Recognition, Reification, and Practices of Forgetting: Ethical Implications of Human Resource Management

Gazi Islam
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Gazi Islam: MC - Management et Comportement - EESC-GEM Grenoble Ecole de Management

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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 recognition 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: Psychologie; Critique; Recognition; Reconnaisance; sociologie (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: http://hal.grenoble-em.com/hal-01232667v1
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Published in Journal of Business Ethics, 2012, ⟨10.1007/s10551-012-1433-0⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01232667

DOI: 10.1007/s10551-012-1433-0

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