18 INTRODUCTION
and distinctive contribution. However, the reader will become aware of certain
recurrent themes that appear in different guises throughout the book, some
of which are taken up again and discussed in the concluding chapter. These
themes tend to take the form of unresolved tensions which reflect the conflict-
ing interests at play in the workplace, the moral disagreements to which these
give rise, and conflicting, sometimes incompatible, views as to how ethical
policies are best implemented.
In Part I (Situating Human Resource Management) all of the contributors
discuss in their different ways the potential for conflict in the means–end
relationships between, on the one side, the moral treatment of employees
and, on the other side, the achievement of demanding political and economic
goals. Walsh argues that ethical behaviour is possible when individuals pursue
economic interests, but he cautions readers that this means ensuring moral
intent and behaviour remain integral to human behaviour in economic activ-
ities. Palmer’s and Creighton’s chapters emphasize the many different ways
that ethical behaviour has been understood during the historical evolution of
socio-political and legal systems in Western capitalist countries. In general,
Guest, and Boxall and Purcell present an optimistic message in favour of
a grounded consideration of the strategies of businesses combined with a
more enlightened but realistic implementation of HRM. Although they draw
attention to the significance of the social infrastructure for encouraging ethical
behaviour, Legge contradicts their position arguing that without collective
representation the prospect of a more ethical HRM treatment of employees is
limited.
In Part II (Analysing Human Resource Management) the contributors con-
sider how the implementation of HRM in organizations may increase the
moral awareness, behaviours, and outcomes of employers and employees. The
theoretical perspectives adopted on ethics and HRM vary greatly within this
section. Greenwood and De Cieri discuss the merits of a stakeholder approach
which has been known to emphasize the utilitarianconsequencesof various
actions and stakeholder arrangements. They reveal the inevitable tension
between maximizing employers’ economic interests and focusing on moral
outcomes for various stakeholders. Bennington continues in a similar vein to
Creighton’s discussion in Part I of ethics and legal systems, observing that
individuals’intentionsto promote equal opportunity must be backed by an
appropriate legal system; one which provides employees with the freedom to
make moral decisions that may conflict with their loyalty to their employer by
questioning moral intentions or economic interests. Pinnington and Bayrak-
taroglu endeavour to take this line of argument a step further by proposing
that people employed in HRM should ensure that instrumental economic
goals in organizations do not exclude other ethical and cultural aims. Such
ambition must be tempered by an acknowledgement that employees’ collective
and individual interests will sometimes conflict with the general interests of