Empowering People – Transforming Organizations – Uniting Society

__________________________________________________________________________________

What is Common-​Good HRM?

Since the rapid col­lap­se of high­ly con­trol­led plan­ned eco­no­mies and the con­se­quent do­mi­nan­ce of the neo-​liberal socio-​political agen­da, mo­dern so­cie­ty has be­co­me cha­rac­te­ri­zed, if not in­her­ent­ly de­fi­ned by the pri­ma­cy of pri­va­te ow­ner­ship, eco­no­mic free­dom and con­su­mer so­ver­eign­ty. Par­al­lel, over the past few de­ca­des, a com­bi­ned, deepe­ning and con­ti­nuing pro­cess of eco­no­mic and so­cie­tal struc­tu­ral trans­for­ma­ti­on (e.g., market-​liberalization and de­re­gu­la­ti­on, in­di­vi­dua­liza­ti­on and glo­ba­liza­ti­on and es­pe­cial­ly digital-​capitalism), has re­sul­ted in a deva­luing of tra­di­tio­nal social-​structures, a wea­ke­ning of es­tab­lished pu­blic in­sti­tu­tio­nal frame­works, an ero­si­on of collec­ti­ve common-​good va­lues and an un­der­mi­ning of de­mo­cra­tic de­ba­te and the “pu­blic sphe­re”. 

Eco­no­mic growth and in­di­vi­du­al ma­te­ri­al suc­cess has as a re­sult been a pyr­rhic vic­to­ry, achie­ved at the price of a loss of human-​values and di­gni­ty, communal-​power and social-​dialogue and the goal of the common-​good. From a pu­re­ly profit-​centric, free-​market per­spec­ti­ve this sc­ar­ci­ty of social-​coherence and com­mu­na­li­ty has to-​date not pro­ved a major con­cern or hin­de­ring fac­tor. How­e­ver when fa­cing the new multi-​level “grand chal­len­ges” of human-​exploitation, social-​inequality, economic-​disruption and the exis­ten­ti­al th­re­at of eco­lo­gi­cal de­st­ruc­tion, a lack of busi­ness ethics and so­cie­tal re­spon­si­bi­li­ty (re­sul­ting in de­cli­ning sta­ke­hol­der power and agen­cy), is gra­du­al­ly causing a cri­sis of le­gi­ti­ma­cy and trust for or­ga­niza­ti­ons (as cen­tral social-​actors), and our re­se­arch do­main of human re­sour­ce ma­nage­ment. 

A new “Common-​Good HRM” pa­ra­digm, which we in­tro­du­ce, is an at­tempt to con­ci­lia­te the con­flic­ting needs of market-​freedom and societal-​rights and in­di­vi­du­al de­si­res for ma­te­ri­al pro­spe­ri­ty ver­sus the ne­ces­si­ty to pro­tect li­mi­ted collec­ti­ve common-​good re­sour­ces. It the­re­fo­re ad­dres­ses the core ques­ti­on: How can HRM re­de­fi­ne its role and pur­po­se with the aim of crea­ting the ideal con­di­ti­ons for in­te­gra­ted human, or­ga­niza­tio­nal and so­cie­tal flou­ris­hing?