Recognition, Reification, and Practices of Forgetting: Ethical Implications of Human Resource Management
Recognition, Reification, and Practices of Forgetting: Ethical Implications of Human Resource Management
Gazi Islam
Received: 3 June 2011 / Accepted: 28 July 2012 / Published online: 17 August 2012
� Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012
Abstract This article examines the ethical framing of
employment in contemporary human resource management
(HRM). Using Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition and
classical critical notions of reification, I contrast recogni-
tion and reifying stances on labor. The recognition
approach embeds work in its emotive and social particu-
larity, positively affirming the basic dignity of social
actors. Reifying views, by contrast, exhibit a forgetfulness
of recognition, removing action from its existential and
social moorings, and imagining workers as bundles of
discrete resources or capacities. After discussing why
reification is a problem, I stress that recognition and reifi-
cation embody different ethical standpoints with regards to
organizational practices. Thus, I argue paradoxically that
many current HRM best practices can be maintained while
cultivating an attitude of recognition. If reification is a type
of forgetting, cultivating a recognition attitude involves
processes of ‘‘remembering’’ to foster work relations that
reinforce employee dignity.
Keywords Human resources � Recognition � Dignity � Frankfurt School � Critical theory � Reification
Introduction
The rapid growth of Human Resource Management (HRM)
has involved attempts to frame HRM’s role in under-
standing the human consequences of the contemporary
world of work (Heery 2008). Such attempts have generated
discussions around the ethics of HRM (Pinnington et al.
2007), varying from principled and ‘‘purist’’ perspectives
drawn from moral theory and philosophy (Rowan 2000) to
more ‘‘user-friendly’’ approaches that mix ethical-theoret-
ical foundations and formulate managerial guidelines for
practice (Winstanley and Woodall 2000; Heery 2008).
More recent approaches to HRM have begun to emerge
from critical theory, focusing on ideological and exploit-
ative aspects of HRM, and challenging mainstream
approaches to ethics by combining a practice-based
approach with a critical lens (Greenwood 2002).
The growing importance of critical ethical approaches
brings with it an increased focus on ‘‘macro’’ critiques of
HRM (Townley 1993; Islam and Zyphur 2008), calling into
question the ethical grounding of the field in general
(Greenwood 2002). While traditional views frame human
resources as costs to be minimized or resources to be
deployed strategically, critical ethical views highlight the
potentially problematic idea of ‘‘using’’ people (Green-
wood 2002), inherent in such framings. In Simon’s (1951)
seminal work, the employee is defined as one who ‘‘permits
his behavior to be guided by a decision reached by another,
irrespective of his own judgment as to the merits of that
decision’’ (p. 21), a characterization that seems to deprive
humans of basic freedoms of conscience. While such
authors do not discuss this aspect of employment relations
as inherently problematic, some ethics scholars questioned
the ethicality of contemporary workplace relationships
(Nussbaum 2006) as well as HRM (e.g., Pless and Maak
G. Islam (&) Grenoble Ecole de Management, 12 Rue Pierre Semard,
38000 Grenoble, France
e-mail: gislamster@gmail.com
G. Islam
Insper Institute for Education and Research, 300 Rua Quatá,
Vila Olimpia, São Paulo, SP 04546-042, Brazil
123
J Bus Ethics (2012) 111:37–48
DOI 10.1007/s10551-012-1433-0
2004), as reducing human beings to material or financial
resources and thus depriving them of their relational or
other essential aspects.
To be sure, HRM focuses on ‘‘human capital’’ within
organizations (Foss 2008; van Marrewijk and Timmers
2003) to enhance organizational productivity, framing
individuals as means to organizational ends. Selection
processes focus on job-specific individual and team
knowledge, skills, and abilities (grouped together in the
general ‘‘knowledge, skills, and abilities’’ or ‘‘KSAs’’;
Guion 1998), training and development practices focus on
firm-specific competencies and relational habits that are
difficult to copy (van Marrewijk and Timmers 2003), and
psychological contracts in firms tend to be increasingly
transactional, focusing on short-term market exchanges
(Rousseau 1995). That human agency is treated in an
‘‘instrumental’’ fashion by such features of HRM could
have implications for the basic dignity of workers (Sayer
2007). It would be problematic if all instrumentality con-
stituted a breach of dignity; however, because such a strict
ethical criterion might invalidate any goal-directed
behavior. We thus need to explore the conditions under
which treating work instrumentally diminishes human
dignity, and in what ways instrumentality might be con-
sistent with dignity. Ideally, such an examination would
attempt to outline how instrumental action can be best
reconciled with views that recognize the full social worth
of human beings.
This article uses a recognition-theoretic view (Honneth
1995a) to provide a conceptual undergirding for a critical
ethical examination of HRM, employing Honneth’s (2008a)
reformulation of the notion of reification to explore how
reifying views of work can undermine workers’ ability to
grasp the moral weight of their actions. Following Honneth
(2008a), reifying work is not immoral in terms of an external
moral standard, but rather as a misrecognition of those forms
of sociality that make organized work possible in the first
place. As a proponent of the fundamental value of work
within a well-lived life, Honneth provides an ideal basis for a
critical ethics perspective in HRM. Building on earlier dis-
cussions of reification (Lukacs 1971), contemporary HRM
can be critiqued, not for valuing the wrong things, but for
misrepresenting the value bases underlying work systems, a
distinction that will carry practical implications.
The remainder of this article unfolds as follows: after
briefly summarizing a recognition-theoretic view of work,
I overview the notion of reification, discussing how
employees become reified through HRM practices. I then
discuss reification as a problem of recognition, using rec-
ognition theory as a normative compass with which to
critique work practices that reflect a ‘‘forgetfulness of
recognition.’’ Next, I discuss the possibility of a non-
reifying HRM approach, engaging in instrumental action
while avoiding reification. Finally, I respond to limitations
of the recognition-theoretic view, outlining areas for future
development.
Recognition and the Ethics of Work
The recognition-theoretic perspective begins with the idea
that human self-esteem and dignity are constituted inter-
subjectively through participation in forms of social life,
including working life and political and social participation
(Honneth 1995a). Participation, in recognition theory,
always involves an implicit, basic positive or affirmative
social gesture, a standpoint of interpersonal recognition. By
recognition, Honneth (2008a; Honneth and Margalit 2001)
suggests a pre-cognitive affirmation of the social-affective
bond between members of a society. In other words, before
‘‘cognizing’’ the identities, traits and preferences of a
person, we have to ‘‘recognize’’ their status as autonomous
and agentic. Recognition, according to Honneth (2008a)
underlies all forms of sociality, even those that, as we will
see, he terms reifying. The latter, he claims, are pathologies
of misrecognition, and involve ‘‘forgotten’’ or repressed
recognition.
Looking for a Similar Assignment? Hire our Top Uk Tutors while you enjoy your free time! All papers are written from scratch and are 100% Original. Try us today! Active Discount Code FREE15
