Presenting a Model for Ethical Decision Making of Human Resource Managers: A Study in Pharmaceutical Organizations

This study examines ethical decision making in human resource management. From an ethical perspective, HRM is a complex and sensitive field because it is fundamentally based on human relations in an organizational context. These managers usually deal with ‘dual agency’ phenomena in which they have to be strategic partners considering the profitability of their organizations and also be an employee advocate simultaneously. Considering the importance of the issue, this study has explored the ethical decision-making model of HRM in the pharmaceutical industry using data from 13 in-depth interviews adopting a qualitative research method with the Glaserian grounded theory approach. The findings reveal 10 ethical issues in HRM. Also ‘Ethical Reasoning’ as the main category and 13 subcategories sorting in five groups of contingency factors: ‘industrial’,’ organizational’, ‘occupational’, ‘personal’ and ‘situational’ emerged from data analysis. The findings show how each of these contingency factors can activate a particular type of moral reasoning. In addition to theoretical contribution, the final model has useful practical implications for practitioners in the field of HRM, especially in Iran pharmaceutical industry.