13

HRM, ethical

irrationality, and the

limits of

ethical action

Tony J. Watson

Introduction

‘I remember when I was a young personnel officer, a view that HR—the personnel
function as it was then called—should be the conscience of the organization. I think I
wrote an essay on this when I was studying for IPM [Institute of Personnel Manage-
ment] grad[uate] membership. I wish I could find it for you. But then perhaps not!
It might be embarrassing. I probably wrote to support the proposition. I was naïve
in those early days, thinking that personnel was the “people” part of management and
therefore had to take on the caring part of, you know, the management of the business.
And “doing the right thing by people” was obviously part of that caring thing. If I
remember rightly, the IPM’s mission statement was about balancing “efficiency and
welfare” in managing people. And, of course, that’s been dropped now. We all know
that any talk of welfare, caring or ethical practice is only acceptable in managerial
circles if it is a means to a business end. The idea that I might go to the Board here to say
to them “We must do this because I, Bob Davern, believe it is ethically right” would be
to risk my job. And there is just one thing that would be more dangerous to my future.
If I were to say that my professional body—the chartered institute as it’s soon going to
be—would be unhappy with the company going down a certain line on employment
matters on ethical grounds ... well, they’d send for the men in white coats.’

The above statement was made by an HR director who was being interviewed
as part of a project on how HR managers were talking about the likelihood
of their professional association gaining a royal charter. The context in which
these (previously unpublished) words were uttered was a discussion about HR
work and what I conceptualized in the research as discourses of professional-
ism (Watson 2002). We return to what this individual had to say about HR as a
profession later on but, for now, his words can usefully be read to illustrate the
broad argument being put forward in the present chapter. This is the argument
that the scope for HR managers to make ethical interventions in the conduct
of their employing organizations is extremely limited and is, in fact, practically