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Introduction
Many human resource management (HRM) practices have evolved over a period of time from the humanistic perspective to exercise increasing control over worker's lives and it has negative effects on employees beyond organizations. Human resources should be managed sustainably so that employees can continue to make positive contributions to their families and the community while they are actively employed in an organization. In the HRM literature it is common to find that most HRM practices are driven by organisations' internally referenced efficiency focused approaches. These are shaped by strategic and economic aspirations of organizations to maximize profit ([40] Lees, 1997). However, the profit maximization approach of HRM practices may have a negative impact on psychological and social issues relating to third parties or stakeholders, such as the wellbeing of employees, their families and communities. This raises an ethical question, rather than facilitating employees to develop and contribute to achieving organizational goals; HRM practices control employees life leading to more sacrifice of non-work related activities (i.e. leisure, quality time with family members, etc.) to achieve organizational goals. This raise the ethical questions of "which of the HRM practices that has sustainable or unsustainable impact on stakeholders?" and "who pays for managing the harm of unsustainable HRM practices imposed on the third parties or stakeholders?" Many such ethical questions are not addressed by HRM researchers in the current literature ([31] Greenwood, 2002). This article aims to explore these ethical questions of HRM practices from the stakeholder perspective ([67] Wright and McMahan, 1992).
The moral view of the stakeholder perspective ([31] Greenwood, 2002) of HRM assumes that the care of the interest of various stakeholders may involve a trade off between the economic advantage of the shareholders and the interest of others. Furthermore, the ethics of care ([27] Gilligan, 1982; [10] Botes, 1998) in the HRM context refers to the ethical choices organizations face when seeking to maximize profit as well as reduce the harmful aspects of HRM practices on the stakeholders, such as employees, their families and communities, so as to maintain harmonious relations between the employer involved and the stakeholders. That is, when organization HRM practices are strategically driven by the internal referenced efficiency can they disregard the ethics of care. I believe that...