From Alignment to Exchange: Human Resource Management after Unitarism

Abstract

This paper examines the possibility of an ethical theory of interest alignment between employer and employees in an organization. In the context of irreconcilable differences between unitarism and radicalism in human resource management (HRM), we propose a fair value exchange framework to ethically evaluate the employer-employee relationship. This framework illustrates how conflict and cooperation can coexist, and how they interact, within this relationship. Based on a critical review of traditional HRM perspectives which embrace unitarism, as well as a closer analysis of two conflictualist theories of political economy (Adam Smith and Karl Marx), we apply the fair value exchange framework to identify the conditions in which unitarism in HRM practice may be regarded as ethical, as well as what can be achieved by pursuing fairness in a context of fundamental conflict.