ETHICAL HRM POLICIES IN A GLOBAL WORLD PETER ACKERS
The ethical and business dilemma Five years ago, the Global Business School (GBS) of a leading American university opened a new overseas campus near the capital city of a large developing economy. The venture has been a great financial and reputational success, creating major new income flows and raising the global profile of the university. Although more than 30 local tutors have been recruited in the country where the campus is based, the undergraduate and MBA programmes are overseen by academics at the home university and lecturers travel from the US to contribute to teaching. GBS and its university are located in a large, multicultural American city and have an outstanding reputation for ethical HRM in their home country, including awards for Equal Opportunities, Family-Friendly and Diversity policies. The developing country is very different from the US. While there is now a substantial rich elite, most of the population live in conditions of absolute poverty by Western standards and depend on their families for welfare support. When the new GBS opened there was an elected government, but two years ago a military coup took place. This is also a very religious society, with one dominant conservative faith, which 90 per cent of the population adhere to. Other faiths are not strictly illegal, but it is hard to practice in public without harassment, including, in some cases, serious violence.

The society is also strongly patriarchal, with very few women working in senior positions. Homosexuality is illegal and the country has an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ attitude to disability, which excludes disabled people from public life. There are also high degrees of nepotism and patronage, whereby the rich and powerful secure the best positions for their family and friends, which also extends to obtaining places at the best academic institutions regardless of merit. Lower class groups and ethnic minorities are also routinely excluded from well-paid careers and usually restricted to hereditary low-paid work. You are the new female head of HRM at GBS, based on the American campus but with responsibility for global ethical employment policy. Your family originally came from the country where the new campus is based. A number of complaints are reaching you from the overseas campus and from American academics who have travelled to work there. One industrial relations lecturer complained that he was put under pressure by local university managers not to teach about trade unions and the liberal democratic theory of pluralism. A Business Ethics lecturer was told to focus on the dominant national religion. Letters have been received from both members of poorer social classes and religious minorities, with excellent qualifications, to say that they were rejected for admission with no explanations given.

You have established that all the senior academics on the new campus are male and one American women lecture who taught there has complained of sexual harassment. The on-site head of HRM, a local man, has visited the US recently and when you raised these concerns and suggested that he applied GBS Equality and Diversity policy to address these issues, he said: ‘You can’t impose American values on our culture.’ On the other hand, a gay rights charity has approached you informally to point out that students from the overseas campus have posted recordings on their website of lecturers making crudely homophobic comments and threatening to report gay students to the police.
Questions
How would you approach this problem? What are the major practical obstacles you face? Consider three options and decide which is best, in your own view.
1 Universal: Insist that universal standards of HRM behaviour, following the existing GBS HRM policy, are applied on the overseas campus.
2 Relativist: Devise a separate code of employment ethics for the overseas campus consistent with local cultural and ethical values.
3 Pragmatic: Recognise that ‘only so much can be done’ and try to encourage the local manager to avoid the more extreme violations of GBS HRM policy, while hoping that the worse practices don’t come to the attention of American public opinion. Explain which ethical theories your approach is based upon and consider the ‘business case’ for the policy you have chosen. Is there any other option?