HRM AND PERFORMANCE: ETHICAL DILEMMAS 57restricted range of HR practices (Cappelli and Neumark 2001). Furthermore,
Guest (2002) has suggested that the practices associated with high worker
satisfaction and well-being only overlap to a limited extent with those asso-
ciated with higher performance. Therefore, while workers appear to prefer the
soft HRM approach to the available alternatives, the context in which they
are experienced, the range of additional practices in place and the safeguards
reflected in an independent voice, are all likely to be important for employee
well-being. By implication, there is the potential for an ethical approach, since
workers’ interests and goals may be taken into account but also the risk that
without safeguards this may be exploitative.
Overstating the evidence on HRM and performance
The third ethical issue associated with HRM and performance concerns the
way in which the evidence about HRM and performance is presented and
used. To understand why this is an issue, we need first to review some of
the evidence. As a starting point, it is important to emphasize that the bulk
of the published research evidence shows an association between HRM and
performance. However, the evidence is open to criticism and therefore to
challenge for a number of reasons. These can be briefly listed. One concern
is that the evidence is not cumulative because there are no agreed measures
of HRM. Indeed, there is a lack of agreement about what practices to include,
what level of detail and specificity is required, and how to measure practices.
Another concern is the tendency to use a single source, often near the apex
of a large multi-unit organization, to describe HR practices for all parts of
the organization. A further concern is that most of the emphasis has been
placed on measures of HR practices to the neglect of the effectiveness of
these practices, despite the logic of the argument that their presence is less
important than the way they are applied.
There has also been much disagreement about what measures of perfor-
mance to include in research studies and about how they should be measured.
Some studies have placed the main emphasis on intermediate outcomes such
as productivity and indicators of quality or materials waste. However, the
main focus has often been on some sort of financial measure, ranging in
sophistication from Tobin’s Q (Huselid 1995) to subjective ratings of compar-
ative performance (Cully et al. 1999). Some critics have raised the question of
whether it is reasonable to expect any sizeable link between HRM and finan-
cial performance given the ‘distance’ between them. Instead, it may be more
sensible to look for a series of intermediate links. In addition, there are a num-
ber of more general concerns. One, offered mainly by European researchers