10. The Ethical Context of Human Resource Management

 The meaning of Ethics

Petrick and Quinn (1997: 42) wrote that ethics ‘is the study of individual and collective moral awareness, judgement, character and conduct’. Hamlin (2001) noted that ethics is concerned with rules or principles that help us to distinguish right and wrong. Ethics and morality are sometimes treated as being synonymous, although Beauchamp and Bowie (1983: 1–2) suggested that they are different: ‘Whereas morality is a social institution with a history and code of learnable rules, ethical theory refers to the philosophical study of the nature of ethical principles, decisions and problems.’ Clearly, ethics is concerned with matters of right and wrong and therefore involves moral judgments. Even if ethics and morality are not the same, the two are closely linked. As Clegg (2007) put it: ‘We understand ethics as the social organizing of morality.’ Simplistically, ethics could be described as being about behaviour while morality is about beliefs.

Ethics is concerned with making decisions and judgements about what is the right course of action to take. It can be described in terms of a framework that sets out different approaches and can be extended to embrace particular concepts that affect and guide ethical behaviour, namely equity, justice and fair dealing. 

Ethical Issues in HRM

What are the common ethics we can see in Hospitality Industry?

1. Honesty - The state or quality of being honest. It is refraining from lying, cheating, or stealing, being truthful, trustworthy or upright.
2. Integrity- Meaning telling the right thing whether it benefits you or not.
3. Trustworthiness- The ability to relied on as honest or truthful.
4. Fairness- Treating all people equally and applying reasonable punishments. 
5. Concern and respect for others- concern is about caring enough to skillfully empathize with others while respect is a positive feeling or action shown towards someone or something considered important, or held in high esteem or regard.
6. Reputation and morale- Building and protecting the companies goods and the morale of it's employees. Ethical managers avoid words or actions that might undermine respect and they take affirmative steps to correct or prevent inappropriate conduct to others.

Corporate Social Responsibility 

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is exercised by organizations when they conduct their business in an ethical way, taking account of the social, environmental and economic impact of how they operate, and going beyond compliance. Wood (1991: 695) stated that: ‘The basic idea of corporate social responsibility is that business and society are interwoven rather than distinct entities; therefore, society has certain expectations for appropriate business behaviour and outcomes.’ As Baron (2001: 11) noted, CSR involves ‘providing to others benefits beyond those generated by economic transactions with the firm or required by law’

CSR policy may be expressed in a value statement that sets out the organization’s core values under such headings as: 

● care and consideration for people

● Competence

● Competitiveness

● Customer service

● Innovation

● Performance

● Quality

● Teamwork 

But espoused values are pointless unless they become values in use and this needs concerted action by management working with employees and supported by HR.

Ethical values in the workplace and the approach to CSR

Traditionally, CSR is rather ‘‘implemented’’ from the headquarters and employees, even local management, are not involved in the development of a policy on business responsibility. But effective corporate responsibility strategy means respect for individual, cultural and developmental differences and sensitivity, being in contradiction with imposing values and ideas when establishing global policies and programs (Sharma, 2009). With the growing importance of human capital as a critical factor for companies of the future, the role of ethical values and moral motivation has become more critical in leading responsible organizations.

All industry sectors accept the importance of employee loyalty and commitment. Motivation, qualifications, and commitment are major assets to the corporation. Strategic programs are more successful if factors such as training, empowerment, teamwork, and rewards are addressed and suggested a relationship between personal ethical values and CSR activities. One possible outcome of such a linkage would be to allow people to achieve their individual purposes through CSR activities. 

Reference:

Armstrong, M. & Taylor, S. (2014) Armstrong’s handbook of human resource management practice (13^th ed). Ashford Colour press Ltd [Online]. Available at https://e-uczelnia.uek.krakow.pl/pluginfile.php/604792/mod_folder/content/0/Armstrongs%20Handbook%20of%20Human%20Resource%20Management%20Practice_1.pdf?forcedownload=1. Accessed on 28^th May 2021.

Beh, L.S. & Jonathan, P.(2013) Organizational context. Charting Ethics in Asia-Pacific HRM: Does East Meet West, Ethically?. pp186-188 [Online]. Available at https://www.researchgate.net/. Accessed on 28^th May 2021.

 Boleslaw, R. (2009) Corporate social responsibility. People And Skills Ethical Context Of The Participative Leadership Model: Taking People Into Account. pp462-470 [Online]. Available at https://www.researchgate.net/. Accessed on 28^th May 2021.