HRM AND PERFORMANCE: ETHICAL DILEMMAS 63management has often been in the driving seat and can determine how far
partnership is developed; the second is that management, more than employee
representatives, generally displays low trust. As a result, the balance of advan-
tage, in terms of the issues that are addressed through partnership, generally
lies with the employer rather than the employees.
Further evidence that the employer is in a position to take the initiative
comes from the analysis of WERS 98 (Cully et al. 1999). Among other things,
this reveals that managers are likely to consult in the workplace about a wider
range of issues with non-union than with union representatives. In other
words, the safeguard of an independent voice does not mean that the voice
will be heard in partnership-related contexts. It is therefore not surprising that
the newer generation of trade union leaders in the UK, although not yet the
TUC (1999), are expressing growing scepticism about partnership. For them
it is not the only game in town and they favour a return to a more adversarial
form of IR. Whether this is more likely to result in benefits to the workforce
remains to be seen. What this implies is that partnership has the potential
to answer to some of the ethical issues surrounding HRM and performance;
but it requires high trust from both parties and probably, as Dietz implies,
the constant delivery of mutual benefits. While there is impressive case study
evidence of what can be achieved with goodwill on both sides, that high trust
is too often lacking. Furthermore, while it is easy to espouse partnership, the
evidence suggests that it has not taken root in industry.
Discussion and conclusions
This chapter has argued that the relationship between HRM and performance
is one of the key reasons for the interest in HRM and is one, if notthe
key research issue. Four ethical issues have been identified. They concern
the criticism that some HRM theory, writing and research purporting to be
about workers as key resources in practice ignores workers; other research goes
to the opposite extreme but in so doing risks developing systems to exploit
workers. A third concern is that advocacy of HRM by a range of interested
parties has run ahead of the research evidence. A final concern is that HRM
can be advocated as a systems approach without recognizing the problems of
systems change, resulting in a risk that HR managers will feel disempowered
or incompetent.
Despite a range of critiques, there is evidence that workers are more positive
about working in organizations where high-commitment HRM is practised
than in many other settings. However, this may also leave them potentially
vulnerable unless there are safeguards. This argument must be seen in the