Ethics in business management is an essential study. However, ethics in talent management is only lightly covered in the literature.
It is easier to find research on human resource management (HRM) and ethics than talent management and ethics.
This is probably appropriate for the practitioners that interpret talent management as a subset of HRM
. There are a growing number of professionals and researchers that do not subscribe to talent management as a subset of HRM, but the reverse.
Talent management needs to contend with the issue of ethics in the implementation and administration of this discipline. The issues that are specific to talent management beyond HRM require that the ethical issues that can affect the practice of talent management are not ignored. Additional research into ethics in talent management is indicated.
Why Ethics in Talent Management
The ethical framework for talent management is an essential element for ensuring best practices and corporate social responsibility in the functions of talent management. Injecting ethics into managing the most variable resource of an organization ensures that sensitive matters related to preferential treatment for workers is not done in a manner that leads to discriminatory practices (Swailes, 2013, p. 37). Advancing the careers of high potential talent and recruiting the most impactful new employees should never be done in a fashion that subjugates ethical treatment to discriminatory practices.
The identification of talent must be free of bias. The talent recruiter and the hiring manager will be picking winners and losers from the pool of potential candidates. The ethical considerations must ensure that bias does not overly reward applicants on the basis of identifying factors that may be held common to those choosing winners and losers beyond performance potential differentiations (Swailes, 2013, p. 35). It is essential that talent is evaluated using nondiscriminatory, empirical criteria to ensure that bias is excluded (Tansley, Kirk, & Tietze, 2013, p. 338). It is the talent management professional’s responsibility to ensure that the hiring manager understand the ethical considerations of bias and the need to not engage in discriminatory selection processes and to stop the process when there is a reasonable question as to whether the selection is being done free of bias.
Talent management is a major shift from traditional HRM. In talent management, the profession extends beyond the utilitarian ethics that may not fully account for personal agency (Tansley et al., 2013, p. 338). Talent managers are now giving ethical consideration of what the organization is able to provide to the worker in practice of social exchange theory. The individuality and personal agency of the worker is one of the defining characteristics that makes them a desirable candidate in talent management (Swailes, 2013, p. 36). These unique characteristics advance the creativity and innovation that is required to build organizational competitive advantage.
Why Not Ethics in Talent Management
Hiring managers are business people. They are known to surround themselves with like-minded business people (Swailes, 2013, p. 36). Extending this theory to the hiring of talent managers creates a managerial normative core that emphasizes the homogeneity of the organization (Purnell & Freeman, 2012, p. 110). This likeness of hiring manager and talent manager can result in a “just business” perspective on hiring decisions.
The stakeholder theory is widely embraces in the literature for organizations. Stakeholder theory is designed to bring about corporate social responsibility. It is noted, however, that a dichotomy exists between the stated objectives of stakeholder theory, social responsibility, and ethical business practices and the managerial objectives of stockholders first (Purnell & Freeman, 2012, p. 113). This creates a very strong resistance to the intrusion of ethics in business management strategies. Talent management, even more so than HRM, is a strategic, integrated business management strategy.
Conclusion
Talent management should not exclude the ethical consideration of HRM and its related research. Talent management, as a strategic business partner in organization, should also adhere to the ethical consideration for business management, strategic planning, and scenario planning. When talent management is seen as the integration of human capital management and business strategy, the ethical paradigms are better framed for the basis of continuing research.
Additional research into talent management ethics is indicated by the lack of literature to review. Scholars need to concentrate upon the dichotomy of “it’s just business” and stakeholder theory as a starting point. The importance of ethics in talent management certainly contains a great deal of the ethical considerations that are addressed in HRM. Extending the research to fully embrace talent management provides a greater coverage for this newer approach to managing human capital.
– Eric Roesler
References
Purnell, L. S., & Freeman, R. E. (2012). Stakeholder theory, fact/value dichotomy, and the normative core: How wall street stops the ethics conversation. Journal of Business Ethics, 109(1), 109-116. doi: 10.1007/s10551-012-1383-6
Swailes, S. (2013). The ethics of talent management. Business Ethics: A European Review, 22(1), 32-46. doi: 10.1111/beer.12007
Tansley, C., Kirk, S., & Tietze, S. (2013). The currency of talent management—A reply to “talent management and the relevance of context: Towards a pluralistic approach”. Human Resource Management Review, 23(4), 337-340. doi: 10.1016/j.hrmr.2013.08.004
ericroesler 