HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Making Strategic HR Decisions in Organisations by Understanding the Difference Between Kantian and Friedmanite Ethical Frameworks

Making Strategic HR Decisions in Organisations by Understanding the Difference Between Kantian and Friedmanite Ethical Frameworks

Ethical decisions are crucial in small organisations, large corporations and to society as a whole. Ethical dilemmas, debates and issues can cause disruption in making strategic plans and important implementations to improve organisations. There are many ethical concepts that have been proposed and debated for many years with just a few of the many concerns being how can such concepts be applied, which situations and circumstances can they be applied and which ethical approach should be adopted. Despite the necessity and variation between them, there is still no simple resolution to any of them (Fisher & Lovell, 2009). An ethical framework was developed by Petrick and Quinn (Petrick and Quinn, 1997 cited in Fisher & Lovell, 2009) to illustrate how four particular frameworks operate with each having their own individual focus consisting of virtue ethics, ethical learning and growth, deontological ethics and teleological ethics. However, for the essence of this analysis, the bottom two ethical frameworks will be considered and focus will be given into how these two different frameworks can be applied in decision making.

Ethical theories are commonly divided into the teleological theory of utilitarianism and the deontological theory by Kant (1930). Teleological theories such as Friedman's (1970) utilitarian approach to ethics believed that the actions individuals take must be by duty to give the best possible outcome with a balance where positive outcomes weigh over negative ones. Also, consequences that make people better off rather than worse off are actions that should be followed. As this theory supports utility and accepts the principle of happiness for morality, it believes that the greatest happiness is produced by good morals and unhappiness is the cause of immorality suggesting in a corporate context, the greatest happiness will be produced with great increase of profits. Furthermore, Friedman's proposed that whether an act is morally right or wrong is dependent upon the consequences it then creates, rather than the action itself, the outcome of the end result is classified as the action.

In contrast to Friedmanite, Kantian ethics deny that consequences determine decisions and are concentrated upon actions and behaviours of individuals obeying universal principles where consequences do not apply and moral norms should be conducted as law. The idea of consequences having no relevance is known as non-consequentialist approach that only follows pre-determined principles. Kant's non-consequentialist approach is not adopted by Friedman ethics and is just one of the many distinctions between the two frameworks. Kant also proposed that such moral actions can only be classified as moral if it is acted upon by duty and not by obligation or in way to receive something in return (Kant, 1930). According to Kantian philosophy, all principles are already innate and exist 'priori' to the situation and decision making has occurred suggesting the action taken will be pre-determined and was found by deductive ...