Ethical decision making of Human Resources (HR) Manager EDM from the perspectives of Forsyths 2 x 2 Taxonomy Moral psychology

theory to predict decision making of HR manager Types of ethical dilemma that HR managers are likely to face HR managers have conflicting demands on them Factors that influence EDM of HR managers

Introduction: - Ethical aspects of decision making of HR managers - HR managers play an important role in developing ethical organizations. - HR managers able to develop ethical climate of the organizations. o Champion of ethical issues, o Developing ethical agendas o Audits o Writing codes of conduct o Developing moral conscience of an organization - From the abilities of the HR managers, people are questioning the ability of HR managers to take these roles and whether HR managers will likely make decision that benefits them personally or to the mutual benefits to the organization itself. - The point of views from the Forsyths Taxonomy perspective - HR managers face a difficult balancing act, between career, business and morally based demands; however, it is important for the HR managers to strive for higher positions, and maintains the highest standards of ethics when making decision within the organization. - Definition of EDM according to the past researches, EDM is the process of where the individuals use their moral base to determine whether a certain issue is ethical or unethical behavior. Some also said that EDM is a way of resolving conflict where ethical dilemmas are present (Lin & Ho, 2008). Ethical Decision Making Framework: Ethical issues that faced by HR managers - Job scope of HR managers: o Recruitment and selection o Training and development o Compensation and benefit o Industrial relation - Involve in handling sensitive issues in the area of recruitment, hiring, training, compensation, promotion, job assignment, job classification, counseling, rehabilitation, substance abuse monitoring, discipline, benefits, termination or layoffs, or retirement. (Danley, Harrick, Scahaefre, Strickland, & Sullivan, 1996) - According to Danley et al (1996), HR managers also need to deal with issues associated with affirmative action, health and safety, harassment at work place. - In the addition, HR managers do also need to deal with ethical dilemmas which including favoritism in employment decisions, inconsistency in pay and

discipline, sexual harassment, gender and races discrimination, and breaches of confidentiality. Wiley (1998) examined the frequency and seriousness of misconduct in HR functional areas. Ethical misconduct occurs more often in employment situations, As the HR manager is an agent of the firm, tough decisions in regards to employee relations would see HR making decisions aligned with the organizations interest, but not necessarily in the interests of employees. Wooten (2001) examined the ethical dilemmas faced by HR managers in key HR activity areas such as economic justice, honesty, discrimination and workers right and safety. He suggested that without a clear set of ethical guidelines for HR decision making, these areas will remain problematic for the individual HR manager. HRM encompasses the values of the enterprise culture over other values. However, in order to avoiding other conflict of interest, ethical decision making becomes a mechanism to privilege profit making. (Legge, 1998) The business community is replete with examples of unethical practices, which have resulted in corporate collapses of organizations such as Enron, Worldcom, and Arthur Andersen in US and HIH and Onetel in Australia (Example of cases of unethical behavior) Wiley (1998) found that HR managers can play distinct roles in ethical situations, which include advisory, monitory, educator, advocate, investigative, questioning, organizational and finally modeling type roles. Taking on these roles may have played a part in preventing such collapses. HR managers must make decision in an ethical way in order to be credible to take on these said ethical roles within organizations.