Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources 2008 46(2)

Book review

Ashly Pinnington, Rob Macklin and Tom Campbell, eds. 2007.Human resource management: Ethics and employmentISBN 978 0 19 920378 9 (hbk), 978 0 19 920379 6 (pbk); xii + 347pages; $85.00; Oxford:Oxford University Press

In the decade following the establishment of the international ethics and HRMconferences by the late British academic Diana Winstanley, interest in the ethicalside of human resource management has grown substantially. This interest isreflected in the recent publication in this journal of a special issue devoted to thetopic (volume 44, issue 2). Human resource management: Ethics and employment, acompilation of papers written following a Sydney-based workshop held in April2004, is a worthy addition to the literature on this important area of humanresource management scholarship and practice.

This is an international undertaking, with contributions from Britain, NorthAmerica, Australia, New Zealand, and Asia. Prominent scholars including Legge,Margolis, Guest, Reed, Watson and Kamoche have added to the ongoing debatein this collection. The strength of Pinnington, Macklin and Campbell’s book liesin the bringing together of a diverse range of conceptual frameworks, perspectivesand facets of human resource management thinking and practice.

The book is divided into three parts and deals with ‘Situating’, ‘Analysing’and ‘Progressing’ human resource management respectively. Taken together, thesethree sections provide a good balance of scholarly reflections and potentialpathways for action. The insights contained in the book combine to develop anumber of core arguments in HR ethics, refocusing our attention on issues thathave been raised in recent times.

In their introduction, the editors note that changes in the economic, political,and legal arenas and the ascension of individualist values have ‘placed the moralityof HRM increasingly in the hands of managers and HR managers in particular’(p. 2). It is individuals acting in these roles who ultimately make the moral choicesthat may impact on an organisation’s employees. However, as the arguments putforward in part I collectively convey, the broader contexts in which these indi-vidual decisions and actions take place provide ongoing sources of complexity andtension for human resource decision-makers. Moreover, as Gil Palmer reminds usin chapter 1, we can too easily forget the cumulative effects of deteriorating

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Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources. Published by Sage Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA andNew Delhi; www.sagepublications.com) on behalf of the Australian Human Resources Institute. Copyright © 2008Australian Human Resources Institute. Volume 46(2): 253–255. [1038-4111] DOI: 10.1177/10384111058091760.

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employment arrangements on the overall quality of life of many members ofsociety. The interconnection of individual and collective ‘well-being’ inside andoutside the workplace is a theme that is also taken up in the papers of Creightonand Walsh in the first part of the book.

Part 2 moves to a consideration of some of the moral issues intersecting withhuman resource management practice, and of how specific ethical frameworksand principles can illuminate these issues. Greenwood and De Cieri extend ourunderstanding of the ethics of employment relationships by integrating andapplying key elements of stakeholder thinking, and contrasting ‘moral’ and‘strategic’ approaches to stakeholder management. They make an importantdistinction between employee engagement and the moral treatment of employees.The ethical foundation of professionalism is explored by Ardagh and Reed in theirrespective contributions. Ardagh incorporates virtue ethics and human needs intoa comprehensive reframing of the notion of professionalism, applying this specif-ically to human resource management. Reed considers how the ‘rules of the game’shaping professional practice have changed, precipitating a ‘crisis’ that hasimpacted on professionalisation, professionalism, and the professions themselves.Pinnington and Bayraktaroglu bring a sociological analysis informed byBourdieu’s idea of cultural capital to reconceptualise human resource managementas a means of enhancing economic and cultural wealth, using the example ofemployee development to support their stance.

The third part of this book contains reflections on how human resourcemanagement might be reformed through an application of various ethical frame-works. Watson provides an empirically grounded perspective in his explorationof the potential for ethical intervention on the part of human resource managers.He argues that, although ethical concerns apply to human resource managementpractice ‘from beginning to end’ (p. 234), many of the ethical questions confrontingHR practitioners at workplaces need to be grappled with at a macro level, throughbroader social democratic processes. After all, HR practices tend to reflect andreinforce the broader institutional structures in which they are situated. A utili-tarian approach to ethics, augmented with procedural justice, is adopted byMargolis, Grant and Molinsky, who reinforce a point made by other contributorswhen they allude to managers’ ‘potential to change, shape, redirect, and funda-mentally alter the course of other people’s lives’ (p. 237). They provide threepractical ‘standards’ for human resource managers in the light of their ethicalresponsibilities.

If there is a weakness in this book, it is the lack of a strong integrating thread,and the unrealised potential for building on the collective concerns of the variouscontributors. This shortcoming represents more of a lost opportunity than a fatalflaw, however. This collection of papers could also have been enhanced by incor-porating more empirical material to illustrate the ethical implications of humanresource management practice in actual organisational settings (only three of thesixteen chapters contain empirical research). A stronger balance of empirical andconceptual material would have the additional advantage of broadening the book’sappeal.

Nonetheless, the ideas in this book effectively combine to highlight the rangeof approaches that can be taken to human resource management ethics across all

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levels of analysis. When ethical considerations are placed on the agenda, notionsof trust, cooperation, rights, responsibilities, duties and authority – all of whichhave particular relevance to HRM practice – are brought to the foreground. As isthe case with other areas of business ethics, there are many unresolved ethicalquestions in human resource management. Moreover, as the editors state in theirconclusion, there is ‘no ready-made ethical theory from which uncontroversialHRM policies can be readily derived’ (p. 283).

This collection would be of interest to business and human resource manage-ment students, and of particular value to those teaching in the area. Thoughtfulmanagers will also find much to consider in the ideas presented here.

Tracy WilcoxUniversity of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW

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