STRATEGY, KNOWLEDGE, APPROPRIATION, AND ETHICS IN HRM 261the responsibility of raising awareness, facilitating learning, and ensuring that
high standards of ethical conduct are maintained and implemented through
HR policies and practices. This argument echoes the assumption that the
HR function is the conscience of the organization. It however, raises an
important question: where does that leave small and medium-sized firms with
no distinct HR or personnel function? Employees in such firms tend to be
prone to abuse particularly in sweatshops and family owned firms which are
also typically non-unionized. An additional problem with this ‘conscience-
of-the-organization’ scenario is that locating the responsibility for ethical
behaviour in one function potentially absolves other managers from any such
responsibility, and yet it is the line and senior managers themselves whose
actions/decisions actively drive the organization.
In fact when we consider the extent to which the HR leadership is routinely
ignored or relegated to an advisory role (in spite of claims that HR is a
strategic partner), it is doubtful whether senior (line) managers will listen to
HR managers pontificate on ethical issues. In an organization where the HR
officers are not accustomed to being heard on matters of critical, long-term
strategic interest, why should we expect things to be any different when it
comes to business ethics? Such efforts are more likely to succeed when they
are spearheaded by the top management because it is the top management
that sets the ethical climate for an organization’s business activities, much as it
does corporate culture. Connock and Johns (1995) make a similar point when
they comment on the ethical responsibilities of all managers in general.
Ford and Harding (2003: 1145) argue the case for bringing the study of
emotions into the management theory debate. They do so by exploring the
ethical circumstances surrounding the apparently inhumane treatment of
managers by organizations going through mergers. They propose the need for
axiological models of ethics to be applied to HRM, that is ‘models containing
an ethic of value which validates feeling rather than purpose or duty and rep-
resents forms of care that a person might take in life’ (Ford and Harding 2003:
1145). Their analysis also serves as a critique of researchers and managers
who are implicated—in the view of these authors—in organizations’ lack of
ethics by focusing only on the economic consequences of managerial action.
Their critique may well be legitimate; however, it echoes concerns that have
been raised before. For example, Legge (1998) has questioned whether the
management of people can be truly ethical. In other words, can HR seriously
address issues like rights, justice, fairness, and trust? The evidence seems to
suggest that the emphasis is on organizational commitment, unitarist ideol-
ogy, and the pursuit of power through utilitarian instrumentalism (see also
Townley 2004). In an earlier contribution, Legge saw this as the triumph of
the technical-scientific (bureaucratic control) over the notion of management
as moral order (Gowler and Legge 1983).