Ethnicity, Equality and Voice: The Ethics and Politics of Representation and Participation in Relation to Equality and Ethnicity

Excerpt

The question of ethics and human resource management (HRM) has become the focus of much discussion (see, Pinnington et al. 2007). There is a growing awareness that HRM-related topics need to be considered in terms which are not purely technical or organisational, but also ethical and political. The debate is broad and has attracted a range of views and perspectives. Early initiatives by Winstanley et al. (1996) have argued that ethical perspectives must be moved to the centre of the HRM agenda. They are vital for understanding the development of different perspectives and outcomes in relation to the way people are managed. Ethics is not solely the domain of an academic agenda attempting to impose some form of ‘good’ ethical framework from one perspective or another, but ethical issues and matters are themselves woven into the very strategic calculations and developments in the management of human resources. Ethics are of relevance to the practitioner, and they shape many discourses within HRM in terms of generic universal concerns with the notion of ‘good’ in economic terms, e.g. those emanating from religious legacies such as Catholic Papal declarations and Islamic views of the economy and regulated financial practices, as well as political concerns with the negative aspects of employment relations with capitalist contexts, and the corrosive effects of corruption on organisational commitment and conduct. …