THE MORALLY DECENT HR MANAGER 267decisions. Most said some guidance on how to do the right thing would be of
great help.
I therefore turned to moral philosophy for guidance that I could give stu-
dents and HR managers. However, moral philosophy is not a unified field with
a single set of ‘ready to hand’ answers on how to do the right thing. It is rife
with debate and polarized points of view. Debates about the foundations of
morality, the extent to which there are universal moral norms and principles,
and how any moral theory should portray the ‘self’ are ongoing. Given these
difficulties, I set myself the task of finding a moral theory that adequately
addresses the debates in moral philosophy and that has the capacity to be
of use to HR managers seeking advice on how to be decent. After some
investigation, I discovered Agnes Heller’s work and suggest that it provides
a way through the debates as well as a set of usable guidelines. I discussed her
ideas in depth with a selection of HR managers and concluded that her moral
philosophy would be of use to them, which I endeavour to demonstrate in
this chapter. I interviewed twenty-three HR managers employed by Australian
companies across a range of industries. The interviews explored the roles HR
managers play, the goals they pursue, the moral norms and principles they
follow, and the difficulties they face in trying to ensure justice and morality in
HR management.
Moral problems faced by HR managers
Based on in-depth interviews (Macklin 1999), I suggest that HR managers
find it hard to ensure just and moral processes in their organizations and
that moral conflicts are frequent. In broad terms the reasons identified by the
HR managers I spoke to for the difficulties in ensuring justice and morality
included ambiguous criteria; partiality and discrimination; non-compliance
with process; cynicism and poor training; the place of HRM in the organiza-
tion; organizational history, culture, structure, and location; and the growth
of the economic or performance imperative. Of special importance here, is
the place of HRM. In organizations with a strong HR presence and especially
a strategic input, it was suggested by many of my interviewees that they can
wield more influence and thus have the power to ensure some level of justice
and morality. Where this was not the case there is little that HR managers
can do. In this regard, one HR manager spoke of HR professionals who are
frequently members of interview panels and yet are unable to ensure justice
because their hierarchical position means that it is easy for other managers to
overrule or ignore them.
Senior HR managers argued that justice and morality is hard to guarantee,
regardless of how entrenched they are in senior management circles and posi-
tions. The reason for this it was claimed has much to do with the fact that HR