1993; Maclagan,
1998) and the ethical dimension of change management processes (Mayon White, 1994; McKendall, 1993), there has been little debate around the ethical basis of much HR policy and practice. The main debates in business ethics have centred around the social responsibility of business in relations with clients and the environment. They only touch on employee interests as one of several stakeholders or only to the extent that employees might suffer adversely in terms of health and personal integrity as a consequence of their role in producing the organisation's goods and services. The fact that the way in which employees are managed may invite ethical scrutiny appears to have been overlooked. Conversely the academic discipline of HRM has not been inclined to admit an ethical perspective, which recently struck some leading authors in the field as 'a curiously undeveloped area of analysis'(Mabey Salaman and Storey 1998: 15), though there have been some articles in professional and academic journals (Legge,1997,1998; Miller,1996a,1996b).

Three UK conferences on ethical issues in contemporary HRM in 1996, 1998 and 2000 have highlighted many evolving themes in this area, as reported in a special issue of Personnel Review (Vol. 25, no. 6,1996) and in Business
Ethics: A European Review (Vol. 6, no. 1,1997). This article seeks to go beyond either dissecting individual HR practices to identify whether they are moral or debating whether the totality of HR is 'ethical'. Instead, it seeks to raise the level of ethical debate by using a variety of frameworks and it argues that raising ethical awareness and sensitivity is the main task for both HR academics and professionals.

This article concludes by making a strong case for the ethical 'rearmament' of HR professionals, by suggesting practical ways in which the exercise of ethical sensitivity and awareness might become a legitimate reference point alongside the prevalent recourse to arguments justifying `the business case', 'strategic fit' and 'best practice'.

EARLIER WORKS ON ETHICS

On the whole, ethical issues have been of marginal significance to the unfolding academic debates around human resource management. The Harvard analytical framework for HRM (Beer et al, 1984: 16) was one of the earlier models to suggest that, as well as organisational well-being, HRM had to concern itself with the promotion of individual and societal wellbeing. This reasserts the primacy of the stakeholder as opposed to the shareholder model of the firm, an issue on which the battle lines have been clearly drawn in business ethics literature. The 'business is the business of business' proponents are aligned on one side (Friedman, 1962; Sternberg, 1994, 1997) and those who suggest that organisations should meet the needs of a wider range of stakeholders, including employees (Freeman, 1984; Royal Society of Arts, 1995; Wheeler and Sillanpaa, 1997), on the other.

Any emphasis on ethics and employee well-being in the HR debate is therefore very contentious and has become more so as organisations have struggled for survival in the last 20 or so years. The ethical dimension of HR policy and practice has been almost ignored in recent texts on HRM, where the focus has shifted to 'strategic fit' and 'best practice' approaches. The focus on high performance HR practices developed in the US (Huselid, 1995) and in the UK (Guest and Peccei, 1994), and widened out through seminars (such as the ESRC/BUIRA seminar series on 'The contribution of HR strategy for business performance', special issues of journals (Human Resource Management Journal, Vol. 9, no. 3, 1999) and a plethora of research projects and articles, both supportive (Guest, 1997; Tyson, 1997; Tyson and Doherty, 1999) and more critical (Purcell, 1999). However, there is enough argument to the contrary to suggest that employee well-being and ethical treatment are as justifiable a focus as 'strategic fit' and 'best practice'. There are a number of reasons for this. First the `enlightened self-interest' model of business suggests that a business will be more successful if it pays attention to ethics, as this will enhance its reputation with customers and improve motivation among employees (Wilson,1997). Secondly, the `business of business is business' argument is also not paramount in not-for-profit organisations, including most of the public sector, social business, nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) and the voluntary sector. Finally there is a powerful argument that the wider economic system and ultimately the business organisations within it exist to serve human and societal needs rather than the opposite.

At this point it is important to recollect that ethical concern took a central place in the earlier history of professional human resource management. Its origins in personnel management and employee welfare date back to the formation of the Welfare Workers Association in 1913, a forerunner of the IPD, and even earlier with relation to the social reformers, philanthropists and non-conformist religious groups that emerged during the course of the UK industrial revolution. Obviously the scope of professional personnel practice subsequently developed to cover other aspects, including industrial relations, manpower planning, organisation development and, most recently contribution to and involvement in overall organisational corporate strategy. Despite concerns that the original welfare role of personnel professionals might compromise the status and strategic base of HRM, it has not been totally eclipsed. Yet, over time, the notion of employee wellbeing has been reduced to a more specific set of practices confined around 'wellness' programmes and health screening, rather than extended to the wider experience an individual has of organisational life, including the demands of work roles, how their performance is managed and the support and development they receive.

Maybe if we look back over the last 100 years, we might see improvements in the welfare and position of employees, but this has not been based on steady progress. The peak of the late 1960s and '70s was followed by a deterioration in the '80s and early '90s. It could also be suggested that, although many employees are better off in material terms than 100 years ago, a new series of pressures have led to greater psychological ill-health with more stress, anxiety, insecurity and exhaustion from long hours of work. More research is needed to examine the quality of working life and subjective experience of employees in the context of the organisational changes taking place.

A concern with job design and employee motivation was indeed one of the means by which ethical treatment of employees and concern for their welfare were sustained well into the 20th century. The influence of the HR movement through the early work of Elton Mayo (1933), and the later work of Herzberg
(1968) and Maslow (1970) and the 'Quality of working life' movement in the 1970s, are all important illustrations of this. The focus on work systems and job design to satisfy human motivational needs, especially the need for autonomy variety, skill development and self-actualisation, were firmly on the management agenda in the 1960s and '70s. Today they only receive a glancing acknowledgment relative to the emphasis on 'high performance' and 'high commitment' work systems linked to efficiency and effectiveness rather than intrinsic job satisfaction.

Part and parcel of the HR literature is the industrial relations literature which has also highlighted participation and involvement issues, a key theme in contemporary partnership and stakeholder approaches mentioned below. In addition, some work focused on issues of power sharing and control, leading to a number of industrial democracy experiments in the 1960s, notably the Lucas Aerospace project. Some of this early industrial relations literature has raised the more general issue of social responsibility (Flanders, 1970), a focus which largely became eclipsed in later work.

An enduring academic and professional interest in ethical issues is present around the subject of organisational justice, in the exercise of both substantive and procedural justice. Interest in the former has been sustained by a concern with fairness and equal opportunity Research into discrimination, particularly in the areas of recruitment, selection and career development, has addressed issues of gender, marital status, race and ethnicity and, more recently age. Voluntary action on fairness and equal opportunity by organisations, individuals and professional groups has included codes of professional practice and training both within professional education and subsequent professional updating. Equality legislation since the mid 1970s has acted as the main spur. Turning to procedural justice, this has always been a strong theme in both professional practice and academic research in industrial relations. Fair process as well as fair outcome has been an abiding concern in collective bargaining, remuneration, job evaluation and recruitment. However, once again, the changes brought about by current HRM approaches have led to a marginalisation of these issues. In the case of reward management, for instance, 'good practice' has traditionally highlighted the role of job evaluation as a basis for ensuring fairness and justice; more recently this has been substituted by an emphasis on strategic focus, flexibility and individual and group performance.

Finally there has also been some interest in the role of the HR specialist as a guardian of ethics, with the HR function assuming the role of `ethical stewardship' and ethical leadership. Most discussion of this has appeared sporadically in professional HR journals. For example, some writers have stressed the HR manager's role in raising awareness about ethical issues, in promoting ethical behaviour and in disseminating ethical practices more widely among line and project managers. Another ethical role for HR professionals involves communicating codes of ethical conduct, providing training in ethics, managing compliance and monitoring arrangements, and taking a lead in enforcement proceedings (Arkin, 1996; Pickard, 1995; Johns, 1995; Wehrmeyer, 1996). Where ethical conduct is questioned, HR managers have traditionally overseen arrangements for the handling of discipline and grievances. For some (Connock and Johns,1995), the mantle of ethical leadership should not just be worn by HR managers alone; the responsibility should also be placed firmly on the shoulders of the whole senior management team and line managers. This is an argument that is very much in keeping with moves to make HRM the concern of a wider group of organisational stakeholders.

Thus, if ethical concern has been an enduring, if occasionally low priority and even sporadic, concern in the history of professional personnel practice and academic inquiry, then why does it require more attention now? The answer lies in the changes which have taken place in HRM over the last two decades.

THE ETHICAL AGENDA

Although many aspects of the traditional ethical agenda in HRM are still relevant, evolving approaches to HRM suggest that it is more than 'new wine in old bottles' and that with the evolving new approaches, come new ethical problems. What makes this analysis even more complex is that there is not just one new model of HRM but many, and these have been well documented elsewhere (Legge,1995a; Tyson,1998).

However, a number of themes do seem to be associated with contemporary human resource management. In particular, the preoccupation with flexibility, commitment, culture and performance raises a number of ethical issues. 'Flexibility' in variable pay systems or in the contract of employment and 'high commitment' work practices raises ethical questions about practices as varied as `presenteeism' and long working hours. Performance management systems based on `stretch' targets and close surveillance and control place increasing emphasis on processes for evaluating, grading and classifying individuals - all of which introduce additional ethical dimensions beyond a concern with justice. Furthermore, a desire to 'capture hearts and minds' in the service of corporate goals has extended the focus of training and development activity beyond the mere acquisition of knowledge and skills into shaping values and attitudes, by means of new techniques of value and culture change. None of these issues are merely issues of organisational justice. They also raise questions about the scope of employer duty of care, about individual rights to autonomy privacy, dignity and self-esteem, and the boundaries between organisational demands and employee subjectivity.

How might this ethical agenda best be addressed? There are two issues here. One concerns the nature of ethical inquiry and its relation to action. The other concerns the ethical frameworks to be employed.

1. Ethical enquiry

The professional and academic HR community tends to have a different understanding of what 'ethical' concern means, compared with the community of business ethicists. For the former, the words 'ethical', 'moral' and 'good' are all synonyms denoting what is best practice. The concern is with action
- doing something about a situation to bring it back into ethical equilibrium (Miller, 1996a, 1996b; Arkin, 1996; Pickard, 1995; Johns, 1995; Wehrmeyer, 1996). In contrast, while some business ethicists suggest that ethics and morality are in fact synonymous (Donaldson, 1983; Maclagan, 1998) others make a clear distinction between morality and ethics (Beauchamp and Bowie, 1983; Petrick and Quinn, 1997). According to Petrick and Quinn, morality is about `the customary, sociolegal practices and activities and the values that are embedded, fostored or pursued by those conventional, sociolegal activities and practices'. The same authors describe ethics as 'the study of individual and collective moral awareness, judgment, character and conduct' and say it involves taking one step back in order to reflect on these underlying principles, decisions and problems (Petrick and Quinn, 1997).

So, while HR professionals and academics might well be more inclined to investigate potential options for action, such as devising and upholding codes of practice or establishing procedures for 'whistleblowing' and `ethical ombudsmen or introducing social auditing and staff charters, they might be less inclined to reflect on the ethical principles guiding such actions and the inevitable value conflict and dilemmas that arise.

When embarking on ethical reasoning, depending on which ethical framework is used at the time, it is very easy to become swamped by a discussion of absolute versus relative values and by the distinction between virtues, principles, rights and responsibilities. Is ethics about attitudes, values or behaviour? Is it a set of rules for correct conduct or a means for adopting a system of moral principles or virtues? This article argues that ethics is not about taking statements of morality at face value, it is a critical and challenging tool. There are no universally agreed ethical frameworks but this is not to offer an excuse for collapsing into a morass of moral relativism. Some ethical frameworks are more relevant to the study of HRM than others, and different situations require ethical insight and flexibility to be able to identify those frameworks that address the grounds on which competing claims are made. Decisions are judgments usually involving choices between alternatives, but rarely is the choice between right and wrong.

Inevitably moral disagreement and judgments are concerned with attitudes and feelings, not facts. Something that MacIntyre (1985) calls 'emotivism' comes unavoidably into play. Ethical statements, by their nature, are subjective attempts to invoke agreement and adherence to one or other ethical framework, rather than objective statements of truth. Yet, this is not a license for ethical relativism - a `nobody's right, so anything goes' position. A distinction can be made between relativism and informed dissent based on an awareness of, and sensitivity to, the plurality of ethical positions. Rather, it is important to be ethically aware of how an individual's own disposition affects the choice of an ethical frame of reference. The ethical position taken on a particular aspect of HR policy and practice is highly likely to differ between a chief executive, an HR professional, a line manager and the wider workforce. This can be illustrated by the issue of working hours for managerial and professional staff. A chief executive might view anything less than a 50 hour week as lack of commitment; as 'the social responsibility of business is to make a profit', there would be no ethical justification for challenging this position. Conversely a line manager might consider the 'pain' of getting staff to work long hours is justified by the 'benefit' of meeting the team's performance targets. An employee might consider the expectation of a 50 hour week to be exploitative and a violation of their employment rights. Finally an HR manager, mindful of the legal responsibilities around working hours and 'duty of care', plus the wider implications for stress in personal lives, might wish to adopt a middle position. However, appeals to a 'business case', the need for 'strategic fit' or 'best practice' will not resolve the dilemma.

Thus the ethical agenda for HRM becomes the development of ethical sensitivity and reasoning. Ethical sensitivity is the ability to reflect on HRM and be able to identify the ethical and moral dimensions and issues. Ethical reasoning is the ability to draw on relevant theory and frameworks to make more explicit the alternative interpretations and responses that could be made to inform decision-making. This article now proceeds to illustrate this by introducing a variety of relevant ethical frameworks which can be used to analyse and understand the ethical dilemmas faced in contemporary human resource management.

2. Ethical frameworks

The following discussion provides a resume of the different ethical frameworks that can be applied to various aspects of HR practice. The article has adopted a multi-Faceted perspective departing from previous approaches which attempt to evaluate HR policy and practice either in relation to a more restricted menu of theories such as deontological, utilitarian or stakeholder theory (Legge, 1997), or a rather eclectic assemblage of principles concerning 'systems, procedures and outcomes' (Miller, 1996a, 1996b). The discussion starts with what should be familiar terrain: ethical arguments that uphold a managerialist position, such as ethical individualism, utilitarianism and 'Rawlsian' justice. They narrowly circumscribe the field of ethical concern. Other theories broaden this out in an endeavour to be more socially inclusive, especially stakeholding and discourse theory, although for different reasons they encounter problems in terms of application and action. Finally a range of theories for whom the intrinsic self-worth of individuals is paramount are introduced. These include Kantian rights-based theory and also communitarianism, virtue theory and the ethics of care. In each case reference will be made to the implications for the role of the HR professional.

Ethical arguments that uphold a minimalist position. A managerialist position is based on the assumption that, either individually or collectively, wider managerial interests must prevail over the claims of other specific interests and that the status quo must be protected with minimal tolerance of change. This position is usually a minimalist one and justified by reference to a range of ethical arguments, including ethical egoism, utilitarianism, and liberty and contract-based approaches.

Ethical egoism is a minimalist ethical position based on the Hobbesian assumption that 'the only valid standard of conduct is the obligation to promote one's own well-being above anyone else's, (Beauchamp and Bowie,
1983: 18), an injunction to act on the basis of maximising self-interest. This is not to imply that ethical egoists do not consider the interests of others when it suits them and may well do so in order to fend off unpleasant consequences. This is not far from the position of Friedman (1962) and Sternberg (1994, 1997) who claim that business works solely for the benefit of shareholders. In this model the ethical role of the HR professional would be limited to supporting the enlightened self-interest of the employer rather than the rights of employees (unless of course not to do so would have an adverse impact on organisational effectiveness). This is a very commonly used ethical argument in HR practice. It explains why organisations might at the same time be concerned to offer high pay to 'millenium bug' computer programmers, while simultaneously placing them on very insecure and stressful employment contracts or even treating other work groups in an inferior manner. Ethical egoism often underpins so-called 'business case' arguments.

Utilitarianism is a teleological ethical framework (from the Greek 'telos' meaning the final purpose, issue or goal), in that it is primarily concerned with outcomes or ends. It is based on ethical egoism, with the addition of an arithmetical basis to justify reasoning, the 'moral calculus' of the 19th century philosopher, Jeremy Bentham. In its commitment to maximise `utility' two approaches can be distinguished: 'act' utilitarianism, where the decision-maker needs to assess how the greatest good or utility could be achieve, and 'rule' utilitarianism, where individual acts require adherence to rules which have been fashioned on utility. These are principles which have been used in a public policy context for distribution of benefits or allocation of scarce resources but are seldom used in HR practice. For example, electronic surveillance of teleworkers to detect and deter their `abuse' of electronic mail could be justified in terms of the wider business benefit, but this may be at a significant and unknown cost to individual employees, both in terms of stress and anxiety over invasion of personal privacy. Perhaps the most frequently encountered use is utility analysis of selection and assessment methods, or cost benefit analysis of training and development interventions. Yet, even in these cases, the managerialist perspective predominates, as the individual's 'utility' (right) in terms of privacy or fairness is contingent on the benefits to all. Perhaps the current compulsion towards HR auditing with its focus on outcomes provides a basis for a post hoc rationalisation of the utility of policies, say in training and development? However, the classical criticisms of utilitarianism always apply: the difficulty of predicting potential outcomes and the relative weights to be attributed to different individual utilities.

The Rawlsian theory of distributive justice is closely related to the moral calculus of utilitarianism but with an attempt to allow individual interests greater weight in argument. Rawls (1971) advocates two principles: first, that each individual has an equal right to basic liberty and, secondly that inequalities in distribution should be to the benefit of all or to the extent that the least advantaged do not suffer further disadvantage. This contract-based model synthesises a calculation of utility with two 'strong' ethical principles: fairness and equality, with the former having overriding priority. What is a very sophisticated model designed for application in the public policy realm has indeed provoked much academic debate (Barry 1973; Miller, 1976) but surprisingly little application. It has certainly not been used in either academic or professional HR circles, although there is the potential for it to be used in complex pay and remuneration negotiations, for example with relation to the compensation philosophy of Ben and Jerry's pioneering ice-cream business in the US, which reduced pay differentials between senior management and the shop floor to a ratio of seven to one (Wilson, 1997).

An alternative to the Rawls position in the arguments over the balance between liberty and equality is that of Robert Nozick (1974), who would have argued, far from protecting the rights of the least advantaged, it is more important and just to protect the right to liberty - an argument which could be deployed in support of an enterprise culture and freedom from the restraints of much HR legislation. One rationale for this is that any infringement of liberty leads to problems of unintended consequences. Thus, taking the example of accelerating executive pay levels for the privatised industries or the levels of runaway economic inequality in the US and UK, Nozick would argue that the ethical principle should be to support liberty and not redistributive justice to impose greater equality.

All of the above are essentially frameworks of ethical reasoning that can be conveniently used by management to defend the status quo or a minimalist position. So, while introducing measures to achieve a family friendly workplace might be advantageous to the overall experience of employment in an organisation, and particularly helpful in attracting and retaining female `human capital', these theories only justify action if the overall gain is deemed to outweigh the costs. These are also theories that rest on the notion of the individual as the 'unencumbered self' (Sandel, 1989), in that other claims and obligations they might have outside the immediate parameters of the 'moral calculus', such as childcare, are irrelevant. Again, this is illustrated by the case of the treatment of parental leave where social convention means that more mothers than fathers are likely to take time off work for childcare because of likely earnings differentials and domestic role segregation. If each employee is to be treated as an 'unencumbered self', then there is no justification for taking such social factors into account.

Worth of the individual. There are several frameworks that can be applied here. First of all there is a 'strong' ethical position that places individual interest at the centre of all ethical consideration but, in contrast with ethical egoism's concern to limit infringement on action to support the employer's interests, it is preoccupied with a positive assertion of basic rights for all. Rights-based ethical frameworks tends to draw on two key concepts from the 18th century German philosopher, Immanuel Kant. The first follows the principle that what is right for one person is right for everyone, and thus it is important to do unto others as you would be done by - the criteria of universality and reversability. The second is the principle of respect for people whereby they should be treated as ends in themselves and never solely as means to an end.

This Kantian framework epitomises 'deontological' approaches to business ethics. Deontology derives from the word 'deon' meaning duty in Greek, but this set of theories have come to mean much more than duty; they generally cover approaches that link ethics to things that are good in themselves, rather than in relation to 'telos' or goals. Kantian approaches propound a number of rights, usually embracing issues such as the fundamental right to life and safety, and the human rights of privacy, freedom of conscience, speech and to hold private property. Rights-based frameworks continue to be relevant to HRM, particularly in areas such as selection interviewing (the right to privacy and confidentiality of personal information, particularly where it is not relevant to the job), occupational testing (such as the right to feedback), equal opportunities and diversity management (the right to be treated the same or to be given special treatment), flexible employment contracts and working time (the right to 'family-friendly' practices), `whistleblowing' (the right to speak out about wrongdoing), staff charters (which may outline employee rights and responsibilities) and even employee development (the right to psychological and physical safety such as with relation to outdoor training, for instance). However, such rights-based approaches, although they certainly received considerable support 20 years ago, now receive short shrift among practising HR professionals. Rather than being challenged on their own intellectual terrain, they are dismissed as 'impractical' and of a lesser legitimacy than the 'business case' arguments outlined above.

Instead, HR professionals have displayed a cautious enthusiasm for the concept of stakeholding. Although it entered the popular literature on business strategy and management after the publication of Freeman's seminal text (1984), it has taken centre stage more recently by virtue of its widespread utilisation in the political and public policy domains, where social inclusiveness is seen as an antidote to the rampant individualism of the Thatcherite era (Hutton, 1995; Kelly et al, 1997). However, there is some conceptual confusion. Stakeholding can refer both to the process of giving employees involvement in decision making and the meeting of employee needs or outcomes. This conceptual confusion becomes even greater when stakeholding is interpreted in terms of inclusion and inclusiveness (Winstanley and Stoney 1997).

In the employment arena stakeholding has suggested an approach promoting greater involvement in managerial decision making, through a range of different consultation methods. The debate over partnership and mutuality in the 'Fairness at work' legislation has provoked a guarded response from employers. Employee rights must not be at the expense of the employer and must be tempered by responsibility. While it is possible for organisations to implement a stakeholding approach, as illustrated by the Body Shop experiment with social auditing to gain feedback from employees as a basis for addressing their needs (Jackson and Sillanpaa, 2000), a more moderate approach may be more suitable for other organisations (RSA, 1995). Raising employee expectations without being able to sustain the resources to conduct social auditing or participation, is highly risky in terms of both retaining employee support and also maintaining profitability and effectiveness (Winstanley and Stoney, 1997). It is questionable whether stakeholding models can overcome barriers encountered by firms operating within global markets, where economics has led firms to source from the third world and where it is very difficult to access the complex network in the supply chain, as was found to be the case recently when Marks and Spencer were accused by a Panorama programme of using child labour in third world countries. Also it is all too easy for approaches to involvement based on stakeholding to be used manipulatively and duplicitously by employers anxious to bind employees into a rhetoric of excellence and enterprise, for example where employee empowerment is introduced for cost-cutting reasons but promoted on the basis of its involvement of staff in decision making (Ojeifo and Winstanley, 1999). Finally employee needs may compete against those of others - customers, suppliers, the local community etc - and little work has been done on how to adjudicate between such rival claims.

A related but theoretically more complex approach to the same issues is to be found in discourse theory. Discourse ethics attempts to operationalise stakeholding by providing a framework for ethical decision making and conflict management (French and Allbright, 1998). It draws on the work of the Frankfurt School, and in particular Karl-Otto Apel (1989) and Jurgen Habermas (1989, 1990). Although much of the work was developed in the context of public policy making and debate, it has relevance as a means to identify methodologies for consensus decision making among organisational stakeholders. Discourse ethics suggests that the role of ethicists is not to provide solutions to moral problems, but to provide a practical procedure in which issues can be debated. In the course of identifying processes through which decisions might be made, it asserts the moral requirement to include all those affected by the decision in the discourse: that all have the ability to challenge the assertions of others, that all are willing for their own stance to be open to questioning and to maintain openness and transparency of aims and goals and, finally that power differentials are neutralised in the course of debate (Kettner, 1993: 34-5).

While this framework is based on powerful reasoning, it is difficult to see how the conditions for rational discourse might be achieved between stakeholders. It could easily be applied to dispute resolution and performance management, if only employers, managers trade unions etc were willing to suspend their power positions. However, this requires such a massive shift in employee relations culture and politics as to be inconceivable.

ETHICAL HUMANISM

Humanism is not fashionable within academic HR circles. The essentialism underlying the notion of the human subject is dismissed as an ideological delusion or cultural artifact by critical theorists, post-modernists and labour process theorists. The ascendancy of economic or cultural determinism over human agency has made it a 'fact' that cannot be challenged. Opponents of humanism often conflate the normative, framing the debate in a way that renders illegitimate any mention of humancentredness. However, while naive appeals to the sanctity of the human subject can be faulted, to represent this as totally delusional and as an ideological or cultural product, is to remove any possibility of ethical human agency and open the doors to ethical agnosticism or relativism. This is a particular concern in relation to the scope of human resource management. In particular, the emphasis on high commitment management and culture management, enjoins the employee to identify very strongly with the objectives of the workplace. This is more than traditional paternalism, as it is asserting that the employing organisation is a community of purpose (Warren, 1998) to which all are bound. Within HRM the resource rather than the human element prevails, as does management rather than development.

It is but a short step from specifying the conditions in which rational discourse can take place to arguing that individuals are part of a community to which they have obligations as well as rights. Recent debate around the notion of a community of purpose suggests that commitment to job security for employees is a basic condition for its effectiveness (Cougar and Stevens, 1998; Monks, 1999). Communitarianism is a social philosophy that focuses on the shared values of individuals within a community of purpose. As with stakeholding, this is a philosophy for life at the individual, group, organisational and societal level. Etzioni (1995) has been one of the most influential writers and campaigners on this subject and suggests that the unbridled liberal defence of freedom is a fallacy; we are all members of overlapping communities and the workplace is one such community of purpose. Unlike stakeholding, which espouses diversity of value, communities of purpose emphasise shared values and inclusiveness. What would an organisation adopting a 'community of purpose' stance look like? It may adopt the Japanese practices of single status, long time employment, high investment in training and development, recruitment from school and based on behavioural compatibility (with teamwork, flexibility and high commitment). It may alternatively exhibit many of the features of 'partnership' companies - employment security, company flexibility, sharing of financial success with the workforce, the development of good communication, and representative and employee voice (IPA, 1997). The kind of companies identified here include Welsh Water, Hyder, Blue Circle, United Distillers, Rover, Marks and Spencers, John Lewis (Overell, 1997), and also those companies linked with the Centre for Tomorrow's Company and the Committee of Inquiry for New Vision on Business, including BP, BT and NatWest. Guest and Peccei (1998) identify four different views of partnership (representative participation, direct participation, a US integrationalist perspective and a mutual gains model) and, interestingly the third of these links to high commitment work practices and the debate on best practice HR. This raises the issue of there being convergence on the one hand with best practice, Japanese HRM, partnership practices and even learning organisations becoming one and the same (such as with Rover), but on the other hand some very different choices. Take for example the role of the unions: some 'communities of purpose' include unions and see their role as vital (such as Welsh Water, see IPA, 1997; Overell, 1997; Cougar and Stevens, 1998; Monks, 1999) and some don't (John Lewis, see Overell,1997).

As well as the variety of models for a 'community of purpose', there is another problem facing the adoption of this approach to human resource management. While the appeal to mutuality is currently very strong on the part of employers, the overall balance of rights and responsibilities appears to be in their favour. This is illustrated in the way that new payment systems expect employees to assume more responsibility and risks, and in the persistence and extension of long hours cultures for managers and professionals, despite European Union directives on working hours.

A problem with these arguments that stress 'community' and mutuality is that they focus on achieving harmony and consensus. The danger is that all too often the equilibrium of a community of purpose can be disturbed by 'greedy' employers (Coser, 1974) concerned to push for more, be it by means of 'stretch' targets and variable pay or in their appetite to 'shape' employee values, beliefs and corporate cultures (Woodall, 1996). Furthermore, a community of purpose is always in danger of becoming too paternalistic and narrow in its perspective, and this might present problems for ensuring that values of diversity and difference are able to flourish and grow.

Much of the preceding debate rests on intellectual reason; feelings, intuitions and senses are viewed as dysfunctional and to be purged from ethical reasoning. However, Gilligan (1982, 1987) has shown that more subjective and intuitive approaches to ethical problem- solving are legitimate. Her reassertion of the role of feeling and empathy in ethical reasoning takes us back to a more humanistic basis for managing people. Unlike the formalistic theories of ethical egoism, utilitarianism, rights and justice etc, she argues that moral judgments need to be sensitive to both the needs of the situation and other individuals. Being impartial makes it difficult to imagine oneself in the other's position and thus understand the other's perspective (Carse,
1996: 86). For Gilligan, moral reasoning involves empathy and concern, emphasising responsiveness and responsibility in our relations with others, where moral choices are made in relationship with others, not in isolation:

As a framework for moral decision, care is grounded in the assumption that detachment, whethere from self or from others is morally problematic, since it breeds moral blindness or indifference - a failure to discern or respond to need

Gilligan, 1987:24

Gilligan's approach arose out of research into the ethical reasoning processes used by women, whom she found to be more inclined to adopt the 'care' approach. Aside from the issues raised by the gendered nature of much ethical debate, the ethics of care has much relevance to HR management. Its incorporation of a place for emotion in organisational life has resonance with the growing literature on 'emotion in organisation' (Fineman, 1993), and the current revival of interest in personal development which draws on humanistic psychology such as Rogerian counselling (Rogers, 1967) and Gestalt (Clarkson, 1998), with their emphases on empathy, acceptance, genuineness and congruence. What would an ethics of care look like in practice? It would change the emphasis of HR away from formal systems to decisionmaking on a more personal basis. For example, with respect to working hours, it may mean a line manager allowing an individual time off for family responsibilities or an HR manager allowing flexibility and offering job shares, parttime working, term-time working or a number of other atypical work contracts to parents wishing to fit in work and child care.

The humanistic values of empathy, acceptance, genuineness, congruence and unconditional positive regard are very different values from those that underpin HRM and, more importantly best practice. Contingent pay and highly developed performance management and reward systems do not sit well with 'unconditional positive regard' (Winstanley, 2000), and empathy is generally not a subject taught on MBA courses. Research showing a gap between rhetoric and practice (such as Legge 1995a) does not suggest there is a high level of genuineness and congruance evident in contemporary human resource management.

There is always the danger that an ethic of care can become oppressive and degenerate into a dominant parent/child metaphorical relationship, where employers take responsibility for decision making and safeguarding employee interests - paternalism again. The lack of empowerment, autonomy and openess that can be detrimental to employees and raise further ethical questions around emotional labour. There is also another critique of the 'subjective and intuitive' approach, which lays it vulnerable to the charge of 'sentimentality'. Would it really lead to a more humane workplace? There is evidence to suggest that equal rights legislation brought in to promote more objective decision making, for the very reason that subjective approaches could lead to discrimination and bias. The challenge here must be how to ensure the informal organisation promotes the ethics of care model without these undesirable consequences.

Finally, a concern with empathy ultimately leads ethical argument to address individual characteristics and disposition or 'virtues'. Neither HR academics nor professionals have paid much attention to the resurgence of interest in virtue ethics, led by the work of Alistair Maclntyre (1985) and Robert Solomon (1992, 1993). Perhaps the Aristotelian and medieval scholastic origins of the concept make it difficult to convey to a modern management audience? At its heart, the Aristotelian notion of virtue is as a disposition, meaning that it arises from a deep state of being rather than a behaviour to be picked up and shed at will. Virtue in this view is therefore not something we do, but more a way of being. Virtues are practised because human beings are urged to `lead a good life' aiming to achieve the optimum but not excess in all things. This all makes it difficult for virtue to be grafted on as a new set of HR practices; instead it would imply that it would need to underpin the organisational culture. This may even suggest that it would only be possible for organisations such as Body Shop and the Co-operative bank, whose virtues have become embedded in practice, to aspire to virtue. It would be impossible for those organisations that adopt and shed their values with each new organisational change to adopt this ethical stance.

What, however, are the virtues that an employer and employee would exhibit today? Solomon (1992, 1993) draws on Aristotelian accounts of virtue to present a contemporary view of virtues for business ethics. He identifies six: community, excellence, role identity, holism, integrity and judgment.

Virtue ethics is at the same time appealing and frustrating. For example integrity is a key issue for HR professionals (Pearson, 1995) and appears in the debate around professional codes of practice in both the UK and US, but academic critics argue that it has been markedly absent in contemporary HRM (Legge, 1995a, 1995b; Woodall, 1996). Also, it is easy to generate laundry lists of competing virtues with little consensus and agreement about why they are included and to whom they apply (employers in general, HR specialists or employees). Ultimately they need to be embedded in the contemporary social, economic or political context, which brings us back to some of the other aforementioned ethical frameworks.

CONCLUSION

The preceding outline of ethical frameworks and discussion of their relevance to HR practice is sketchy. However, the point is that they can all be used to throw some light on the practice of HRM. Ethical literacy among both HR academics and professionals has a legitimate place in both analysis and practice and is necessary for ethical sensitivity and reasoning. While the debate might continue as to whether the totality of the HR `model' is ethical, many ethical frameworks and principles can be applied to this aspect of management.

So, if ethical frameworks and principles can be applied, the question then becomes how should this be done? This requires action on three levels - academic debate, academic research and professional HR practice. Within academic debate, a more sustained critique of the emphasis on performance and evaluation and a reintroduction of humanistic concepts and language will provide an important start. Conferences and journals will be the main means of achieving this aim.

However, academic education also needs to take the lead by incorporating discussion of ethical aspects into HRM and organisational behaviour curricula at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. As indicated at the start, there is also more scope for student texts to address ethical aspects of HRM. An example is provided by the US Academy of Human Resource Development that is currently compiling a text on ethics and integrity case studies (AHRD, 1999). This needs to be backed by evidence-based academic research to identify the full range of ethical concerns, to identify ethical practice and to explore the relationship between humanism and employee performance. The current preoccupation with investigating the nature of the integration of HR practice with business performance can easily lead to collusion with a 'bottom line' justification for HRM, be it of the `strategic fit' or `best practice' variety. This research agenda could be refreshed by adopting a more human centred perspective including more critical analysis backed by empirical evidence of such concepts as flexibility commitment, empowerment and employability.

The implications for professional practice are considerable but they fall into two basic lines of action. The first of these concerns the role of the Institute of Personnel and Development which recently successfully pursued an application for chartered status from the Privy Council. In accordance with requirements, the IPD's application made reference to the arrangements for handling professional conduct. This provides an excellent opportunity for a fuller review of the scope of the current Code of Professional Conduct (IPD,1995) to incorporate more reference to ethics.

However, codes of conduct do not go very far towards raising ethical sensitivity and awareness. Although useful in addressing routine problems, they are not helpful in dealing with the exceptional and unusual cases typical of ethical dilemmas. There is thus a role for the IPD in promoting ethical debate. This could possibly be achieved by keynote speakers and specialist sessions at IPD conferences, but raising ethical awareness might be achieved at local level; for instance discussing the issue at branch meeting arid encouraging informal support groups. Anecdotal evidence already indicates considerable support for this from IPD members, many of whom work in isolation from other HR professionals. In consequence, the IPD might examine the practices adopted by other human-centred professions, such as social workers and psychotherapists. Here it is common to have formalised arrangements for supervision and case conferences by means of which professionals can reflect on their actions. Such practices provide an opportunity for encouraging discussion that is essential to raising ethical sensitivity and awareness.

Finally we believe there is an opportunity for the IPD to consider the emphasis it places on ethical matters in its professional education at both an initial stage and through continuing professional development. We would like to see more than a cursory treatment of ethical aspects of HRM in the professional qualification scheme of the Institute of Personnel and Development (IPD, 1996). There is only glancing acknowledgement of ethics and professionalism in the indicative content of syllabi, and occasional reference to principles of equity fairness, basic rights and obligations. In as much as ethical discussion needs to be `mainstreamed' as a legitimate part of professional discourse at branch and national level, it is essential that the foundation for this is laid through the professional qualification scheme.

The second line of action open to HR professionals is the workplace. There is an opportunity here to move beyond a reactive and defensive position to become a champion, architect and steward of ethical management of people. While gaining the confidence to do so can be helped with external support from the IPD and other professional networks, the basic requirements are essentially high level political and change management skills, ranging from direct challenge through evidence-based argument to indirect influence and awareness raising, which can include such radical departures as the introduction of codes of management practice, social auditing and the development of staff charters. Along with the above interventions in academic debate and research, there is scope for action at the level of professional practice in order to bring ethical sensitivity and reasoning more firmly within human resource management.

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