The ethical dimension of human resource management
Human Resource Management Journal
London 2000
--------------------------------------------------------------------------Authors:
Diana Winstanley
Authors:
Jean Woodall
Volume:
10
Issue:
2
Pagination:
5-20
ISSN:
09545395
Subject Terms:
Studies
Human resource management
Business ethics
Classification Codes:
9175:
9140:
6100:
2400:
Geographic Names:
United Kingdom
UK
Western Europe
Statistical data
Human resource planning
Public relations
Abstract:
The relative absence of debate about ethical issues within the area of
human resource management is addressed. IT is argued that ethics is not
about taking statements of morality at face value; it is a critical and
challenging tool. The discussion starts with what should be familiar
terrain: ethical arguments that uphold a managerialist position, such as
ethical individualism, utilitarianism, and "Rawlsian" justice. Other
theories are then introduced that broaden the field of ethical concern in
an endeavor to be more socially inclusive: stakeholding and discourse
theory. Copyright Eclipse Group Ltd. 2000
Full Text:
Until very recently the field of business ethics was not preoccupied with
issues relating to the ethical management of employees. Apart from the
development of ethical awareness among managers (Snell, 1993; Maclagan,
1998) and the ethical dimension of change management processes (Mayon
White, 1994; McKendall, 1993), there has been little debate around the
ethical basis of much HR policy and practice. The main debates in business
ethics have centred around the social responsibility of business in
relations with clients and the environment. They only touch on employee
interests as one of several stakeholders or only to the extent that
employees might suffer adversely in terms of health and personal integrity
as a consequence of their role in producing the organisation's goods and
services. The fact that the way in which employees are managed may invite
ethical scrutiny appears to have been overlooked. Conversely the academic
discipline of HRM has not been inclined to admit an ethical perspective,
which recently struck some leading authors in the field as 'a curiously
undeveloped area of analysis'(Mabey Salaman and Storey 1998: 15), though
there have been some articles in professional and academic journals
(Legge,1997,1998; Miller,1996a,1996b).
Three UK conferences on ethical issues in contemporary HRM in 1996, 1998
and 2000 have highlighted many evolving themes in this area, as reported in
a special issue of Personnel Review (Vol. 25, no. 6,1996) and in Business
Ethics: A European Review (Vol. 6, no. 1,1997). This article seeks to go
beyond either dissecting individual HR practices to identify whether they
are moral or debating whether the totality of HR is 'ethical'. Instead, it
seeks to raise the level of ethical debate by using a variety of frameworks
and it argues that raising ethical awareness and sensitivity is the main
task for both HR academics and professionals.
This article concludes by making a strong case for the ethical 'rearmament'
of HR professionals, by suggesting practical ways in which the exercise of
ethical sensitivity and awareness might become a legitimate reference point
alongside the prevalent recourse to arguments justifying `the business
case', 'strategic fit' and 'best practice'.
EARLIER WORKS ON ETHICS
On the whole, ethical issues have been of marginal significance to the
unfolding academic debates around human resource management. The Harvard
analytical framework for HRM (Beer et al, 1984: 16) was one of the earlier
models to suggest that, as well as organisational well-being, HRM had to
concern itself with the promotion of individual and societal wellbeing.
This reasserts the primacy of the stakeholder as opposed to the shareholder
model of the firm, an issue on which the battle lines have been clearly
drawn in business ethics literature. The 'business is the business of
business' proponents are aligned on one side (Friedman, 1962; Sternberg,
1994, 1997) and those who suggest that organisations should meet the needs
of a wider range of stakeholders, including employees (Freeman, 1984; Royal
Society of Arts, 1995; Wheeler and Sillanpaa, 1997), on the other.
Any emphasis on ethics and employee well-being in the HR debate is
therefore very contentious and has become more so as organisations have
struggled for survival in the last 20 or so years. The ethical dimension of
HR policy and practice has been almost ignored in recent texts on HRM,
where the focus has shifted to 'strategic fit' and 'best practice'
approaches. The focus on high performance HR practices developed in the US
(Huselid, 1995) and in the UK (Guest and Peccei, 1994), and widened out
through seminars (such as the ESRC/BUIRA seminar series on 'The
contribution of HR strategy for business performance', special issues of
journals (Human Resource Management Journal, Vol. 9, no. 3, 1999) and a
plethora of research projects and articles, both supportive (Guest, 1997;
Tyson, 1997; Tyson and Doherty, 1999) and more critical (Purcell, 1999).
However, there is enough argument to the contrary to suggest that employee
well-being and ethical treatment are as justifiable a focus as 'strategic
fit' and 'best practice'. There are a number of reasons for this. First the
`enlightened self-interest' model of business suggests that a business will
be more successful if it pays attention to ethics, as this will enhance its
reputation with customers and improve motivation among employees
(Wilson,1997). Secondly, the `business of business is business' argument is
also not paramount in not-for-profit organisations, including most of the
public sector, social business, nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) and
the voluntary sector. Finally there is a powerful argument that the wider
economic system and ultimately the business organisations within it exist
to serve human and societal needs rather than the opposite.
At this point it is important to recollect that ethical concern took a
central place in the earlier history of professional human resource
management. Its origins in personnel management and employee welfare date
back to the formation of the Welfare Workers Association in 1913, a
forerunner of the IPD, and even earlier with relation to the social
reformers, philanthropists and non-conformist religious groups that emerged
during the course of the UK industrial revolution. Obviously the scope of
professional personnel practice subsequently developed to cover other
aspects, including industrial relations, manpower planning, organisation
development and, most recently contribution to and involvement in overall
organisational corporate strategy. Despite concerns that the original
welfare role of personnel professionals might compromise the status and
strategic base of HRM, it has not been totally eclipsed. Yet, over time,
the notion of employee wellbeing has been reduced to a more specific set of
practices confined around 'wellness' programmes and health screening,
rather than extended to the wider experience an individual has of
organisational life, including the demands of work roles, how their
performance is managed and the support and development they receive.
Maybe if we look back over the last 100 years, we might see improvements in
the welfare and position of employees, but this has not been based on
steady progress. The peak of the late 1960s and '70s was followed by a
deterioration in the '80s and early '90s. It could also be suggested that,
although many employees are better off in material terms than 100 years
ago, a new series of pressures have led to greater psychological ill-health
with more stress, anxiety, insecurity and exhaustion from long hours of
work. More research is needed to examine the quality of working life and
subjective experience of employees in the context of the organisational
changes taking place.
A concern with job design and employee motivation was indeed one of the
means by which ethical treatment of employees and concern for their welfare
were sustained well into the 20th century. The influence of the HR movement
through the early work of Elton Mayo (1933), and the later work of Herzberg
(1968) and Maslow (1970) and the 'Quality of working life' movement in the
1970s, are all important illustrations of this. The focus on work systems
and job design to satisfy human motivational needs, especially the need for
autonomy variety, skill development and self-actualisation, were firmly on
the management agenda in the 1960s and '70s. Today they only receive a
glancing acknowledgment relative to the emphasis on 'high performance' and
'high commitment' work systems linked to efficiency and effectiveness
rather than intrinsic job satisfaction.
Part and parcel of the HR literature is the industrial relations literature
which has also highlighted participation and involvement issues, a key
theme in contemporary partnership and stakeholder approaches mentioned
below. In addition, some work focused on issues of power sharing and
control, leading to a number of industrial democracy experiments in the
1960s, notably the Lucas Aerospace project. Some of this early industrial
relations literature has raised the more general issue of social
responsibility (Flanders, 1970), a focus which largely became eclipsed in
later work.
An enduring academic and professional interest in ethical issues is present
around the subject of organisational justice, in the exercise of both
substantive and procedural justice. Interest in the former has been
sustained by a concern with fairness and equal opportunity Research into
discrimination, particularly in the areas of recruitment, selection and
career development, has addressed issues of gender, marital status, race
and ethnicity and, more recently age. Voluntary action on fairness and
equal opportunity by organisations, individuals and professional groups has
included codes of professional practice and training both within
professional education and subsequent professional updating. Equality
legislation since the mid 1970s has acted as the main spur. Turning to
procedural justice, this has always been a strong theme in both
professional practice and academic research in industrial relations. Fair
process as well as fair outcome has been an abiding concern in collective
bargaining, remuneration, job evaluation and recruitment. However, once
again, the changes brought about by current HRM approaches have led to a
marginalisation of these issues. In the case of reward management, for
instance, 'good practice' has traditionally highlighted the role of job
evaluation as a basis for ensuring fairness and justice; more recently this
has been substituted by an emphasis on strategic focus, flexibility and
individual and group performance.
Finally there has also been some interest in the role of the HR specialist
as a guardian of ethics, with the HR function assuming the role of `ethical
stewardship' and ethical leadership. Most discussion of this has appeared
sporadically in professional HR journals. For example, some writers have
stressed the HR manager's role in raising awareness about ethical issues,
in promoting ethical behaviour and in disseminating ethical practices more
widely among line and project managers. Another ethical role for HR
professionals involves communicating codes of ethical conduct, providing
training in ethics, managing compliance and monitoring arrangements, and
taking a lead in enforcement proceedings (Arkin, 1996; Pickard, 1995;
Johns, 1995; Wehrmeyer, 1996). Where ethical conduct is questioned, HR
managers have traditionally overseen arrangements for the handling of
discipline and grievances. For some (Connock and Johns,1995), the mantle of
ethical leadership should not just be worn by HR managers alone; the
responsibility should also be placed firmly on the shoulders of the whole
senior management team and line managers. This is an argument that is very
much in keeping with moves to make HRM the concern of a wider group of
organisational stakeholders.
Thus, if ethical concern has been an enduring, if occasionally low priority
and even sporadic, concern in the history of professional personnel
practice and academic inquiry, then why does it require more attention now?
The answer lies in the changes which have taken place in HRM over the last
two decades.
THE ETHICAL AGENDA
Although many aspects of the traditional ethical agenda in HRM are still
relevant, evolving approaches to HRM suggest that it is more than 'new wine
in old bottles' and that with the evolving new approaches, come new ethical
problems. What makes this analysis even more complex is that there is not
just one new model of HRM but many, and these have been well documented
elsewhere (Legge,1995a; Tyson,1998).
However, a number of themes do seem to be associated with contemporary
human resource management. In particular, the preoccupation with
flexibility, commitment, culture and performance raises a number of ethical
issues. 'Flexibility' in variable pay systems or in the contract of
employment and 'high commitment' work practices raises ethical questions
about practices as varied as `presenteeism' and long working hours.
Performance management systems based on `stretch' targets and close
surveillance and control place increasing emphasis on processes for
evaluating, grading and classifying individuals - all of which introduce
additional ethical dimensions beyond a concern with justice. Furthermore, a
desire to 'capture hearts and minds' in the service of corporate goals has
extended the focus of training and development activity beyond the mere
acquisition of knowledge and skills into shaping values and attitudes, by
means of new techniques of value and culture change. None of these issues
are merely issues of organisational justice. They also raise questions
about the scope of employer duty of care, about individual rights to
autonomy privacy, dignity and self-esteem, and the boundaries between
organisational demands and employee subjectivity.
How might this ethical agenda best be addressed? There are two issues here.
One concerns the nature of ethical inquiry and its relation to action. The
other concerns the ethical frameworks to be employed.
1. Ethical enquiry
The professional and academic HR community tends to have a different
understanding of what 'ethical' concern means, compared with the community
of business ethicists. For the former, the words 'ethical', 'moral' and
'good' are all synonyms denoting what is best practice. The concern is with
action
- doing something about a situation to bring it back into ethical
equilibrium (Miller, 1996a, 1996b; Arkin, 1996; Pickard, 1995; Johns, 1995;
Wehrmeyer, 1996). In contrast, while some business ethicists suggest that
ethics and morality are in fact synonymous (Donaldson, 1983; Maclagan,
1998) others make a clear distinction between morality and ethics
(Beauchamp and Bowie, 1983; Petrick and Quinn, 1997). According to Petrick
and Quinn, morality is about `the customary, sociolegal practices and
activities and the values that are embedded, fostored or pursued by those
conventional, sociolegal activities and practices'. The same authors
describe ethics as 'the study of individual and collective moral awareness,
judgment, character and conduct' and say it involves taking one step back
in order to reflect on these underlying principles, decisions and problems
(Petrick and Quinn, 1997).
So, while HR professionals and academics might well be more inclined to
investigate potential options for action, such as devising and upholding
codes of practice or establishing procedures for 'whistleblowing' and
`ethical ombudsmen or introducing social auditing and staff charters, they
might be less inclined to reflect on the ethical principles guiding such
actions and the inevitable value conflict and dilemmas that arise.
When embarking on ethical reasoning, depending on which ethical framework
is used at the time, it is very easy to become swamped by a discussion of
absolute versus relative values and by the distinction between virtues,
principles, rights and responsibilities. Is ethics about attitudes, values
or behaviour? Is it a set of rules for correct conduct or a means for
adopting a system of moral principles or virtues? This article argues that
ethics is not about taking statements of morality at face value, it is a
critical and challenging tool. There are no universally agreed ethical
frameworks but this is not to offer an excuse for collapsing into a morass
of moral relativism. Some ethical frameworks are more relevant to the study
of HRM than others, and different situations require ethical insight and
flexibility to be able to identify those frameworks that address the
grounds on which competing claims are made. Decisions are judgments usually
involving choices between alternatives, but rarely is the choice between
right and wrong.
Inevitably moral disagreement and judgments are concerned with attitudes
and feelings, not facts. Something that MacIntyre (1985) calls 'emotivism'
comes unavoidably into play. Ethical statements, by their nature, are
subjective attempts to invoke agreement and adherence to one or other
ethical framework, rather than objective statements of truth. Yet, this is
not a license for ethical relativism - a `nobody's right, so anything goes'
position. A distinction can be made between relativism and informed dissent
based on an awareness of, and sensitivity to, the plurality of ethical
positions. Rather, it is important to be ethically aware of how an
individual's own disposition affects the choice of an ethical frame of
reference. The ethical position taken on a particular aspect of HR policy
and practice is highly likely to differ between a chief executive, an HR
professional, a line manager and the wider workforce. This can be
illustrated by the issue of working hours for managerial and professional
staff. A chief executive might view anything less than a 50 hour week as
lack of commitment; as 'the social responsibility of business is to make a
profit', there would be no ethical justification for challenging this
position. Conversely a line manager might consider the 'pain' of getting
staff to work long hours is justified by the 'benefit' of meeting the
team's performance targets. An employee might consider the expectation of a
50 hour week to be exploitative and a violation of their employment rights.
Finally an HR manager, mindful of the legal responsibilities around working
hours and 'duty of care', plus the wider implications for stress in
personal lives, might wish to adopt a middle position. However, appeals to
a 'business case', the need for 'strategic fit' or 'best practice' will not
resolve the dilemma.
Thus the ethical agenda for HRM becomes the development of ethical
sensitivity and reasoning. Ethical sensitivity is the ability to reflect on
HRM and be able to identify the ethical and moral dimensions and issues.
Ethical reasoning is the ability to draw on relevant theory and frameworks
to make more explicit the alternative interpretations and responses that
could be made to inform decision-making. This article now proceeds to
illustrate this by introducing a variety of relevant ethical frameworks
which can be used to analyse and understand the ethical dilemmas faced in
contemporary human resource management.
2. Ethical frameworks
The following discussion provides a resume of the different ethical
frameworks that can be applied to various aspects of HR practice. The
article has adopted a multi-Faceted perspective departing from previous
approaches which attempt to evaluate HR policy and practice either in
relation to a more restricted menu of theories such as deontological,
utilitarian or stakeholder theory (Legge, 1997), or a rather eclectic
assemblage of principles concerning 'systems, procedures and outcomes'
(Miller, 1996a, 1996b). The discussion starts with what should be familiar
terrain: ethical arguments that uphold a managerialist position, such as
ethical individualism, utilitarianism and 'Rawlsian' justice. They narrowly
circumscribe the field of ethical concern. Other theories broaden this out
in an endeavour to be more socially inclusive, especially stakeholding and
discourse theory, although for different reasons they encounter problems in
terms of application and action. Finally a range of theories for whom the
intrinsic self-worth of individuals is paramount are introduced. These
include Kantian rights-based theory and also communitarianism, virtue
theory and the ethics of care. In each case reference will be made to the
implications for the role of the HR professional.
Ethical arguments that uphold a minimalist position. A managerialist
position is based on the assumption that, either individually or
collectively, wider managerial interests must prevail over the claims of
other specific interests and that the status quo must be protected with
minimal tolerance of change. This position is usually a minimalist one and
justified by reference to a range of ethical arguments, including ethical
egoism, utilitarianism, and liberty and contract-based approaches.
Ethical egoism is a minimalist ethical position based on the Hobbesian
assumption that 'the only valid standard of conduct is the obligation to
promote one's own well-being above anyone else's, (Beauchamp and Bowie,
1983: 18), an injunction to act on the basis of maximising self-interest.
This is not to imply that ethical egoists do not consider the interests of
others when it suits them and may well do so in order to fend off
unpleasant consequences. This is not far from the position of Friedman
(1962) and Sternberg (1994, 1997) who claim that business works solely for
the benefit of shareholders. In this model the ethical role of the HR
professional would be limited to supporting the enlightened self-interest
of the employer rather than the rights of employees (unless of course not
to do so would have an adverse impact on organisational effectiveness).
This is a very commonly used ethical argument in HR practice. It explains
why organisations might at the same time be concerned to offer high pay to
'millenium bug' computer programmers, while simultaneously placing them on
very insecure and stressful employment contracts or even treating other
work groups in an inferior manner. Ethical egoism often underpins so-called
'business case' arguments.
Utilitarianism is a teleological ethical framework (from the Greek 'telos'
meaning the final purpose, issue or goal), in that it is primarily
concerned with outcomes or ends. It is based on ethical egoism, with the
addition of an arithmetical basis to justify reasoning, the 'moral
calculus' of the 19th century philosopher, Jeremy Bentham. In its
commitment to maximise `utility' two approaches can be distinguished: 'act'
utilitarianism, where the decision-maker needs to assess how the greatest
good or utility could be achieve, and 'rule' utilitarianism, where
individual acts require adherence to rules which have been fashioned on
utility. These are principles which have been used in a public policy
context for distribution of benefits or allocation of scarce resources but
are seldom used in HR practice. For example, electronic surveillance of
teleworkers to detect and deter their `abuse' of electronic mail could be
justified in terms of the wider business benefit, but this may be at a
significant and unknown cost to individual employees, both in terms of
stress and anxiety over invasion of personal privacy. Perhaps the most
frequently encountered use is utility analysis of selection and assessment
methods, or cost benefit analysis of training and development
interventions. Yet, even in these cases, the managerialist perspective
predominates, as the individual's 'utility' (right) in terms of privacy or
fairness is contingent on the benefits to all. Perhaps the current
compulsion towards HR auditing with its focus on outcomes provides a basis
for a post hoc rationalisation of the utility of policies, say in training
and development? However, the classical criticisms of utilitarianism always
apply: the difficulty of predicting potential outcomes and the relative
weights to be attributed to different individual utilities.
The Rawlsian theory of distributive justice is closely related to the moral
calculus of utilitarianism but with an attempt to allow individual
interests greater weight in argument. Rawls (1971) advocates two
principles: first, that each individual has an equal right to basic liberty
and, secondly that inequalities in distribution should be to the benefit of
all or to the extent that the least advantaged do not suffer further
disadvantage. This contract-based model synthesises a calculation of
utility with two 'strong' ethical principles: fairness and equality, with
the former having overriding priority. What is a very sophisticated model
designed for application in the public policy realm has indeed provoked
much academic debate (Barry 1973; Miller, 1976) but surprisingly little
application. It has certainly not been used in either academic or
professional HR circles, although there is the potential for it to be used
in complex pay and remuneration negotiations, for example with relation to
the compensation philosophy of Ben and Jerry's pioneering ice-cream
business in the US, which reduced pay differentials between senior
management and the shop floor to a ratio of seven to one (Wilson, 1997).
An alternative to the Rawls position in the arguments over the balance
between liberty and equality is that of Robert Nozick (1974), who would
have argued, far from protecting the rights of the least advantaged, it is
more important and just to protect the right to liberty - an argument which
could be deployed in support of an enterprise culture and freedom from the
restraints of much HR legislation. One rationale for this is that any
infringement of liberty leads to problems of unintended consequences. Thus,
taking the example of accelerating executive pay levels for the privatised
industries or the levels of runaway economic inequality in the US and UK,
Nozick would argue that the ethical principle should be to support liberty
and not redistributive justice to impose greater equality.
All of the above are essentially frameworks of ethical reasoning that can
be conveniently used by management to defend the status quo or a minimalist
position. So, while introducing measures to achieve a family friendly
workplace might be advantageous to the overall experience of employment in
an organisation, and particularly helpful in attracting and retaining
female `human capital', these theories only justify action if the overall
gain is deemed to outweigh the costs. These are also theories that rest on
the notion of the individual as the 'unencumbered self' (Sandel, 1989), in
that other claims and obligations they might have outside the immediate
parameters of the 'moral calculus', such as childcare, are irrelevant.
Again, this is illustrated by the case of the treatment of parental leave
where social convention means that more mothers than fathers are likely to
take time off work for childcare because of likely earnings differentials
and domestic role segregation. If each employee is to be treated as an
'unencumbered self', then there is no justification for taking such social
factors into account.
Worth of the individual. There are several frameworks that can be applied
here. First of all there is a 'strong' ethical position that places
individual interest at the centre of all ethical consideration but, in
contrast with ethical egoism's concern to limit infringement on action to
support the employer's interests, it is preoccupied with a positive
assertion of basic rights for all. Rights-based ethical frameworks tends to
draw on two key concepts from the 18th century German philosopher, Immanuel
Kant. The first follows the principle that what is right for one person is
right for everyone, and thus it is important to do unto others as you would
be done by - the criteria of universality and reversability. The second is
the principle of respect for people whereby they should be treated as ends
in themselves and never solely as means to an end.
This Kantian framework epitomises 'deontological' approaches to business
ethics. Deontology derives from the word 'deon' meaning duty in Greek, but
this set of theories have come to mean much more than duty; they generally
cover approaches that link ethics to things that are good in themselves,
rather than in relation to 'telos' or goals. Kantian approaches propound a
number of rights, usually embracing issues such as the fundamental right to
life and safety, and the human rights of privacy, freedom of conscience,
speech and to hold private property. Rights-based frameworks continue to be
relevant to HRM, particularly in areas such as selection interviewing (the
right to privacy and confidentiality of personal information, particularly
where it is not relevant to the job), occupational testing (such as the
right to feedback), equal opportunities and diversity management (the right
to be treated the same or to be given special treatment), flexible
employment contracts and working time (the right to 'family-friendly'
practices), `whistleblowing' (the right to speak out about wrongdoing),
staff charters (which may outline employee rights and responsibilities) and
even employee development (the right to psychological and physical safety
such as with relation to outdoor training, for instance). However, such
rights-based approaches, although they certainly received considerable
support 20 years ago, now receive short shrift among practising HR
professionals. Rather than being challenged on their own intellectual
terrain, they are dismissed as 'impractical' and of a lesser legitimacy
than the 'business case' arguments outlined above.
Instead, HR professionals have displayed a cautious enthusiasm for the
concept of stakeholding. Although it entered the popular literature on
business strategy and management after the publication of Freeman's seminal
text (1984), it has taken centre stage more recently by virtue of its
widespread utilisation in the political and public policy domains, where
social inclusiveness is seen as an antidote to the rampant individualism of
the Thatcherite era (Hutton, 1995; Kelly et al, 1997). However, there is
some conceptual confusion. Stakeholding can refer both to the process of
giving employees involvement in decision making and the meeting of employee
needs or outcomes. This conceptual confusion becomes even greater when
stakeholding is interpreted in terms of inclusion and inclusiveness
(Winstanley and Stoney 1997).
In the employment arena stakeholding has suggested an approach promoting
greater involvement in managerial decision making, through a range of
different consultation methods. The debate over partnership and mutuality
in the 'Fairness at work' legislation has provoked a guarded response from
employers. Employee rights must not be at the expense of the employer and
must be tempered by responsibility. While it is possible for organisations
to implement a stakeholding approach, as illustrated by the Body Shop
experiment with social auditing to gain feedback from employees as a basis
for addressing their needs (Jackson and Sillanpaa, 2000), a more moderate
approach may be more suitable for other organisations (RSA, 1995). Raising
employee expectations without being able to sustain the resources to
conduct social auditing or participation, is highly risky in terms of both
retaining employee support and also maintaining profitability and
effectiveness (Winstanley and Stoney, 1997). It is questionable whether
stakeholding models can overcome barriers encountered by firms operating
within global markets, where economics has led firms to source from the
third world and where it is very difficult to access the complex network in
the supply chain, as was found to be the case recently when Marks and
Spencer were accused by a Panorama programme of using child labour in third
world countries. Also it is all too easy for approaches to involvement
based on stakeholding to be used manipulatively and duplicitously by
employers anxious to bind employees into a rhetoric of excellence and
enterprise, for example where employee empowerment is introduced for costcutting reasons but promoted on the basis of its involvement of staff in
decision making (Ojeifo and Winstanley, 1999). Finally employee needs may
compete against those of others - customers, suppliers, the local community
etc - and little work has been done on how to adjudicate between such rival
claims.
A related but theoretically more complex approach to the same issues is to
be found in discourse theory. Discourse ethics attempts to operationalise
stakeholding by providing a framework for ethical decision making and
conflict management (French and Allbright, 1998). It draws on the work of
the Frankfurt School, and in particular Karl-Otto Apel (1989) and Jurgen
Habermas (1989, 1990). Although much of the work was developed in the
context of public policy making and debate, it has relevance as a means to
identify methodologies for consensus decision making among organisational
stakeholders. Discourse ethics suggests that the role of ethicists is not
to provide solutions to moral problems, but to provide a practical
procedure in which issues can be debated. In the course of identifying
processes through which decisions might be made, it asserts the moral
requirement to include all those affected by the decision in the discourse:
that all have the ability to challenge the assertions of others, that all
are willing for their own stance to be open to questioning and to maintain
openness and transparency of aims and goals and, finally that power
differentials are neutralised in the course of debate (Kettner, 1993: 345).
While this framework is based on powerful reasoning, it is difficult to see
how the conditions for rational discourse might be achieved between
stakeholders. It could easily be applied to dispute resolution and
performance management, if only employers, managers trade unions etc were
willing to suspend their power positions. However, this requires such a
massive shift in employee relations culture and politics as to be
inconceivable.
ETHICAL HUMANISM
Humanism is not fashionable within academic HR circles. The essentialism
underlying the notion of the human subject is dismissed as an ideological
delusion or cultural artifact by critical theorists, post-modernists and
labour process theorists. The ascendancy of economic or cultural
determinism over human agency has made it a 'fact' that cannot be
challenged. Opponents of humanism often conflate the normative, framing the
debate in a way that renders illegitimate any mention of humancentredness.
However, while naive appeals to the sanctity of the human subject can be
faulted, to represent this as totally delusional and as an ideological or
cultural product, is to remove any possibility of ethical human agency and
open the doors to ethical agnosticism or relativism. This is a particular
concern in relation to the scope of human resource management. In
particular, the emphasis on high commitment management and culture
management, enjoins the employee to identify very strongly with the
objectives of the workplace. This is more than traditional paternalism, as
it is asserting that the employing organisation is a community of purpose
(Warren, 1998) to which all are bound. Within HRM the resource rather than
the human element prevails, as does management rather than development.
It is but a short step from specifying the conditions in which rational
discourse can take place to arguing that individuals are part of a
community to which they have obligations as well as rights. Recent debate
around the notion of a community of purpose suggests that commitment to job
security for employees is a basic condition for its effectiveness (Cougar
and Stevens, 1998; Monks, 1999). Communitarianism is a social philosophy
that focuses on the shared values of individuals within a community of
purpose. As with stakeholding, this is a philosophy for life at the
individual, group, organisational and societal level. Etzioni (1995) has
been one of the most influential writers and campaigners on this subject
and suggests that the unbridled liberal defence of freedom is a fallacy; we
are all members of overlapping communities and the workplace is one such
community of purpose. Unlike stakeholding, which espouses diversity of
value, communities of purpose emphasise shared values and inclusiveness.
What would an organisation adopting a 'community of purpose' stance look
like? It may adopt the Japanese practices of single status, long time
employment, high investment in training and development, recruitment from
school and based on behavioural compatibility (with teamwork, flexibility
and high commitment). It may alternatively exhibit many of the features of
'partnership' companies - employment security, company flexibility, sharing
of financial success with the workforce, the development of good
communication, and representative and employee voice (IPA, 1997). The kind
of companies identified here include Welsh Water, Hyder, Blue Circle,
United Distillers, Rover, Marks and Spencers, John Lewis (Overell, 1997),
and also those companies linked with the Centre for Tomorrow's Company and
the Committee of Inquiry for New Vision on Business, including BP, BT and
NatWest. Guest and Peccei (1998) identify four different views of
partnership (representative participation, direct participation, a US
integrationalist perspective and a mutual gains model) and, interestingly
the third of these links to high commitment work practices and the debate
on best practice HR. This raises the issue of there being convergence on
the one hand with best practice, Japanese HRM, partnership practices and
even learning organisations becoming one and the same (such as with Rover),
but on the other hand some very different choices. Take for example the
role of the unions: some 'communities of purpose' include unions and see
their role as vital (such as Welsh Water, see IPA, 1997; Overell, 1997;
Cougar and Stevens, 1998; Monks, 1999) and some don't (John Lewis, see
Overell,1997).
As well as the variety of models for a 'community of purpose', there is
another problem facing the adoption of this approach to human resource
management. While the appeal to mutuality is currently very strong on the
part of employers, the overall balance of rights and responsibilities
appears to be in their favour. This is illustrated in the way that new
payment systems expect employees to assume more responsibility and risks,
and in the persistence and extension of long hours cultures for managers
and professionals, despite European Union directives on working hours.
A problem with these arguments that stress 'community' and mutuality is
that they focus on achieving harmony and consensus. The danger is that all
too often the equilibrium of a community of purpose can be disturbed by
'greedy' employers (Coser, 1974) concerned to push for more, be it by means
of 'stretch' targets and variable pay or in their appetite to 'shape'
employee values, beliefs and corporate cultures (Woodall, 1996).
Furthermore, a community of purpose is always in danger of becoming too
paternalistic and narrow in its perspective, and this might present
problems for ensuring that values of diversity and difference are able to
flourish and grow.
Much of the preceding debate rests on intellectual reason; feelings,
intuitions and senses are viewed as dysfunctional and to be purged from
ethical reasoning. However, Gilligan (1982, 1987) has shown that more
subjective and intuitive approaches to ethical problem- solving are
legitimate. Her reassertion of the role of feeling and empathy in ethical
reasoning takes us back to a more humanistic basis for managing people.
Unlike the formalistic theories of ethical egoism, utilitarianism, rights
and justice etc, she argues that moral judgments need to be sensitive to
both the needs of the situation and other individuals. Being impartial
makes it difficult to imagine oneself in the other's position and thus
understand the other's perspective (Carse,
1996: 86). For Gilligan, moral reasoning involves empathy and concern,
emphasising responsiveness and responsibility in our relations with others,
where moral choices are made in relationship with others, not in isolation:
As a framework for moral decision, care is grounded in the assumption that
detachment, whethere from self or from others is morally problematic, since
it breeds moral blindness or indifference - a failure to discern or respond
to need
Gilligan, 1987:24
Gilligan's approach arose out of research into the ethical reasoning
processes used by women, whom she found to be more inclined to adopt the
'care' approach. Aside from the issues raised by the gendered nature of
much ethical debate, the ethics of care has much relevance to HR
management. Its incorporation of a place for emotion in organisational life
has resonance with the growing literature on 'emotion in organisation'
(Fineman, 1993), and the current revival of interest in personal
development which draws on humanistic psychology such as Rogerian
counselling (Rogers, 1967) and Gestalt (Clarkson, 1998), with their
emphases on empathy, acceptance, genuineness and congruence. What would an
ethics of care look like in practice? It would change the emphasis of HR
away from formal systems to decisionmaking on a more personal basis. For
example, with respect to working hours, it may mean a line manager allowing
an individual time off for family responsibilities or an HR manager
allowing flexibility and offering job shares, parttime working, term-time
working or a number of other atypical work contracts to parents wishing to
fit in work and child care.
The humanistic values of empathy, acceptance, genuineness, congruence and
unconditional positive regard are very different values from those that
underpin HRM and, more importantly best practice. Contingent pay and highly
developed performance management and reward systems do not sit well with
'unconditional positive regard' (Winstanley, 2000), and empathy is
generally not a subject taught on MBA courses. Research showing a gap
between rhetoric and practice (such as Legge 1995a) does not suggest there
is a high level of genuineness and congruance evident in contemporary human
resource management.
There is always the danger that an ethic of care can become oppressive and
degenerate into a dominant parent/child metaphorical relationship, where
employers take responsibility for decision making and safeguarding employee
interests - paternalism again. The lack of empowerment, autonomy and
openess that can be detrimental to employees and raise further ethical
questions around emotional labour. There is also another critique of the
'subjective and intuitive' approach, which lays it vulnerable to the charge
of 'sentimentality'. Would it really lead to a more humane workplace? There
is evidence to suggest that equal rights legislation brought in to promote
more objective decision making, for the very reason that subjective
approaches could lead to discrimination and bias. The challenge here must
be how to ensure the informal organisation promotes the ethics of care
model without these undesirable consequences.
Finally, a concern with empathy ultimately leads ethical argument to
address individual characteristics and disposition or 'virtues'. Neither HR
academics nor professionals have paid much attention to the resurgence of
interest in virtue ethics, led by the work of Alistair Maclntyre (1985) and
Robert Solomon (1992, 1993). Perhaps the Aristotelian and medieval
scholastic origins of the concept make it difficult to convey to a modern
management audience? At its heart, the Aristotelian notion of virtue is as
a disposition, meaning that it arises from a deep state of being rather
than a behaviour to be picked up and shed at will. Virtue in this view is
therefore not something we do, but more a way of being. Virtues are
practised because human beings are urged to `lead a good life' aiming to
achieve the optimum but not excess in all things. This all makes it
difficult for virtue to be grafted on as a new set of HR practices; instead
it would imply that it would need to underpin the organisational culture.
This may even suggest that it would only be possible for organisations such
as Body Shop and the Co-operative bank, whose virtues have become embedded
in practice, to aspire to virtue. It would be impossible for those
organisations that adopt and shed their values with each new organisational
change to adopt this ethical stance.
What, however, are the virtues that an employer and employee would exhibit
today? Solomon (1992, 1993) draws on Aristotelian accounts of virtue to
present a contemporary view of virtues for business ethics. He identifies
six: community, excellence, role identity, holism, integrity and judgment.
Virtue ethics is at the same time appealing and frustrating. For example
integrity is a key issue for HR professionals (Pearson, 1995) and appears
in the debate around professional codes of practice in both the UK and US,
but academic critics argue that it has been markedly absent in contemporary
HRM (Legge, 1995a, 1995b; Woodall, 1996). Also, it is easy to generate
laundry lists of competing virtues with little consensus and agreement
about why they are included and to whom they apply (employers in general,
HR specialists or employees). Ultimately they need to be embedded in the
contemporary social, economic or political context, which brings us back to
some of the other aforementioned ethical frameworks.
CONCLUSION
The preceding outline of ethical frameworks and discussion of their
relevance to HR practice is sketchy. However, the point is that they can
all be used to throw some light on the practice of HRM. Ethical literacy
among both HR academics and professionals has a legitimate place in both
analysis and practice and is necessary for ethical sensitivity and
reasoning. While the debate might continue as to whether the totality of
the HR `model' is ethical, many ethical frameworks and principles can be
applied to this aspect of management.
So, if ethical frameworks and principles can be applied, the question then
becomes how should this be done? This requires action on three levels academic debate, academic research and professional HR practice. Within
academic debate, a more sustained critique of the emphasis on performance
and evaluation and a reintroduction of humanistic concepts and language
will provide an important start. Conferences and journals will be the main
means of achieving this aim.
However, academic education also needs to take the lead by incorporating
discussion of ethical aspects into HRM and organisational behaviour
curricula at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. As indicated at
the start, there is also more scope for student texts to address ethical
aspects of HRM. An example is provided by the US Academy of Human Resource
Development that is currently compiling a text on ethics and integrity case
studies (AHRD, 1999). This needs to be backed by evidence-based academic
research to identify the full range of ethical concerns, to identify
ethical practice and to explore the relationship between humanism and
employee performance. The current preoccupation with investigating the
nature of the integration of HR practice with business performance can
easily lead to collusion with a 'bottom line' justification for HRM, be it
of the `strategic fit' or `best practice' variety. This research agenda
could be refreshed by adopting a more human centred perspective including
more critical analysis backed by empirical evidence of such concepts as
flexibility commitment, empowerment and employability.
The implications for professional practice are considerable but they fall
into two basic lines of action. The first of these concerns the role of the
Institute of Personnel and Development which recently successfully pursued
an application for chartered status from the Privy Council. In accordance
with requirements, the IPD's application made reference to the arrangements
for handling professional conduct. This provides an excellent opportunity
for a fuller review of the scope of the current Code of Professional
Conduct (IPD,1995) to incorporate more reference to ethics.
However, codes of conduct do not go very far towards raising ethical
sensitivity and awareness. Although useful in addressing routine problems,
they are not helpful in dealing with the exceptional and unusual cases
typical of ethical dilemmas. There is thus a role for the IPD in promoting
ethical debate. This could possibly be achieved by keynote speakers and
specialist sessions at IPD conferences, but raising ethical awareness might
be achieved at local level; for instance discussing the issue at branch
meeting arid encouraging informal support groups. Anecdotal evidence
already indicates considerable support for this from IPD members, many of
whom work in isolation from other HR professionals. In consequence, the IPD
might examine the practices adopted by other human-centred professions,
such as social workers and psychotherapists. Here it is common to have
formalised arrangements for supervision and case conferences by means of
which professionals can reflect on their actions. Such practices provide an
opportunity for encouraging discussion that is essential to raising ethical
sensitivity and awareness.
Finally we believe there is an opportunity for the IPD to consider the
emphasis it places on ethical matters in its professional education at both
an initial stage and through continuing professional development. We would
like to see more than a cursory treatment of ethical aspects of HRM in the
professional qualification scheme of the Institute of Personnel and
Development (IPD, 1996). There is only glancing acknowledgement of ethics
and professionalism in the indicative content of syllabi, and occasional
reference to principles of equity fairness, basic rights and obligations.
In as much as ethical discussion needs to be `mainstreamed' as a legitimate
part of professional discourse at branch and national level, it is
essential that the foundation for this is laid through the professional
qualification scheme.
The second line of action open to HR professionals is the workplace. There
is an opportunity here to move beyond a reactive and defensive position to
become a champion, architect and steward of ethical management of people.
While gaining the confidence to do so can be helped with external support
from the IPD and other professional networks, the basic requirements are
essentially high level political and change management skills, ranging from
direct challenge through evidence-based argument to indirect influence and
awareness raising, which can include such radical departures as the
introduction of codes of management practice, social auditing and the
development of staff charters. Along with the above interventions in
academic debate and research, there is scope for action at the level of
professional practice in order to bring ethical sensitivity and reasoning
more firmly within human resource management.
REFERENCES
Apel, K-O. 1989. `Normative ethics and strategic rationality. The
philosophical problem of political ethics' in The Public Realm: Essays on
Discursive Types in Political Philosophy. R. Schurmann, (ed). New York:
State of New York Press.
Arkin, A.1996. 'Open business is good for business'. People Management,
Vol. 24, no. 7.
Barry, B. 1973. The Liberal Theory of Justice: A Critical Examination of
the Principal Doctrines. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Beauchamp, T. L. and Bowie, N. E. 1983. Ethical Theory and Business,
(second edition). New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Beer, M, Spector, B, Lawrence, P, Mills, Q. and Walton, R. 1984. Managing
Human Assets. New York: Free Press.
Carse, A. 1996. 'Facing up to moral perils: the virtues of care in
bioethics' in Caregiving: Readings in Knowledge, Practice, Ethics, and
Politics. S. Gordon, P Benner and N. Noddings, (eds). Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press.
Clarkson, P 1998. Gestalt Counselling in Action. London: Sage.
Connock, S. and Johns, T. 1995. Ethical Leadership. London: Institute of
Personnel and Development.
Corer, L. A. 1974. Greedy Institutions: Patterns of Undivided Commitment.
New York/London: Free Press/Collier Macmillan.
Cougar, W. and Stevens, B. 1998. 'Towards a new model of industrial
partnership: beyond the HRM versus industrial relations argument' in Human
Resource
Management: The New Agenda. P. Sparrow and M. Marchington, (eds). London:
Financial Times/Pitman Publishing.
Donaldson, T.1989. Key Issues in Business Ethics. London: Academic Press.
Etzioni, A. 1995. (ed). New Communitarian Thinking: Persons, Virtues,
Institutions and Communities. Charlottesville and London: University of
Virginia Press.
Fineman, S. 1993. Emotion in Organizations. Sage: London.
Flanders, A.1970. 'The internal social responsibilities of business' in
Management and Unions: The Theory and Reform of Industrial Relations.
London: Faber.
Freeman, E. 1984. Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach. London:
Pitman.
French, W and Allbright, D. 1998. 'Resolving a moral conflict through
discourse'. Journal of Business Ethics, Vol.17.
Friedman, M. 1962. Capitalism and Freedom. Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press. Gilligan, C. 1982. In a Different Voice: Psychological
Theory and Women's Development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Gilligan, C. 1987. `Moral orientation and moral development' in Women and
Moral Theory, E. F. Kittay and D. T. Meyers, (eds). Totowa, NJ: Rowman and
Littlefield.
Guest, D. 1997. 'Human resource management and performance: a review and
research agenda'. International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol.
8, no. 3.
Guest, D. and Peccei, R. 1994. 'The nature and causes of effective human
resource management'. British Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 32, no.
2.
Guest, D. and Peccei, R. 1998. The Partnership Company: Benchmarks For The
Future. London: IPA. Habermas, J.1989. Moral Consciousness and
Communicative Action. Cambridge MA: MIT Press Habermas, J. 1990. `Discourse
ethics: notes on a programme of justification' in The
Communicative Ethics Controversy. S. Benhabib and F. Dallmayr, (eds).
Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.
Herzberg, F. 1968. `One more time: how do you motivate employees?' Harvard
Business Review, Vol. 46, no. 1.
Huselid, M. 1995. 'The impact of human resource management practices on
turnover, productivity, and corporate financial performance'. Academy of
Management Journal, Vol. 38, no. 3.
Hutton, W.1995. The State We Are In. London: Jonathon Cape/Random House.
Institute of Personnel and Development. 1995. The IPD Code of Professional
Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures. London: IPD.
Involvement and Participation Association (IPA). 1997. Towards Industrial
Partnership: Putting it into practice. London: IPA (no. 3, Welsh Water).
Jackson, C. and Sillanpaa, M. 2000. 'Conducting a social audit: lessons
from the Body Shop experience' in Ethical Issues in Contemporary Human
Resource Management. D. Winstanley and J. Woodhall (eds). Basingstoke:
Macmillan.
Johns, T.1995. 'Don't be afraid of the moral maze'. People Management, Vol.
l, no. 20.
Kelly, G, Kelly, D. and Gamble, A. (eds).1997. Stakeholder Capitalism.
Basingstoke: Macmillan. Kettner, M. 1993. 'Scientific knowledge, discourse
ethics, and consensus formation in the public domain in Applied Ethics: A
Reader. E. Winkler and J. Coombs, (eds). Oxford: Blackwell.
Legge, K.1995a. Human Resource Management: Rhetorics and Realities.
Hampshire: Macmillan. Legge, K. 1995b. 'HRM: rhetoric, reality and hidden
agendas' in Human Resource Management: A Critical Text. J. Storey, (ed).
London: Routledge.
Legge, K. 1997. 'The morality of HRM' in Experiencing Human Resource
Management. C. Mabey, D. Skinner, T. Clark, (eds). London: Sage.
Legge, K.1998. 'The morality of HRM' in Strategic Human Resource
Management: A Reader. C. Mabey G. Salaman and J. Storey, (eds). London:
Sage/Open University Press.
Mabey, C, Salaman, G. and Storey, J. 1998. Strategic Human Resource
Management: A Reader. London: Sage/Open University Business School.
MacIntyre, A. 1985. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (second edition).
London: Duckworth.
McKendall, M. 1993. 'The tyranny of change: organization development
revisited'. Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 12.
Maclagan, P 1998. Management and Morality. London: Sage.
Maslow, A.1970. Motivation and Personality (Second Edition). New York:
Harper and Row. Mayo, E.1933. The Human Problems of Industrial
Civilisation. New York: Macmillan. Mayon-White, B. 1994. 'Focus on business
change and ethics. The ethics of change
management: manipulation or participation?' Business Ethics: A European
Review. Vol. 3 no.4. Miller, D.1976. Social Justice. Oxford: Clarendon
Press.
Miller, P 1996a. `Strategy and the ethical management of human resources'.
Human Resource Management Journal, Vo. 6, no.l.
Miller, P. 1996b. 'Ethics, strategy, and human resource management:
delivering value to the employee' in The Handbook of Human Resource
Management (second edition). B. Towers, (ed). Oxford: Blackwell.
Monks, J. 1998. 'Trade unions, enterprise and the future' in Human Resource
Management: The New Agenda. P Sparrow and M. Marchington (eds). London:
Financial Times/Pitman Publishing.
Nozick, 8.1974. Anarchy, State and Utopia. New York, Basic Books.
Ojeifo, E. and Winstanley, D. 1999. 'Negotiated reality: the meaning of
empowerment' in Ethics and Empowerment. J. Quinn, P Davies and P Hampshire:
Macmillan.
Pearson, 6.1995. Integrity In Organisations: An Alternative Business Ethic.
London: McGraw-Hill. Overell, 5.1997. `Harmonic motions'. People
Management, 11 September, 24-30.
Petrick, J. A. and Quinn, J. F.1997. Management Ethics: Integrity at Work.
London: Sage. Pickard, J.1995. 'Prepare to make a moral judgment'. People
Management, Vol. l, no. 9. Purcell, J. 1999. 'Best practice and best fit:
chimera or cul-de-sac?'. Human Resource Management Journal, Vol. 9, no. 3.
Rawls, J.1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Rogers, C.1967. On Becoming A Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy.
London: Constable. Royal Society of Arts. 1995. Tomorrow's Company: The
Role of Business in a Changing World. London: RSA.
Sandel, M. 1984. 'The procedural republic and the unencumbered self'.
Political Theory, Vol.12, 81-96.
Snell, R. 5.1993. Developing Skills for Ethical Management. London: Chapman
and Hall. Solomon, R. C. 1992. Ethics and Excellence: Co-operation and
Integrity. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Solomon, R. C. 1993. `Corporate roles, personal virtues: an aristotelian
approach to business ethics' in Applied Ethics: A Reader. E. Winkler and J.
Coombs, (eds). Oxford: Blackwell.
Sternberg, E. 1994. Just Business: Business Ethics in Action. London:
Little Brown and Warner Books.
Sternberg, E. 1997. 'The defects of stakeholder theory'. Corporate
Governance: An International Review, Vol. 5, no. 1.
Tyson, S. 1997. 'Human resource strategy: a process for managing the
contribution of HRM to organisational performance'. International Journal
of HRM, Vol. 8, no. 3.
Tyson, S.1998. (ed). The Practice of Human Resource Strategy. London:
Pitman.
Tyson, S. and Doherty, N. 1999. Human Resource Excellence Report. London:
FT/Cranfield School of Management.
Warren, R. 1998. 'Between contract and paternalism: HRM in the community of
purpose'. Paper presented to the second UK Conference on Ethical Issues in
Contemporary HRM. Kingston Business School, January.
Wehrmeyer, W 1996. 'Green policies can help bear fruit'. People Management,
Vol. 2, no. 4. Wheeler, D. and Sillanpaa, M. 1997. The Stakeholder
Corporation: A Blueprint For Maximising Stakeholder Value. London: Pitman.
Wilson, A. 1997. 'Business and its social responsibility' in Current Issues
in Business Ethics. P. Davies, (ed). London: Routledge.
Winstanley, D. 2000. 'Conditions of worth and the performance management
paradox', in Ethical Issues in Contemporary Human Resource Management. D.
Winstanley and J. Woodall (eds). Basingstoke, Macmillan.
Winstanley, D. and Woodall, J. 2000. (eds). Ethical Issues in Contemporary
Human Resource Management. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Winstanley, D. and Stoney C. 1997. 'Stakeholder management: a Critique and
a defense'. Paper presented at the 15th International Annual Labour Process
Conference, University of Edinburgh, Scotland.
Woodall, J. 1996. 'Managing culture change: can it ever be ethical?'
Personnel Review, Vol. 25, no. 6.
Diana Winstanley, Imperial College Management School
Jean Woodall, Kingston Business School
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.
Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.