114 SITUATING HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
accept such conflicts (Boxall and Purcell 2003: 15–16). For reasons of space I
provide no sustained arguments for such an approach here in this chapter,
although I should point out that if I am correct about the potential effects of
the profit motive on work relations then the pluralists must be vindicated.
According to my approach, avoiding the pitfalls of moral hazards outlined
is a necessary (if not a sufficient) condition for such work to be conducted
in an ethically appropriate manner. HRM, by virtue of being a sphere of
employment in a market economy, also faces such moral hazards and, hence, if
HR managers are to act in an ethically appropriate manner, it is incumbent on
them, as it is for all managers in the modern workforce, to avoid these moral
hazards.
But HRM is not just another area of the workforce. To the contrary, it is a
central coordinating area where many of the aims and ideals of organizations
are discussed, reviewed, and put into place. If we consider each of the moral
hazards listed above, we find that they have special import for the discipline of
HRM.
First, consider the relationship between the concern with treating as a mere
commodity and the explicit resource orientation of HRM. Many might feel
that to regard members of the workforce as commercial resources is to treat
them instrumentally, as mere means. Indeed, the very name of the discipline
raises alarm for some critics; many such critics felt that the very shift from
‘personnel’ to ‘HR’ reflected a deeper instrumentalist shift on the part of
managers in their attitudes towards their workforces. If we put the charge in
Kantian terms, the change in title was part of a move to regard the workforce
as mere commercial resources rather than as ends in themselves.
Beyond the issue of disciplinary nomenclature—which may well in the end
be morally insignificant—there is a serious concern that within a commercial
environment HRM will become a process by which people are systematically
treated as mere commercial resources. Here one might point to the so-called
RBV of the firm, according to which competitive advantage arises from the
heterogeneous human and technical resources at a firm’s disposal (Boxall and
Purcell 2003: 72–5). RBV is based on the idea, contra much orthodox eco-
nomic theory, that competition never entirely eliminates differences among
firms and it is these very differences which provide the basis of competitive
advantages (Kamoche 2001: 43–50). The aim of RBV is to identify those
differences in resource base which provide a competitive advantage over other
firms. Clearly, given the foregoing and applying the RBV, humans are treated
as key economic resources and within such a framework it is possible for the
workforce to be treated as mere means.
But that such dangers are clear and present does not mean that if HR
managers are to act in an ethically appropriate manner, they must abandon
their commercial orientations. This was the very point of the earlier discussion
of the Value Evacuation Thesis. It is not that it is impossible to treat something
as both intrinsically valuable and as a commercial resource, but rather that