HRMs Contribution to Organizations and Society - Kantian Ethics - Coursework Example

Running Header: Internationalization: HRM’s Contribution to Organizations and Society Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Code & Name: Date of Submission: HRM’s Contributions to Organizations and Society Introduction Human resource management is the main driver of the direction which the any organization is heading (Brown, Mehta & Armenaks 2011, p. 315). It is a responsibility that requires coordinating the human resource with the facilities of the organization or company in order to achieve the goals of such an organization or company. However, in the process of facilitating and enacting these goals the human resource management is torn to take decisions based on conflicting issues between the real system of the organization and ethics to be considered while handling the human resource. The current context of organization processes is of complex societies which are culturally and morally diverse. HRM aim to ensuring certain policies and objectives are met by the entire system through manipulating the human resource. On the other hand, the human resource may be having interest that either conforms or do not conform to these policies. Ethically, individuals need to be treated in a way that they feel comfortable. Kantian observes that ethics should be given priority in any organization. This essay seeks to explain how human resource management relates to the ethical issues based on Kantian ethics. The essay starts by discussing the human ethics from Kantian point of view. It then discusses in details how HRM conforms or fails to conform to these ethics. Summary Background Briefing Whenever human beings are interacting in order to achieve a certain objective amongst them, what matters most to the kind of relationship they are going to have is the ethics that are portrayed by both parties. Kantian observes that human beings need to be treated with humanity totally (Kramar, Bartram, & De, 2011, p. 23). There is an exceptional value of the life of human being which makes them to deserve moral respect meaning that there is need to observe morality from a person perspective point of view. In this case Kantian argues that treating human beings merely with the aim of achieving personal objectives such as getting money violates humanity and should not be avoided at all cost. Furthermore, the dignity of human being is dependent on how a person is treated by others. To achieve this dignity optimally, the self interest of organization or human beings should be based on concern for all the people in the environment. Another key element in the Kant’s notion of moral is intentionality (Kramar, Bartram, & De, 2011, p. 24). Whenever poor consequences are observed as a result of an act, then that act is considered to be immoral. However, if the outcome of the act leads to good results then that act is considered to be a good one. There are business practices that promotes this line of argument which are; avoid and prevent harming others, respecting other people’s rights, helping those in need, obeying the law, keeping the promises of the contract, being fair and encouraging other people to follow moral principles. The business environment should always and intentionally seek to promote ethical issues within its structure and while relating with other institutions. Why HRM is unethical Human Resource Management is a task that aims to ensure that all the human personnel in the organization collectively coordinates in order to achieve the objective of the organization (Goodstein 2000, p. 815). Therefore, in managing the human resource, the management comes up with ways of utilizing their human personnel, building up an effective system that achieves reasonably good results. In fact, the main measure of effectiveness of human resource management system is the level of results that the overall organization achieves. However, in course of implementing this system, HRM may a times be stretched to force some staffs to do more than they are supposed to or through some unbearable conditions (Shaw, & Barry, 2010, p. 45). It is at this moment that the role of HRM may be seen as unethical. While relating with other persons, one should ensure that he or she fully respects the other person, not because he or she wants to gain from the other person out of this respect but because every human being deserves that respect. However, what matters most in the eyes of HRM system is the achievement of goals (Brown, Mehta & Armenaks 2011, p. 316).. In fact if the goals are not achieved then the organization might perish. In some situations, the employees may have to be pushed to the limits in order to make the results optimum. This is against to Kantian ethics who explains that all human beings need to be treated with humanity regardless of the environment or situation that surrounds them. Some of the environment that surrounds the work environment are not to the interest of the employees but are made to work under those conditions since the human resource could not offer better conditions. Organization structures of companies that involve HRM are such that they would want certain results to be achieved in a certain way within a given period of time (Velasques 2012, p. 25). The organizational structures are designed in a way that they are unethical to the persons that are involved in the activities of such organizations. There are strict regulations on what should be done by who and how. Time frames of given activities are put in place so that any individual is restricted to doing a certain thing within a certain duration. All this violates the humanity ethics in that no one is given the free will. HRM is aimed at ensuring that the regulations and guidelines are observed therefore putting pressure on the persons operating within the organization. This is against the Kantian ethics which explains that the freedom and respects of persons should be given priority before anything else. To achieve the goals of the organization, human resource management team puts in policies that govern the collective responsibility of the individuals working within that organization. The collective responsibility is integrated between the individuals that are working within the organization and the system of the organization (Brown, 2003, p. 23). However, people are different and therefore have different interests. This difference in interests may not promote individual goals in the environment of the organization. The human resource management will therefore force such individuals to do what they have no interest in therefore denying them their right of freedom and passion. In this case, the HRM contributes to creating bad relationship with the people that it supervises. This in itself compels the individuals to do what they do not want which in itself is unethical. One of the roles of human resource management is to ensure that there are good relationships between the workers that work in a company (Klikauer, 2010, p. 38). When there are two conflicting parties within the organization, then the HRM ensures that such individuals reach a mutual working agreement so that they are able to carry on with the activities of the organization. However, the kind of working relation that is reached by the HRM is not for the interest of the individuals that are involved. Rather this agreement is for the purpose of the company or the organization. As long as two individuals who have unresolved conflicts among themselves and are able to work together, then it is not the role of the HRM to resolve this conflict. HRM comes in only when such a conflict affects the operations of the organization. Moreover, even if HRM is going to involve itself to resolve such conflicts, it only does so only to reach a common ground that the persons are able to perform their duties perfectly in the organization. This view of HRM is not only unethical but also unfair. First, it puts the interest of the company first and the interests of the human beings last. Some of the common working ground that may be reached by HRM may not go well with the parties involved with the conflict. It may worsen the relationship between the individuals involved which makes it unethical. Secondly, HRM does not promote a lasting solution to such a problem. Of interest is how the individuals involved are going to cooperate in order to promote the organization growth. Velasques (2012, p. 24) observes that human resource deals with the consequences of human behaviors that are practical. In this case, HRM is mainly interested in the end result of a situation; the outcome of what the organization aims to achieve. On the other hand, ethics aims at prioritizing the end result of the persons in the environment organization to those of the organization itself. In this case, the ethical part of the organization is to ensure the process of achieving the results of the organization favors the people working within the organization and to the customers or the people for whom the results are directed. This is what creates the image of the organization or the company. Achieving optimum results is one thing that any organizations aspire to achieve (Velasques 2012, p. 24). The human resource, being the main driver of the organization is the major determinant on the direction that the organization will go in order to achieve favorable results. Creating of a competitive environment is one thing that the HRM strategies that are promoted in order to motivate the employees to give out high results. Competition within the company is promoted to enhance achievement of high results. Take for example a sales company that pays its employees on commission. The employees are pushed to sell large number of items since their payment shall only be determined by the number of sales they make. This kind of competition is creates unethical relationship among employees. Some employees may be talented better than others. Others may have better personal facilities to do the sales than others. However what matters at the end of the day is how much sales one makes. This definitely shifts the attention of the employee from ensuring quality services to the customer and the items sold to that of making more income for the customer. Quality of services or item is lowered in the sense that the seller aims to telling the customer what is positive about a product while avoiding the negative thing about the product since doing so may make the customer fail to purchase it. However, when the sale has already been done, then the customer may be a victim for not having proper information about the product. HRM uses a person so that the organization is able to achieve its goals. Since the goals of the organization are the driving factors toward the achievement of these goals, then it is unlikely that they may conform to the needs of the individuals who are performing such a duty. In this case, the HRM is used to force someone to do certain activities that are not in the principle consent. Organization runs on collective responsibility of the individuals that are involved (Crowe, 2002, p. 23). In this case, some of the individuals could be made to be involved in activities such as coercion, deception and breaking of the promises in order to protect the image of the organization. For example, Maxwell, a senior employee acting on behalf of the company may be required to make promises to an outside party on behalf of the company that he knows are going to be broken. If the outside party accepts to that promise, then Maxwell will have deceived the third party to the true maxim. Maxwell and the third party are just used as a third party by the HRM system which is immoral in the sense that the system ought to have given the individuals concerned a platform of making informed choices. Why HRM is ethical Human resource management is a function of business that deals with managing relationships among the people or groups of individuals in their role as managers, employers and employees (Klikauer, 2010, p. 34). In any business, the major concern of such business is to get the best possible returns on an activity or investment. Lack of enforcing the strategies will make the business fail to make profit therefore failing the entire business economically. Often, failure of the business economically would result to entire community suffering. It is better for policies and measures in place that creates the survival of the business since failing to do this would create unfavorable situation for the entire community. HRM system trains and develops its staff within the organization (Forsgren & Hagstrom 2007, p. 301). In this case, it ensures that the staffs have the proper skills to handle the challenges that they might encounter in the course of their activities of the organization. These training are done with the aim of making it easier for the staff to do their jobs. In this case the HRM directly conforms to the needs of the staff since the acquired knowledge shall promote them to do their best with available knowledge. As a result, the interests of the employees are matched with those of the organization meaning that proper working ethics are promoted. HRM ensures that there is a good working relationship between the employees of the organization (Brown, 2003, p. 21). In this case, the management develops policies and mechanisms of ensuring that the employees properly relates with one another in course of their duties. Further, the management develops mechanisms of enforcing these policies in a way that they are observed by everyone so that there is cohesion interrelation in the working environment. For the individuals to fit in this kind of working environment, then one needs to observe these guidelines. HRM in this case promotes ethical relationship among people who are aiming to achieve a common objective. In most of the situations, the people within such organization have different interests and way of doing thing which may not favor others. However, due to implementation of HRM policies, then the individuals are able to develop the positive side of the human being. Kantian observes that humanity should be treated in a way that they are made to develop totally which is mainly promoted by HRM. According to Velasques (2012, p. 24) adding value to the organization requires adding of ethical success of the organization. In this case, the human resource professionals are guided on the results that need to be achieved and then left to make individual actions and decisions. This is what is majorly promoted by HRM team. Furthermore, HRM also advocate for the activities that enhances the value and credibility. These are the basis of professionals achieving high level of commitment and competence in their responsibilities within the organization. This is in line with Kantian ethical principles since persons are promoted to achieve their best at all time. At the same time, HRM provides the necessarily facilities that helps the individuals to achieve their objectives. Conclusion Ethically, human beings are should be treated with a sense of humanity that is intentional and promotes good will to that other person. The values and interest of human beings should be the bases through which any organization establishes and implement its goals. However, human resource management cuts along both moral issues and immoral issues. Immoral issues are mainly triggered by the diversity of the people within the environment of the organization. HRM aims to coordinate between managing the human resource, organization objectives and the available facilities. Human resource management is perceived as unethical when it treats people with the sole aim of achieving gain to the company without necessarily caring welfare of the individual. On the other hand, HRM is ethical in that it progressively aims at creating conducive working environment for all its employees. It has strategies that promote training and development, career management and industrial relations all of which are geared to enhancing good will for the people employee. HRM is charged with the responsibility of ensuring that the organization achieves at least good result at all time (Goodstein 2000, p. 816). The measure of achievement of HRM is the overall output of the persons within the organization. In most situations, it does not matter the kind of relationship that the management had with the human resource in order to achieve those results. Due to the nature of current environment challenging organizations, companies and businesses today, the HRM is in an environment that it finds it hard to balance morals and diversity of the human resource. New forms of organizations that are more flexible to the working pattern often pushes the HRM to focus more strategically and be concerned more with enabling the goals of the organization to be achieved. Often this would be at the expense of the human resource working in these organizations. The members of organization need to have personal goals that match those of the organization in order to be ethically compatible with the goals of the organization. References Brown, D. (2003). From Cinderella to CSR, People Management, Vol. 9, No. 16, p. 21. Brown S, Mehta, A & Armenaks, A, 2011, ‘Organizational Culture: Assessment and Transformation’, Journal of Change Management, Vol. 11, no.3, pp. 305-328. Crowe, R. (2002). No Scruples, London: Spiro Press. Forsgren, M & Hagstrom, P 2007, ‘Ignorant and impatient internationalization? The Uppsala model and internationalization patterns for Internet-related firms’, Critical Perspectives on International Business, Vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 291-305. 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