234 PROGRESSING HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
decisions and events to make decisions or actions more ethical per se. The rea-
sons for this lie in part in the nature of ethical systems or schemes themselves,
as social constructions devised by members of various cultures throughout the
evolution of the human species to handle problems of order and existential
challenge—schemes which, as a result of the very nature of the social world,
both clash with each other and contain internal contradictions. There can be
no absolute or incontestable notion of what is more or less ethical. But the
difficulties with the idea of a more ethical HRM also relate to the nature of the
industrial capitalist political economy and culture of which HR institutions
are an element. HR managers are part of the control apparatus of employing
organizations and they are paid to service those corporations. To bring in
extraneous considerations into the daily managerial toil, whether these be
ethical or any other kind of consideration, is to risk being marginalized, with
all the career implications it has for the HR manager or the HR depart-
ment. But note the use here of the word ‘extraneous’. It is talk of ethics in
the abstract (‘abstract’ in business terms) that gets the HR manager shown
the door. Our sociological and structural analysis does not have to take us
completely down the pathway of pessimism and determinism. There are two
ways in which we can qualify the argument that HR managers cannot be
looked to as a lever for making managerial and organizational work more
ethical.
The first qualification to the basic case being made is to point out that
ethical considerations are relevant, from beginning to end, to doing HR work.
Everyactionaffecting employees of the organization has an ethical dimension.
Every pay rise that is envisaged has to be considered, in part, in terms of
whether it is fair or unfair. Every appointment that is contemplated has to be
considered, in part, in terms of equal opportunity criteria. Every job redesign
or organizational restructuring that is planned has to be considered, in part,
in terms of the ways in which it will enhance or worsen the quality of work
life of the people who will fill those jobs and animate those structures. All
of these considerations are alongside, or secondary to, the main ‘business’
considerations that enter this decision-making process. Or perhaps it is more
realistic to say that, if they are to be considered at all, ethical issues are part
and parcel of the business-oriented calculation. The HR manager must be
sensitive to the fairness of the proposed pay deal because, if mistakes are made
in this respect, employees may leave the organization or enter a grievance
mode of action which undermines productive cooperation between managers
and workers. Fairness for the HR manager is thus a business matter. The HR
manager must think about how a new appointment is to be perceived by
organizational members, again in terms of the costly grievances that might
ensue if dissatisfactions are created, with a possible turning to the law which
would risk bringing negative publicity to the employing organization. Equal
opportunities are thus also a business matter for the HR manager. And