Colin Fisher

Ethical stances in Indian management culture

Concerns the stances that Indian and UK managers take towards ethical issues at work. This topic is part of the broader cross‐cultural research agenda on managerial values. Makes a contribution to the subjects of business ethics and corporate citizenship. The responses of samples of Indian and UK managers to ethical issues were classified, using a research instrument called Redundancy, by eight ethical stances that are defined in a conceptual framework presented. The results are used to clarify issues that arise from the literature about Indian and UK managers’ values. The tentative findings are that Indian managers’ ethical stances were similar to those of Western managers but that, compared with the UK respondents, they were more likely to experience ethical tension between their personal, espoused, stances and those they took at work. The preference for a pragmatic, ethical puzzle, approach to issues, that was reported by both Indian and UK samples, is seen as a problem in developing good corporate citizenship. Presents an agenda for future research.

HRD Attitudes: Or the Roles and Ethical Stances of Human Resource Developers

The paper challenges the assumption that HRD practice is necessarily good or benign. It recognizes that HRD involves moral choices and provides a conceptual exploration of the matter, enlivened by anecdotal illustration. The semiotic square is the chosen tool for the task. It has been built around a descriptive matrix of HRD roles and four ethical stances. All the roles have been argued to possess potential ethical limitations and the conclusion is reached that HRD practice is not ethically uniform and is not necessarily an unambiguously good thing. However, the main benefit of the semiotic square analysis is that it enables the ethical limitations of HRD to be described and mapped.

Performance measurement and metric manipulation in the public sector

This paper explores the circumstances that influence whether managers in the public services manipulate the measurement information that is used to assess performance; and if they do, what level of deception they might use. The realistic evaluation approach is adopted. A Delphi survey and the collection of critical incidents through interviews are used to identify possible configurations of contextsmechanismsoutcomes that provide possible explanations of information manipulation. A number of these configurations are discussed. In a later stage of the project these configurations will be further tested through another Delphi survey, with the intention of developing proposals for improved governance of performance measurement systems in the public services.

The Differences between Appraisal Schemes: Variation and Acceptability – Part I

The first of two studies concerned with the design and implementation of staff appraisal schemes. It is based on research material gathered while working on consultancy projects, designing and implementing appraisal, in five different organizations. A classification scheme is developed which can be used to describe the differences between the schemes in the five organizations, and by extension the differences between any appraisal schemes. This classification uses a basic distinction between purpose of appraisal and design features, and it is used to describe in detail the schemes implemented in two of the organizations. It is therefore preliminary to the second study in which an attempt is made to conceptualize and interpret the differences between the schemes.

The differences between appraisal schemes: variation and acceptability: Part II: rhetoric and the design of schemes

Comprises Part II of a two‐part exploration of the consequences of variability in the design of appraisal schemes. While Part I was descriptive, Part II suggests prescriptions to help scheme designers to devise proposals which are commensurate with appraisees′ worries, arguments and expectations.

The Dynamics of Modernization and Job Satisfaction in the British National Health Service

The U.K. government is seeking to transform the quality of the National Health Service (NHS) through a process ofmodernization. It is generally thought by government and managers within the service that improving the job satisfaction of employees is an important mechanism for delivering modernization. On the basis of job satisfaction surveys carried out within 2 NHS hospitals, this article suggests that instead of being a driver for improvement, employee perception of job satisfactionmay be acting as a barrier tomodernization. The article then discusses the possibility that there may be structural tensions between the imperatives of modernization and the wish to improve job satisfaction.

Ethical Stances: the Perceptions of Accountancy and HR Specialists of Ethical Conundrums at Work

This paper explores how managers and professionals from two functional areas, finance and accountancy and human resource management, perceive, think about and act upon ethical conundrums at work. The study is based on 43 interviews in which respondents were asked to report on ethical issues and incidents they had experienced at work. A conceptual framework is presented which is used to analyse the critical incidents.

Navigating the ethical maze through design action research

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to identify how ethical stances can be used to develop a frame set in the design of a web-based decision support system (DSS) for ethical decision-making and to test both the efficacy of these frames and the potential of such a tool for individuals and groups in both leadership development situations and organisational practice. Unethical behaviour by executives is a frequently cited reason for erosion of trust with other stakeholders. Design/methodology/approach – Utilising action research, by choosing ethics frames such as heuristics, a web-based ethics DSS designed to enable users to explore ethical issues from multiple perspectives was constructed and this was beta-tested with a major UK bank and a global oil company. Findings – In orchestrating constant revisions of the ethics frames in the tool, learning from each research cycle was identified, a new form of action research, a design action research, which emphasises the importance of collaboration in the desig...

Moral Imagination or Heuristic Toolbox? Events and the Risk Assessment of Structured Financial Products in the Financial Bubble

The paper uses the example of the failure of bankers and financial managers to understand the risks of dealing in structured financial products, before the financial collapse, to investigate how people respond to crises. It focuses on whether crises cause people to challenge their habitual frames by the application of moral imagination. It is proposed that the structure of financial products and their markets triggered the use of heuristics that contributed to the underestimation of risks. It is further proposed that such framing heuristics are highly specialised to specific contexts and are part of a wider set of heuristics that people carry in their cognitive ‘adaptive toolboxes’. Consequently, it is argued, when a crisis occurs, the heuristics are not challenged, but are simply put away, and other more appropriate heuristics are put to use until a sense of normality returns, and the use of the old heuristics is resumed.