280 PROGRESSING HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
framework that allows for diversity and critique, while also recognizing the
embedded nature of morality. Consequently, I think it is well suited for use by
HR managers working in modern western societies.
It is acknowledged that Heller’s moral theory will not meet the needs of
all decent HR managers. It is all very well for me to use Heller’s approach
to say to HR managers that here is an argument that will always help you
effectively prioritize moral considerations in all deliberations. However, I am
no longer an HR manager having to face resistant managers and sometimes
more senior ones, while worrying about my career prospects, my mortgage, or
my family responsibilities. Heller suggests that being decent means preferring
to suffer wrong rather than to cause wrong to others. She also argues that
decent people will remain decent despite the social sanctions they face in
doing so. These are easy things to write but carrying them out in practice
can be difficult. Obviously, it would be absurd to claim that HR managers
face extreme pressures when compared to the moral predicaments many
individuals have faced throughout history, especially during times of war and
genocide. Nevertheless, the pressure to pay mortgages and support families are
not slight and neither are the pressures HR managers face in living in a society
where ‘success’, efficiency, and profit are powerful imperatives regardless of
someone’s commitment to being decent.
I think that Heller addresses these issues and I think her principles and
guidelines are a helpful step. However, it would be naive to suggest that this
is all that decent HR managers will ever need to rely on. The pressure to
push for performance in organizations is strong and when morality clashes
with economic performance, the pressure for economic performance to come
out trumps is significant. This may well be the case regardless of the broader
economic system an HR manager finds himself or herself working in, but it
is likely to be especially true in liberal market economies where the market
mechanism is substantially left to coordinate activity in firms including the
relationships between employers and employees (Hall and Soskice 2001). In
such situations and in others where decent HR managers are seeking to do
the right thing they may find that arguments presented within the bounds of
morality will fail. Here decent HR managers may have little left to do but fall
back on their courage and face the consequences of being decent or advocating
decency. This may mean marginalization, reduced promotional opportunities,
or termination of employment. Thus from Heller’s perspective the decent HR
manager may have to simply face, with courage, suffering as a consequence of
being decent.
This may be a hard step for many HR managers to make here and now in
our societies. But I also think it important not to exaggerate the frequency of
such situations. Moreover, as many of the HR managers I interviewed stated,
it is sometimes a question of timing and striving for gradual change. That
is, without breaking moral norms and maxims themselves, when influencing