Lecture notes
Employees
- Module
- Business Ethics
- Institution
- The University Of Nottingham (UON)
Lecture written up with academic readings
[Show more]
Seller
FollowContent preview
Employees – Lecture 9Employees as Stakeholders:
- Employees are key stakeholder of the firm:
o They constitute the firm are key representatives of the firm.
o In some cases, they even own it in cooperatives or through employee shareholding
trust (e.g. John Lewis Partnership / Waitrose).
o Are a key asset or even the most important ‘resource’ of the corporation?
Employer – Employee Relations:
Embedded in Human Resource Management (HRM).
- 1. Hard model: strict control, high job insecurity, employees as a cost to be minimized.
o Employees as means to an end (i.e. achieving sustainable competitive advantage).
o Utilitarian approach (from employer perspective)
- 2. Soft model: employees as an asset to be developed and nurtured:
o A deontological approach – duty to employees
Ethical Issues in HRM:
- Employees are, in principle, managed by the human resources department.
- Core ethical dilemma in HRM: under economic criteria, people are resources that should be
managed in ways that maximise efficiency & minimize costs and that compete with other
resources.
- Term ‘human resources management’ problematic from an ethical perspective.
- Humans are resources and are usually the most expensive and manipulable (e.g. you can
manipulate a person easier than a concrete factory).
- Viewing employees as resources implies utilitarian perspective.
- It clashes with notions of employees as individuals with basic rights that deserve respect.
- HRM function often faces strong contradictions and tensions between economic and ethical
demands:
o E.g. surveillance (want to increase productivity) vs. upholding the right to privacy.
o E.g. down-sizing in the face of falling demand – got to lay people off to cut costs, e.g.
BlackBerry.
Key Ethical Issues in HRM (Crane & Matten, 2007):
- Discrimination – (Video) – ‘High cost of low price’ at Walmart. Walmart’s focus is to keep
spending down as low as possible, this can mean underpaying staff, cutting hours etc.
- Employee privacy
- Sexual harassment
- Employment security
- Employee participation and association
- Favouritism in promotion, pay, hiring
Discrimination:
- Employees receive preferential (or less preferential) treatment on grounds not directly
related to their qualifications and performance in the job.
1
The benefits of buying summaries with Stuvia:
Guaranteed quality through customer reviews
Stuvia customers have reviewed more than 700,000 summaries. This how you know that you are buying the best documents.
Quick and easy check-out
You can quickly pay through credit card for the summaries. There is no membership needed.
Focus on what matters
Your fellow students write the study notes themselves, which is why the documents are always reliable and up-to-date. This ensures you quickly get to the core!
Frequently asked questions
What do I get when I buy this document?
You get a PDF, available immediately after your purchase. The purchased document is accessible anytime, anywhere and indefinitely through your profile.
Satisfaction guarantee: how does it work?
Our satisfaction guarantee ensures that you always find a study document that suits you well. You fill out a form, and our customer service team takes care of the rest.
Who am I buying these notes from?
Stuvia is a marketplace, so you are not buying this document from us, but from seller sarahmason. Stuvia facilitates payment to the seller.
Will I be stuck with a subscription?
No, you only buy these notes for £3.99. You're not tied to anything after your purchase.
Can Stuvia be trusted?
4.6 stars on Google & Trustpilot (+1000 reviews)
73527 documents were sold in the last 30 days
Founded in 2010, the go-to place to buy revision notes and other study material for 15 years now