Human Resources

Definition: The department or support systems responsible for personnel sourcing and hiring, applicant tracking, skills development and tracking, benefits administration and compliance with associated government regulations A human resources department is a critical component of employee well-being in any business, no matter how small. HR responsibilities include payroll, benefits, hiring, firing, and keeping up to date with state and federal tax laws. Any mix-up concerning these issues can cause major legal problems for your business, as well as major employee dissatisfaction. But small businesses often don't have the staff or the budget to properly handle the nitty-gritty details of HR. Because of this, more and more small businesses are beginning to outsource their HR needs. HR outsourcing services generally fall into four categories: PEOs, BPOs, ASPs or e-services. The terms are used loosely, so a big tip is to know exactly what the outsourcing firm you're investigating offers, especially when it comes to employee liability. A Professional Employer Organization (PEO) assumes full responsibility for your company's HR administration. It becomes a co-employer of your company's workers by taking full legal responsibility of your employees, including having the final say in hiring, firing, and the amount of money employees make. The PEO and business owner become partners, essentially, with the PEO handling all the HR aspects and the business handling all other aspects of the company. By proper definition, a service is only a PEO when it takes legal responsibility for employees. But take note--some HR outsourcing services like to use the recognized term "PEO" when they handle the primary aspects of HR like payroll and benefits, yet don't take this legal partnership. Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is a broad term referring to outsourcing in all fields, not just HR. A BPO differentiates itself by either putting in new technology or applying existing technology in a new way to improve a process. Specifically in HR, a BPO would make sure a company's HR system is supported by the latest technologies, such as self-access and HR data warehousing. Application service providers (ASPs) host software on the Web and rent it to users--some ASPs host HR software. Some are well-known packaged applications (People Soft) while others are customized HR software developed by the vendor. These software programs can manage payroll, benefits and more. E-services are those HR services that are web-based. Both BPOs and ASPs are often referred to as e-services. It's important that you understand these service terms, but don't get too sidetracked by the names when interviewing potential outsourcing firms. The key to hiring the right outsourcing firm is

knowing what services your company needs and then find an outsourcing firm that can provide them. When you outsource HR functions, some services go with the "all-or-nothing" approach, requiring that they handle all your HR functions or none at all. Others offer their services "a la carte," meaning you can pick and choose from the services they offer. Typical services include:
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Payroll administration, including produce checks, handling taxes, and dealing with sick time and vacation time. Employee benefits, including health, medical and life insurance, 401(k) plans and cafeteria plans. HR management, including recruiting, hiring and firing. This also includes background interviews, exit interviews and wage reviews. Risk management, including workers' compensation, dispute resolution, safety inspection, office policies and handbooks.

Some services are full-service and will provide these as well as additional services like on-call consultants, who will come in to train or even settle a dispute. Online services tend to be limited in their offerings, but you'll get added options like web access, which will allow you to view information (like benefits packages) and even make changes to such information online. Most will give you and your employees access to view their benefits plans, enroll in benefits, read policies, and make changes to current data. What are the biggest advantages to outsourcing your HR needs? Does your business allow you the time to personally deal with federal and state employment laws? A big reason businesses turn to HR services is that they don't have the time, or expertise, to deal with this. And if you choose to go with a PEO, you can pass the legal responsibility of your employees onto them. You may also save money. You can usually count on a reduced benefits rate when outsourcing to HR services. Because they buy so often from vendors, they usually get a discounted rate that they pass on to you. If you opt for an online service (ASP/e-service), you don't have to purchase software, install it, and worry about configuring it. An ASP business model is hosting software, so you don't have to bother with additional software or installation. So what are some key things you'll have to give up if you favor outsourcing to hiring a full-time, in-house HR department? There are some definite drawbacks to not having an HR manager inhouse. An in-house HR person handles perks that you can't necessarily count on an outsourcing service to carry out--like looking into group offerings, building employee incentive programs, even taking care of recognition for employees' birthdays. And employees may want someone inhouse--an impartial co-worker they can trust and see daily--to turn to if they have a work-related problem or dispute with another co-worker.

Because an in-house HR person interacts daily with your employees, they will likely have more of an interest in your employees. For example, employees often appreciate having someone on staff who will help negotiate in their favor for certain benefits that are critical these days for employee retention (like 401(k) plans and vacation policies). Also, in the case of using a PEO, giving up the right to hire and fire your employees may not be desirable for your particular business. Most PEOs insist that they have the final right to hire, fire, and discipline employees. While having the extra time and not having to deal with the stress of this may be appealing, you may not want this responsibility out of your hands. And if you decide to use an e-service, the same issues you'd have with any ASP remain. When everything is stored and handled online, there are concerns about security as well as potential crashes, both of which can be detrimental to your business. Common complaints about HR outsourcing range from payroll mix-ups to payroll not being deposited on time to denied medical claims. So should you consider outsourcing? If you have fewer than 100 employees, it might not be a bad idea. At this size, you often don't have the resources for an in-house HR staff, so outsourcing is just right for you. You don't have to worry about managing all the details that are so critical to HR in your business, and most small-business owners just don't have the skills and experience to do so. Remember, HR functions must be handled correctly as close to 100 percent of the time as possible; slip-ups can cause your business major problems. If you have at least 12 employees, consider a PEO. Most PEOs only take on businesses with at least a dozen employees. Get recommendations and references for PEOs, and consider one that is part of the NAPEO (National Association of Professional Employment Organizations). The NAPEO is committed to educating PEOs. If a PEO is a member, it's a good sign that they are committed to being the best in the field. If you're even smaller, online services are the way to go. These services are tailored to work with all sizes of businesses, even the smallest. You don't have to give up legal responsibility just yet, and you'll be able to easily access your information online. And since the charge is usually by user, you won't be overpaying. If you're uncertain about outsourcing everything but know you don't have the staff or experience to keep it in-house, try outsourcing only certain parts, such as payroll and benefits. You can also purchase HR software right off the shelf to support any in-house efforts. Whatever you decide, make sure to keep your employees in the loop. They'll appreciate knowing that you're seeking the most affordable solution for the business while doing your best to meet their needs.

Human Resource Issues and New Trends

The challenge of any HR department head in a bad economy includes layoffs, benefit reductions, salary decreases, and hiring freezes. When unemployment claims rise, so do employers experience mod history causing unforeseen expenses in total HR operating costs. The battle for human resource software is always on the forefront of designers and the managers must meet the needs of baby boomers, the X generation and the new echo generation or Y generation. Beyond these obstacles, in a down economy trends in human resource management are larger than ever.
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Skimming Out the Weak HR managers are often charged with skimming out the weak. This will include goal-driven performance, employee motivation, and strategic planning. The weak that lack worth ethics or miss set targets will identify who stays and who goes to streamline an organization s work force. Job Losses and Internet Services Government human resource divisions will face employee cut back with more citizen services being offered via the Internet. Motor vehicle departments, state recording offices, and other government offices will find ways to decrease the amount of actual employees needed based on what people can do online on their own. Picky Hiring Certain fields including the finance and the auto industry, whose unemployment losses are at all time highs, will also require HR managers to be picky about who gets the job. Job recruitment fairs will still exist but actual jobs produced will be based more on knowledge rather than a desire to excel in a certain field. The job demand overseas will increase in alignment with a new global economy. Out With the Old More baby boomers will be retiring and job fights between Gen X and Gen Y will be fierce. The downside for the human resource department? Finding talented and experienced workers from Gen X and Y to fill baby boomer jobs. Gen Y and X may demand higher salaries but a total salary/benefit package is what they will achieve.

New Workforces and Strategies

To succeed, HR managers must focus on a new workforce, an inexperienced workforce, and strategies that will improve streamlining.
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Web 2.0 Sharing information via software solutions and the Internet may become the new recruitment tool. Any human resource department that doesn t jump on board the interactive software solution wagon will be left in the dust. Consultants The job field will include more non-employees or consultants, even project managers and facilitators. Not only will this save money on benefits, workman s compensation, and payroll taxes, it will offer a wider opportunity for those who excel in many fields to combine consulting services into a viable entrepreneurial business. In-House Training More companies will seek out new members of the workforce with a willingness to train them in-house. The days of weeklong seminars and off-site training will lessen the expense of overhead in the HR department. Software Opportunities With the streamlining of the workforce, more software designers will dig deep to offer HR managers what they need and want. Because the demand for all sorts of HR software will be high and many designers will excel, price levels of HR software will decrease or become more module based depending upon a company s need.

Summing Up Human Resource Issues

HR consultants have longed warned HR managers about the changing work force and changes in lifestyles and attitude. Gen Y and X are more interested in fitting their lifestyles around their work patterns where baby boomers lifestyles fit around their work schedules. Many company heads, managers, and supervisors may need a little training to understand the new workforce, their demands, and expectations. HR managers will emerge as the most knowledgeable regarding all of these human resource issues in both economic downturns and the ever-changing world of enterprise.

Read more: http://www.brighthub.com/office/entrepreneurs/articles/64674.aspx#ixzz1A89r9z27

There is no longer a choice. Human resource activities in a company must directly support business strategy -- and the satisfaction of customer needs. It is not enough for the human resource function to be responsive to management, "customer-oriented", or even aligned as partners with management. The function is an integral part of management -- leading and implementing needed change. Human resource processes are central to the implementation of strategic business change. Recruiting, selection, assignment, and other staffing actions are crucial in matching available resources with required staffing levels and mix of capabilities. Managing performance aligns individuals and teams with the objectives of the business. Training, education, and job-related learning are crucial to the development of needed capabilities and performance. Managing change and building organizational effectiveness are central to effective business repositioning, including mergers and acquisitions, restructuring, and strategic shifts in markets, products, and services. Finally, employee and union relations are important to establish the mutual commitment required among constituents in a successful organization. Increasingly, human resource management activities performed by managers and employees throughout an organization in these areas are vital to competitive performance. Just as information management, quality improvement, financial management, and other functions are becoming diffused throughout an organization, so is the management of human resources. It's becoming everyone's job to build an organization that learns quickly, adapts rapidly to change, is staffed appropriately, and performs effectively. The spirit of this integration is represented at General Electric, where "Every effort of every man and woman in the company is focused on satisfying customers' needs. Internal functions begin to blur. Customer service? It's not somebody's job. It's everybody's job." (General Electric, 1990). As a result, today's leading-edge human resource staff are actively engaged on the management team, as full, contributing participants in the planning and implementation of necessary changes.

They do not consider it sufficient to provide excellent professional services and technical expertise, generally considered its primary roles. Human resource staff need to be businessoriented, aligned with the business, and effective as consultants and business partners. Staff are increasingly expected to think and act like line managers, facilitating business change, and addressing people-related business issues. This integration of human resources with the business requires a new paradigm for managing human resources in a company. This article examines the primary characteristics of the future human resource function: * Integrating people-related business issues and strategies with business strategy * Integrating human resource processes with management processes -- enabling managers to manage people effectively by focusing on ways to increase organizational effectiveness * Integrating the human resource staff function with the business -- re-defining its organization, roles, and capabilities * Integrating human resource measures with business measures -- focusing on the business impact of actions. Changes in these areas are rapidly being adopted in companies around the world, wherever competitive success requires significantly more effective management of people. What may have seemed radical thinking just a few years ago is rapidly becoming accepted as conventional today (Walker, 1992; Ulrich and Lake, 1990; Schuler and Walker, 1990). Integrating Human Resource Strategy and Business Strategy A primary way to achieve integration is to identify and address people-related issues in the normal course of managing the business and as part of the strategic planning process. Human resource issues worthy of management attention are as integral to the success of a business as marketing, operations, technology, financial, or any other issues. Today, virtually all business issues have people implications; all human resource issues have business implications. Strategies, including human resource strategies, may be more or less explicit, near- or long-term, general or specific, depending on the situation. They provide plans for actions that will achieve targeted results under conditions of change. Richard Pascale has defined strategy as "all the things necessary for the successful functioning of an organization as an adaptive mechanism". Strategies are effective when important business issues are resolved or become less important and are replaced by new emerging issues. In this context, human resource strategies play a critical role in determining the capacity of a business to manage needed change. Human resource staff and operating managers should work together as partners in defining and addressing business issues and their human resource implications. An opportunity for integration is lost when human resource staff independently assess people-related business issues and formulate action plans. Perversely, it becomes more difficult to achieve integration when staff is

perceived to "have its own agenda" or when it views managers and employees as "arms-length" customers, rather than as partners. Defining People-Related Business Issues. Intense global competition, rapidly changing technology, dynamic economic and competitive conditions require companies to be adaptive and swift. Businesses today understand that rapid change is needed for sustained competitive performance and are therefore becoming leaner, flatter, and more flexible. The key elements of the "horizontal corporation", viewed as the new organizational model for companies, are now widely recognized and being adopted (Business Week, 1993): * Organize around process, not tasks, functions, or departments * Flatten the hierarchy, eliminate work that fails to add value, and simplify processes * Use teams to manage everything and hold them accountable * Let customers drive performance * Reward team performance, development of multiple skills rather than specialization * Bring employees into direct, regular contact with customers and suppliers * Share information with all employees and train them to use it in their work. All of these elements reflect changes in the management of human resources -- these are business issues and they are people issues. For example, a large health care organization redefined its strategy and structure to improve purchaser and member services and, in turn, sustain growth and financial performance. Inherent in many of the business changes were people-related issues deemed critical to the success of the planned changes. People-related business issues are addressed as part of overall strategic business analysis, the first step in strategic management. As distinct gaps between the current situation and the desired future, issues represent an opportunity for improvement or a chance to gain new competitive advantage. In a negative sense, they are problems or shortcomings that must be resolved -- a barrier or obstacle to performance that must be removed or avoided. Issues are sources of pain or gain. Competitive advantage is achieved by managing people more effectively than competitors. Of course, competitive responses shift such practices to parity, forcing a search for new sources of advantage or to keep up with rapidly rising competitive standards. Among the areas typically addressed to develop competitive advantage are: * Listening to customers and anticipating needs * Highly competent (with the right skills and capabilities) and stable work force

* Enabled, empowered people * Effective teams and teamwork, especially across the organization * Open communication, networking, and sharing of information * Rapid, effective execution of performance objectives and plans * Effective use of technology to leverage talent * Superior utilization of talent, work flow, and work design * Superior expense management * Quality management, continuous improvement Such challenges are compounded in multinational companies. The complexities of different cultures, work forces, legal environments, and across time zones and great travel distances makes effective teamwork, staffing, and other aspects of managing people more difficult. Issues define the value added by the management of human resources to the business, including the value added by the human resource function. The focus on issues inherent in the business is typically very different from a focus on the human resource function and its activities. Where human resource concerns are integrated with the business, managers identify issues within each business unit, and at each organizational level, in terms relevant to the strategic analysis supporting business planning. At each company level, the few issues that will make a critical business difference are selected to be addressed. Human resource issues of overarching importance to the businesses are identified at the corporate level, or collectively by the business units. Human resource issues normally arise as organizations evolve and change. Small, entrepreneurial organizations adapt as they grow. As they become larger and more complex, managers gradually recognize the need for a balance between entrepreneurial and formal, disciplined management -- between what may seem like chaos and order. From the other extreme, more established, slow-changing, "institutional" organizations adapt to rapid competitive changes by loosening controls and adopting greater willingness to change. The typical result is a flexible organization, adaptable as a complex, rapidly changing enterprise. Flexible organizations adapt their management policies and practices to their competitive situations, changing working relationships and empowering employees and teams to make decisions as competitive situations change. Accordingly, structures, jobs, and work are always changing. People are adaptive and learning-oriented, and so practices in managing people are more flexible as well.

Business ethics

Business ethics (also known as corporate ethics) is a form of applied ethics or professional ethics that examines ethical principles and moral or ethical problems that arise in a business environment. It applies to all aspects of business conduct and is relevant to the conduct of individuals and business organizations as a whole. Applied ethics is a field of ethics that deals with ethical questions in many fields such as medical, technical, legal and business ethics. Business ethics can be both a normative and a descriptive discipline. As a corporate practice and a career specialization, the field is primarily normative. In academia descriptive approaches are also taken. The range and quantity of business ethical issues reflects the degree to which business is perceived to be at odds with non-economic social values. Historically, interest in business ethics accelerated dramatically during the 1980s and 1990s, both within major corporations and within academia. For example, today most major corporate websites lay emphasis on commitment to promoting non-economic social values under a variety of headings such as ethics codes and social responsibility charters. In some cases, corporations have redefined their core values in the light of business ethical considerations, for example, BP's "beyond petroleum" environmental tilt.

[Edit] Why business ethics?

Discussion on ethics in business is necessary because business can become unethical, and there are plenty of evidences today on unethical corporate practices. Even Adam Smith opined that "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."[1] Firms and corporations operate in the social and natural environment. By virtue of existing in such environments, business is duty bound to be accountable to the natural and social environment in which it survives.[2] Irrespective of the demands and pressures upon it, business by virtue of its existence is bound to be ethical,[Is this a fact or an opinion?] for at least two reasons: one, because whatever the business does affects its stakeholders[3][4][5] and two, because every juncture of action has trajectories of ethical as well as unethical paths, wherein the existence of the business is justified by ethical alternatives it responsibly chooses.[please rephrase] [6] One of the conditions that brought business ethics to the forefront is the demise of small scale, high trust and face-to-face enterprises, and emergence of huge multinational corporate structures capable of drastically affecting everyday lives of the masses.[7]

[edit] Individual Ethical Decision-Making Styles

Stanley Krolick identifies four individual ethical decision-making styles.[8] The first is the individualist and this decision maker is driven by natural reason, personal survival, and preservation. The self is the only criteria involved in decisions for this style while ignoring other stakeholders. The second style is altruists who are primarily concerned for others. This approach is almost opposite to that of the individualist. Altruists will disregard their own personal security for the benefit of others. The primary mission of altruists is to generate the greatest amount of good for the largest number of people. The third style is pragmatists, who are concerned with current situations and not with the self or others. It is facts and the current situation that guide this decision maker's decision. The fourth and final style is the idealist who is driven by

principles and rules. It is values and rules of conduct that determine the behaviors exhibited by idealists. Idealists display high moral standards and tend to be rigid in their approach to ethical situations. When communicating with an individualist, one should emphasize the benefits to the other person's self-interest.[8] When communicating with an altruist, one should emphasize the benefits to all stakeholders involved. When communicating with a pragmatist, one should highlight the facts and possible effects of actions. When communicating with an idealist, one should focus on the duties and principles involved.

[edit] History of ethics in business

Business ethics, being part of the larger social ethics, has always been affected by the ethics of the epoch. At different epochs of the world, people, especially the elites of the world, were blind to ethics and morality which were obviously unethical to the succeeding epoch. History of business, thus, is tainted by and through the history of slavery,[9][10][11] history of colonialism,[12][13] and later by the history of the cold war.[14][15] The current discourse of business ethics is the ethical discourse of the post-colonialism and post-world wars.[16] The need for business ethics in the current epoch began gaining attention since the 1970s.[17][18] Historically, firms started highlighting their ethical stature since the late 1980s and early 1990s, as the world witnessed serious economic and natural disasters because of unethical business practices. The Bhopal disaster and the fall of Enron are instances of major disasters triggered by bad corporate ethics. It should be noted that the idea of business ethics caught the attention of academics, media and business firms by the end of the overt[19] Cold War.[17][20][21] Cold wars, seen through pages of history, were fought through and fought for American business firms abroad.[22][23] Ideologically, promotion of firms owned by American nationals were presented as if they represented freedom, and local resistance against the excess of American firms were labeled as communist upraising sponsored by the Soviet Block.[24][25][26][27][28][29] Further, even legitimate criticism against unethical practice of firms was presented as if it were infringement into the "freedom" of the entrepreneurs by activists backed by communist totalitarians[26][30][31][32] This scuttled the discourse of business ethics both in media and academia.[33] Overt violence by business firms has decreased to a great extent in the democratic and media affluent world of the day, though it has not ceased to exist. The war in Iraq is one recent examples of overt violence by corporations.[Is this a fact or an opinion?][34][35][36][37]

[edit] Overview of issues in business ethics

[edit] General business ethics

This part of business ethics overlaps with the philosophy of business, one of the aims of which is to determine the fundamental purposes of a company. If a company's main purpose is to maximize the returns to its shareholders, then it should be seen as unethical for a company to consider the interests and rights of anyone else.[38] Corporate social responsibility or CSR: an umbrella term under which the ethical rights and duties existing between companies and society is debated. Issues regarding the moral rights and duties between a company and its shareholders: fiduciary responsibility, stakeholder concept v. shareholder concept. Ethical issues concerning

relations between different companies include issues such as such as hostile take-overs and industrial espionage; leadership issues such as corporate governance; Corporate Social Entrepreneurship; political contributions made by corporations; law reform, such as the ethical debate over introducing a crime of corporate manslaughter; and the misuse of corporate ethics policies as marketing instruments. See also: corporate abuse, corporate crime.
[edit] Ethics of finance

Fundamentally, finance is a social science discipline.[39] The discipline shares its border with behavioural science, sociology,[40] economics, accounting and management. It is concerned with technical issues such as the optimal mix of debt and equity financing, dividend policy, and the evaluation of alternative investment projects, and more recently the valuation of options, futures, swaps, and other derivative securities, portfolio diversification and so on. It is often mistaken to be a discipline free from ethical burdens.[39] However, frequent economic meltdowns that could not be explained by theories of business cycles alone have brought ethics of finance to the forefront.[41] Finance ethics is overlooked for another reasonissues in finance are often addressed as matters of law rather than ethics.[42] Looking closer into literature concerning finance ethics, one can be convinced that as the case with other operational areas of business, the ethics in finance too is being called into question.
[edit] Ethics of the finance paradigm

Conventionally, economics is seen as a moral science and philosophy directed at a shared "good life",[43] which Adam Smith characterized in terms of a set of external material goods and internal intellectual and moral excellences of character.[44] Smith in his Wealth of the Nations commented, "All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind."[45] However, a section of economists influenced by the ideology of neoliberalism, interpreted the objective of economics to be maximization of financial growth through accelerated consumption and production of goods and services.[46] Under the influence of the neoliberal ideology, business finance which was a component of economics is promoted to constitute the core of the neoliberal economics. Proponents of the ideology hold that financial flow, if redeemed from the shackles of "financial repressions",[47] it can be put into service of impoverished nations. It is held that the liberation financial systems would ensure economic growth through competitive capital market system ensuring promotion of high levels of savings, investment, employment, productivity, foreign capital inows and thereby welfare,[48][49][50] along with containing corruption.[51] In other words, it was recommended that governments of impoverished nations should open up their financial systems to the global market with the least regulation over the flow of capital.[52][53][54][55][56] The recommendations however, met with serious criticisms from various schools of ethical philosophy. For the pragmatically oriented ethicists, blind submission to the a priori claims, such as the claim of an "invisible hand" which are merely ideological, could be ethically counterproductive.[57][58][59] The welfare claim of the laissez-faire finance is disputed because, welfare would be overridden given a conflict with liberty.[60] Further, history of finance does not suggest that firms always maintain principles of honesty and fairness under unregulated

environments.[28][61][62] The prudence and ethics of recommendations to the countries which were impoverished by the ravages of centuries of colonial exploitation, subsequent cold wars and subjection to imperial hegemony to unconditionally open up their economies to transnational finance corporations is fiercely contested by ethicists from various quarters.[63][64][65][66][67] Further, the claim that deregulation and the opening up of economies would bring down corruption too is contested.[68][69][70] The firm, within the finance paradigm, is seen as a complex network of contractual relations, mostly implicit, between various interest groups. "Within this finance paradigm," Dobson observes, "a rational agent is simply one who pursues personal material advantage ad infinitum. In essence, to be rational in finance is to be individualistic, materialistic, and competitive. Business is a game played by individuals, as with all games the object is to win, and winning is measured in terms solely of material wealth. Within the discipline this rationality concept is never questioned, and has indeed become the theory-of-the-firm's sine qua non".[71][72] Ethics of finance is narrowly reduced to the mathematical function of shareholder wealth maximization. Such simplifying assumptions are necessary in the field of finance for the construction of mathematically robust models.[73] Such a mathematical chimera, it is observed, lets the experts in the field of finance into the vice of greed justification. However, the signalling theory and agency theory within the domain of finance reveal clearly the normative undesirability of wealth maximization.[74] Ethics seen from the stakeholder perspective is the privilege of the immediate and remote stakeholders as much as it is the obligation of the firms towards them.
[edit] Operational areas of financial ethics

In the sections devoted to 'Financial Ethics' in 'Business Ethics' text books ethics of financial markets, financial services and financial management are discussed [42][75] Fairness in trading practices, trading conditions, financial contracting, sales practices, consultancy services, tax payments, internal audit, external audit are discussed in them.
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Creative accounting, earnings management, misleading financial analysis. Insider trading, securities fraud, bucket shops, forex scams: concerns (criminal) manipulation of the financial markets. Executive compensation: concerns excessive payments made to corporate CEO's and top management. Bribery, kickbacks, facilitation payments: while these may be in the (short-term) interests of the company and its shareholders, these practices may be anti-competitive or offend against the values of society.

Cases: accounting scandals, Enron, WorldCom, Satyam

[edit] Ethics of human resource management

'Human resource management' occupies the sphere of activity of recruitment selection, orientation, performance appraisal, training and development, industrial relations and health and safety issues where ethics really matters. The field since operate surrounded by market interests that commodify and instrumentalize everything for the sake of profit claimed in the name of

shareholders, it should be predictable that there will be contesting claims of HR ethics.[76] Predictably, ethics of human resource management is a contested terrain like other sub-fields of business ethics. Business Ethicists differ in their orientation towards labour ethics. One group of ethicists influenced by the logic of neoliberalism propose that there can be no ethics beyond utilizing human resources towards earning higher profits for the shareholders.[77][78][79] The neoliberal orientation is challenged by the argument that labour well being is not second to the goal of shareholder profiteering.[80][81][82] Some others look at human resources management ethics as a discourse towards egalitarian workplace and dignity of labour.[83][84][85] The discussions on ethical issues that may arise in the employment relationship, including the ethics of discrimination, and employees' rights and duties are commonly seen in the business ethics texts.[86] While some argue that there are certain inalienable rights of workplace such as a right to work, a right to privacy, a right to be paid in accordance with comparable worth, a right not to be the victim of discrimination,[87] others claim that these rights are negotiable.[88] Ethical discourse in HRM often reduced the ethical behaviour of firms as if they were charity from the firms rather than rights of employees.[89] Except in the occupations, where market conditions overwhelmingly favour employees, employees are treated disposable and expendable and thus they are defencelessly cornered to extreme vulnerability [90] The expendability of employees, however, is justified in the texts of 'business morality' on the ground the ethical position against such an expendability should be sacrificed for 'greater merit in a free market system' (Machan, p. 68).[91] Further, it is argued since because 'both employees and employers do in fact possess economic power' in the free market, it would be unethical if governments or labour unions 'impose employment terms on the labor relationship' (Machan, p. 67).[92] There are discussions of ethics in employment management individual practices, issues like policies and practices of human resource management, the roles of human resource (HR) practitioners, the decline of trade unionism, issues of globalizing the labour etc., in the recent HRM literature, though they do not occupy the central stage in the HR academics.[86] It is observed that with the decline of labour unions [93] world over,[94][95][96][97] employees are potentially more vulnerable to opportunistic and unethical behaviour.[98][99][100][101][102] It is criticized that HRM has become a strategic arm of shareholder profiteering through making workers into 'willing slaves'.[103][104][105][106] A well cited article points out that there are 'soft' and a 'hard' versions of HRMs, where in the soft-approach regard employees as a source of creative energy and participants in workplace decision making and hard version is more explicitly focused on organizational rationality, control, and profitability.[107] In response, it is argued that the stereotypes of hard and soft HRM are both inimical to ethics because they instrumentally attend to the profit motive without giving enough consideration to other morally relevant concerns such as social justice and human wellbeing.[108] However, there are studies indicating, long term sustainable success of organizations can be ensured only with humanely treated satisfied workforce [109][110][111] Market, obviously, is not inherently ethical institution that could be led by the mythical 'invisible hand' alone; neither, it can be alluded that market is inherently unethical.[76] Also, ethics is not something that could be achieved through establishment of procedures, drawing codes of ethics, or enactment of law or any other heteronomous means, though their necessity could remain unquestioned.[112][113] However, though market need not be the cause of moral or ethical hazards it may serve an occasion for such hazards. The moral hazards of HRM would be on increase so

much as human relations and the resources embedded within humans are treated merely as commodities.[114]
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Discrimination issues include discrimination on the bases of age (ageism), gender, race, religion, disabilities, weight and attractiveness. See also: affirmative action, sexual harassment. Issues arising from the traditional view of relationships between employers and employees, also known as At-will employment. Issues surrounding the representation of employees and the democratization of the workplace: union busting, strike breaking. Issues affecting the privacy of the employee: workplace surveillance, drug testing. See also: privacy. Issues affecting the privacy of the employer: whistle-blowing. Issues relating to the fairness of the employment contract and the balance of power between employer and employee: slavery,[115] indentured servitude, employment law. Occupational safety and health.

All of the above are also related to the hiring and firing of employees. In many developed nations, an employee or future employee usually can not be hired or fired based on race, age, gender, religion, or any other discriminatory act