The Ethical Context of HRM (Blog 10)

Definition to Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate social responsibility is the obligations of businessmen to pursue policies, to make decisions, or to follow action which are desirable in terms of the objectives and values of our society” (Bowen, 1953). Carroll (1979) defines CSR as the social responsibility of business encompasses the economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary expectations that society has of organizations at a given point in time.
As stated by Lee (2008), CSR as a concept is quite modern and it has developed progressively over the years as a result of several pioneering studies. CSR takes decisions and functions of a company that go beyond financial and technical interests (Davis, 1960).

HRM role in Corporate Social Responsibility

The most obvious role HR has to play is as the expert on ethical employment practices, which is a core strand of corporate responsibility. But beyond this, HR is also the single function best placed to pick up on and develop organisational culture and values to embed corporate responsibility. HR’s remit for leadership capability, people management practices and employee behaviours means that it can add value to all aspects of the business, and it must be prepared to speak up on these (CIPD, 2013).

The role of HRM in implementing CSR is a part of the study focuses in implementing CSR goals.

Figure 1 : Ulrich Model of HR Roles

Role of HRM in implementing CSR is based on the key roles of Ulrich’s (1997) model:

• Strategic Partner role
• administrative expert role
• employee champion role
• change agent role

These roles can be kept the most relevant when evaluating the role of HRM in implementing CSR strategies, because these roles demonstrate the necessary actions required from HR unit to develop and implement CSR.

HRM Ethics

Video 1: Ethics Defined: Corporate Social Responsibility

Ethics have to be an inherent quality of an individual, whether in business or society for various reasons described below. Ethics is important to business in general and HR manager in particular. To be ethical all through life is a wish of everyone. This is a fundamental need of a human being after the satisfaction of physiological needs

Stewart and Rigg (2011) who see ethics as ‘the study of right and wrong as well as to a specification of what is right and what is wrong’. In a contemporary context, the increasing importance of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) associated with publicised scandals.

Figure 2: HRM ethics

Kew and Stradwick (2008), lists some of the distinctive characteristics of ethics to include:

• Nobody can avoid ethical decisions. We all make ethical decisions every day.
• Other people are always involved in ethical decisions. There is no such thing as private morality.
• Ethical decisions matter – they affect the lives of others.
• Although ethics is about right and wrong, there are no definitive answers. The philosopher can forward principles which should guide decisions, but the ultimate decision is always down to the individual.
• Ethics is always about choice – a decision where the individual has no choice cannot be considered unethical. 

References

• Bowen, H. (1953) ‘Social Responsibilities of the Businessman’, Harper, New York.

• Carroll, A. B. (1979) ‘A three-dimensional concept model of corporate social performance’, Academy of Management Review, Vol. (4), pp. 487-505. 

• Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (2013) ‘Sustainable organisation performance: The role of HR in corporate responsibility’, London: CIPD. [Online] Available at: https://www.cipd.co.uk/Images/the-role-of-hr-in-corporate-responsibility_2013-sop_tcm18-9315.pdf [Accessed on: 02 October 2018].

• Davis, K. (1960) ‘Can business afford to ignore social responsibilities?’, California Management Review, 2(3), pp. 70-76.

• Kew, J. and Stradwick, J. (2008) ‘Business environment, managing in a strategic context’, London: CIPD. 

• Lee, M. P. (2008) ‘A review of the theories of corporate social responsibility: Its evolutionary path and the road ahead’, International Journal of Management Reviews, 10(1), pp. 53-73. 

• Stewart, J. and Rigg, C. (2011) ‘Learning  and talent development’, London: CIPD.

• Ulrich, D. (1997) ‘Human Resource Champions: The next agenda for adding value and delivering results’, 1^st edn., Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA.

•  Figure 1 : Ulrich Model of HR Roles (1997) [Online] Available at: http://editart.club/suntory.html [Accessed on: 02 October 2018]. 

• Figure 2: HRM ethics (2018), [Online] Available at: https://slideplayer.com/slide/4880861/ [Accessed 02 on: October 2018]. 

• Video 1 :  Corporate Social Responsibility (2018) Ethics Defined: [Online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7d2XbOyU-EM [Accessed on: 02 October 2018].