Upgrading Downsizing: Ethics and Personnel Reductions in Declining Organizations

Keith D,Benjamin Kutsyuruba*

doi:10.12973/eujem.3.2.51

Abstract

<p style="text-align:justify">Decline and downsizing often create organizational conditions that are tension-filled, problematic, disruptive, and prone to unethical behaviour. It is common for educational organizations to face discontinuity of services and reduction of personnel; therefore, it is important to understand the relationship between declining organizations and the ethical behaviour of educational leaders under these circumstances. In this article, we provide a general description of organizational decline, typical responses to such decline, and highlight the phenomenon of personnel downsizing, with particular attention to the Canadian education context. We offer descriptions of various in situ strategies from several Canadian educational superintendents to illustrate implications for how we might better understand personnel reductions in relation to ethics. We conclude with suggestions concerning ways we might upgrade downsizing with wise judgment and ethical decision-making.</p>

Highlights

The air is full of declining workforce rhetoric
The call for resilience in context of major changes, the cliché that we need to do more with less, the ongoing challenges and struggles to maintain quality services in the context of our current VUCA era - this is the setting into which the concepts, illustrations and considerations contained in this article speak into. In this conceptual and descriptive article, we do provide a sampling of illustrations derived from a study of the ethical wrestlings of Canadian superintendents in the context of decline and downsizing, but our primary focus is on considerations and approaches that accentuate ethical framings that we believe upgrade our responses to declining workforce circumstances in education sector
We have provided a brief overview of the downsizing phenomenon and some background and insight regarding ethics

Summary

Introduction

The air is full of declining workforce rhetoric. Even further exacerbated by the COVID-19 context, economic uncertainty in on the rise in Canada (Thomson Reuters, 2019; Tombe, 2018) and around the world. The call for resilience in context of major changes, the cliché that we need to do more with less, the ongoing challenges and struggles to maintain quality services in the context of our current VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) era - this is the setting into which the concepts, illustrations and considerations contained in this article speak into In this conceptual and descriptive article, we do provide a sampling of illustrations derived from a study of the ethical wrestlings of Canadian superintendents in the context of decline and downsizing, but our primary focus is on considerations and approaches that accentuate ethical framings that we believe upgrade our responses to declining workforce circumstances in education sector

Methods

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Discussion

Conclusion