Introduction
Despite the growing awareness of the need and necessity to introduce ethical approaches and principles into managerial work, ethical management of employees or ethical management in everyday practice remains, for the most part, more at the level of wishful thinking or rhetoric than a prevailing reality. The relatively rich offering of professional and popular literature in the field of managerial ethics, the establishment of ethics committees, ethical codes, forums, seminars, training, etc., all of this could testify to a growing awareness in society of the need for ethics in human resource management, the need to humanize management approaches and working relationships. On the other hand, negative experiences of employees with unethical, undignified and degrading behavior on the part of management, which, albeit rather sporadically but regularly, appear in the form of cases or scandals also in the public media space, testify to an unsatisfactory state of affairs. The generally low interest of the media in similar topics suggests that this is merely the proverbial tip of the iceberg. It is noteworthy that the media do not show greater interest in similar topics of unethical treatment, even when it directly concerns them.
If we set aside structural and systemic problems, one of the main reasons for this state of affairs is the widespread belief that ethics and morality have no place in management and business. "We still view the application of ethics to the management of enterprises and public administration as something 'extra,' something we can do without in a market economy and which only ties our hands in business," as a result of which "managers tend to distrust ethical practices in practice and are afraid to apply managerial ethics. They regard it as a kind of luxury they cannot afford and are not sure that ethics will pay off for them" (Jurová, 2013, p. 2). In conditions of fierce competition, external and internal, economic pressure and increasing demands, successful handling of demanding managerial work requires rather "virtues" and practices that run counter to ethics and morality, such as ruthlessness, manipulation, opportunism, etc. General ethical values, such as fairness, justice, openness, honesty, responsibility, respect and esteem (in the Adlerian context, these values are pointed out by e.g. Marková, Čechová, 2016) are regarded either as some useless burden to be shed at the right moment, or rather as marketing values that are suitable to be publicly presented in a Machiavellian manner, but it is not desirable to be guided by them in managerial work. Unfortunately, the abstract and idealistic way in which theories of managerial ethics are formulated and presented sometimes does not contribute to refuting such views.
Managerial Ethics and the Problem of Applied Ethics
Managerial ethics represents one of the disciplines of applied ethics, and its taxonomic classification in this context is presented in the professional literature in two ways: either managerial ethics is defined as a discipline of professional ethics, or as a discipline of economic and business ethics. Different classifications can also be found from the same authors; for example, Remišová defines managerial ethics once "as the professional ethics of managers, as a theoretical reflection of the normative and value-based management of an enterprise, company or institution by management" (Remišová, 1999, p. 195), and in another work as "a part of business ethics – applied normative ethics that deals with the intersection of ethics and economics in all spheres of the economic system" (Remišová, 2011, p. 134). This is not a conceptual contradiction, but rather a question of perspective and intention; both determinations have their legitimate justification. Essentially, it is also a question of whether managerial ethics as an applied discipline focuses more on the institutional level of management, as a process of managing and the collective subject performing this process in a given organization, or more on the personal level, on the manager as an individual subject, the direct bearer of managerial functions. Regardless of the manner of classification, its content and purpose are essentially the same. It is about transferring ethical knowledge, principles, values and norms from a general and theoretical level to a concretely defined and bounded sphere of practice with its own specific problems. The ultimate goal and meaning of managerial ethics is "the humanization of the economic sphere" (Remišová, 2011, p. 134), whether we define this sphere as professional or business.
In this paper, we proceed from the assumption that if the disciplines of applied ethics are to have the right and hope for their broad applicability in practice, not only should their normativity not conflict with the legitimate goals of the given sphere, but the application of their principles and norms in practice should support the achievement of these goals. Applied ethics should not approach its subject from some superior position and idealistically turn practice toward its own conceptions. In the case of managerial ethics, whose object of practice is the management of human resources, such an inherent goal of managerial work is to successfully lead one's team (organization, company, enterprise), i.e., to effectively achieve specifically set (economic) goals and to increase labor productivity in general. To manage efficiently with profit, not with loss.
From the approach that prevails in managerial ethics, such a definition of its task might seem too low and insufficient. According to the widespread and widely accepted model of the typology of a manager in terms of their relationship to ethics – the unethical manager, the legalistic manager, the pragmatic manager and the ethical manager – our determination would probably end at the level of the pragmatic manager, where "a manager may recognize ethics as a means of increasing the efficiency and productivity of the enterprise and may take it into account purely pragmatically" (Remišová, 2011, p. 175), only insofar as the application of ethics does not threaten the achievement of profit. However, above this level stands the fully-fledged ethical manager, "the last model of managerial thinking is the conscious recognition of the place of ethics in the sphere of business and economics and viewing economic activity from a 'moral point of view.' In other words, it is a conscious acceptance of the integration of economic and ethical rationality, which manifests itself in a critical reflection on profit if such profit were to harm others" (Remišová, 2011, p. 175). Our intention here is not to question the legitimacy of ethics to criticize the goals of practice – in the case of business and managerial ethics, to criticize the legitimacy of profit in any respect. We merely wish to point out that in such a case, however, the question arises as to whether such ethics can still be called applied, or whether it is already classical theoretical-philosophical ethics, because then it would actually be a normative critique and questioning of a particular system of practice, and the application could then only be a proposal for its fundamental revision, or a proposal for an alternative arrangement. This is not a trivial terminological matter, but about recognizing the goals and possibilities of a certain approach and their mutual alignment, so that the theory does not exceed its possibilities, that it does not propose unrealistic requirements with respect to accepted conditions. In any case, our paper proceeds from the premise that "the application of ethics in management is not a fashion, but a revitalization of solid business, in which one can succeed in a competitive environment on the basis of creative thinking and quality of work" (Dytrt , 2009, p. 19). At the very least, that managerial ethics as an applied ethics has such ambitions.
Fairness, Equality and Respect – An Ethical Approach to Colleagues
A general and widespread normative recommendation of managerial ethics is that in performing their managerial activities, a manager should treat their subordinates with respect and esteem, based on an equal and fair approach. According to the model of the ethical profile of a manager formulated by Remišová (2011, p. 160), a manager in relation to other people, especially in relation to their subordinates, should be guided by values such as "tolerance, honesty and fairness, trustworthiness, humaneness, empathy, tactfulness, courtesy, justice, friendliness, not being condescending." The conceptual synthesis of these values yields a picture of what can be called ethical management, manifested in the approach to subordinate employees. In this spirit, one of the fundamental ethical principles of managerial ethics is considered to be "consensual recognition of relationships in the organization," which "means accepting the idea that all ties and relationships in a hierarchical management structure are based on a contractual basis that is binding for all parties involved," from which then follows the normative requirement of "management oriented towards dialogue and consensus" (Remišová, 1999, pp. 196 and 201). Such an approach to management presupposes employees' access to information, their active involvement in the manner of management and decision-making, the possibility of contributing to problem-solving, open critical communication, etc., because "the dialogic way of management means applying democratic elements to management" (Remišová, 1999, p. 201). The ethical way of management presupposes understanding a person as a personality, and while the application of ethics to the business environment is generally understood as the humanization of economic relations, specifically in this case "the essence of humanism lies in the recognition of a reciprocal (symmetrical) interpersonal relationship between superiors and subordinates as 'beings of equal dignity' in conditions of cooperation in a hierarchical organization" (Remišová, 1999, p. 196).
These normative requirements of managerial ethics for the approach to human resource management do not arise unilaterally only from the field of ethics, but also have broad support in management theories themselves. A significant overlap can be found here in the area of methods and styles of leadership and team management (Řezáč, 2009, pp. 367-370; Vodáček and Vodáčková, 2006, pp. 118-123; Sedlák, 2009, pp. 310-314; Eliášová and Hadašová and Fedurcová, 2019, pp. 131-138), or also under the requirement of management decentralization (Karlöf and Lövingsson, 2006, pp. 51-53). In the area of managerial methods of management, it involves the highlighting and prioritizing of the so-called democratic or participative management style, which management theories characterize as a method of management based on the cooperation of the manager with their subordinates, emphasizing the role of the manager as a moderator (Řezáč, 2009). Characteristic is two-way communication between the leader and the subordinate, a receptive approach to subordinates, etc. (Sedlák, 2009). Its opposite is the so-called autocratic style, which favors "the exercise of the superior's will without regard for the opinions of subordinates; for motivation it uses one's position, differentiated rewards and penalties" (Eliášová and Hadašová and Fedurcová, 2019, p. 133). In the literature it is also referred to as the authoritarian or directive style, "based on one-sided decision-making by the superior in the form of commands and their unconditional fulfillment" (Řezáč, 2009, p. 367). From the perspective of the requirement of decentralization in management, from which increased efficiency is expected, two of the three main motives for its preference are cited as "people feel more involved, which encourages motivation, initiative and job satisfaction" and "people want to be their own masters, instead of being supervised by someone" (Karlöf and Lövingsson, 2006, p. 51).
Few things, if any, can be absolutized. It is appropriate to emphasize that no management style or approach can be presented as absolutely valid under all conditions and in every situation. The choice of an appropriate approach is conditioned and limited by many objective factors and ultimately "even the same manager towards the same colleagues must inevitably choose different methods of leading them in different conditions, or change the degree of their autonomy in decision-making" (Vodáček and Vodáčková, 2006, p. 121). This relativity, however, does not change the fact that the participative ethical style stands in sharp contrast to the autocratic unethical one, and that every manager ultimately adopts a certain management style, whether consciously or not, which is characteristic of them and is either more participative or more authoritarian. Why, then, should managers principally prefer a participative approach over an autocratic one or possibly other management styles? Why should they apply the principles of ethical management in their management and treat employees with respect and esteem, based on the principle of equality? In what specific respect can such an approach be economically efficient in managerial work?
Information, Communication and Decision-Making as Arguments in Favor of Ethical Management
As the main, and often the only, argument in favor of participative management, its primary benefit, the issue of employee motivation is cited. This aspect receives the greatest attention in the relevant literature. It is stated that involving employees in decision-making processes and generally an ethical approach towards them has highly positive effects on employee motivation, on their satisfaction with the working environment, which subsequently translates into increased and higher quality work performance. The autocratic and directive approach, meanwhile, has essentially the opposite effect, tending to demotivate subordinate employees. However, many managers proceed from the assumption that motivating workers in this way is a demanding activity with an uncertain outcome, moreover with a considerably variable outcome over time and dependent on many other variables. If we add to this the beliefs about the effectiveness of negative motivation through fear, motivation through financial rewards and other material benefits, or perhaps combine this with the situation on the labor market (sufficient number of potential employees, fear of leaving one's job), or possibly also with a high degree of employee turnover, we can roughly see the reasons why the argument of motivation in favor of an ethical approach may be insufficiently convincing for many managers. However, the ethical participative approach in managerial work to managing employees does not have only such an indirect impact; it also has several direct and immediate positive effects on the economic efficiency of work.
Decision-making is one of the fundamental, perhaps even the most demanding and most critical, functions and tasks of a manager, and the quality of this decision-making is substantially dependent, among other things, on the relevant information available to them and on the basis of which they make their decisions. The quality of this decision-making in the form of the decisions made simultaneously determines the overall quality of managerial work. This establishes the importance of information and its acquisition in management. The origin of this information is understandably varied, but a significant part of it is located within the enterprise itself, inside the given organization. Subordinate operational workers, who are in daily and immediate contact with work activity in its "living" form, possess, on the basis of this activity, a wealth of diverse information concerning the subject, method, conditions of work and the problems associated with them. The significance and value of this information depends on several specific variables, primarily on the proportion of intellectual and physical labor and its technological level. In general, however, an important correlation holds here. In the case of the service sector, including the area of public services, where operational employees come into direct and regular contact with customers in their work, the value of this information for management is orders of magnitude higher than in the case of industry. In such a case, employees also possess exceptionally valuable information that has the character of market feedback. It need hardly be emphasized what key importance such information has for strategic managerial decision-making in the competitive conditions of a dynamically changing market. An ethical, participatively oriented approach to employees creates not only suitable preconditions for obtaining this information, but as a "dialogic way of management" it is directly and purposefully aimed at its utilization in decision-making. Involving employees in management and decision-making processes is pragmatically oriented towards the full utilization of this information and knowledge potential that employees possess. Wasting it and ignoring it is an economically irrational approach. If a manager applies an autocratic or directive approach to employees, they deprive themselves of the possibility of its use, either by showing no interest in it or by discouraging employees through their approach. Ultimately, they harm themselves in a substantial way; they deprive themselves of an important information base for their qualified decision-making. Along with the general advancement of information technology in the work process, its application is also occurring in this area; enterprises and organizations are increasingly and more intensively using information systems specialized in obtaining similar detailed information about the work process and its results, including market feedback. This irreversible and society-wide trend may create the impression at the management level that such a method of obtaining information is superior, in terms of its objectivity, and that it will fully cover their information needs, which may contribute to managers' disinterest in a participative approach. However, it remains questionable to what extent standardized reports and automated data collection methods can capture the necessary relevant information, to what extent they are actually helpful in managerial decision-making, especially for lower levels of middle and line management. The very digital form of their acquisition already presupposes their considerable simplification and quantification, where the sheer quantity of such information can then come at the expense of its quality. Many of the information that employees possess is most valuable in its immediate, undistorted and comprehensive form, where employees as its bearers are best able, in common dialogue, to effectively select from the mass (often also contradictory) of information its relevant content, assess its informational value and evaluate it in the context of decision-making needs, and possibly also outline alternative options. The precondition for this is given by the fact that they have a practical relationship and personal interest in this information and its evaluation, which, understandably, information technologies lack.
The attribute "democratic" may not be the most felicitously chosen for characterizing the ethical approach, because it can lead to the mistaken notion that decisions in such a case are made on the basis of majority voting and that the manager loses their decision-making competencies and authority. The application of the participative approach, however, does not require any such thing; it presupposes only an open dialogue and the full involvement of employees for the purpose of creating the most qualified possible basis for decision-making. However, the adoption of the final decision is always the responsibility of the given manager, even if this decision does not have majority support, even if it is unpopular. It would presumably not be acceptable for senior management either for a manager to divest themselves of their professional responsibility in this way. At this point, however, another important comparative advantage of the participative style emerges: the manager does not then have to, so to speak, force the decisions through to the employees, because in this case they are already well-informed about them and understand their purpose. The probability of the adoption of decisions made in this way, including or especially the unpopular ones, is higher than in the case of decisions being made in a directive, cabinet-style manner from behind a desk and behind closed doors. The energy and time invested in participative decision-making pays off also in their subsequent implementation.
Our final argument in favor of ethical management as an economically efficient approach to management concerns the area of communication as such. The exchange of information and the management of work itself presupposes and requires a great deal of intra-organizational communication, which at all levels involves the expenditure of a great deal of time and energy, not only on the part of management but also on the part of subordinate employees. It is therefore meaningful and desirable to view this communication from the perspective of its efficiency. Here too, however, the application of information technologies in the area of communication is pushing traditional face-to-face communication into the background, which may discourage a dialogic and participative approach to employees. Electronic means of communication in many respects suit precisely the directive way of management. For all the undeniable advantages that electronic communication brings, personal approach and face-to-face communication, which the participative approach presupposes, still has a number of irreplaceable advantages, not only in terms of the psychological dimension, but also in terms of the very economic efficiency of the expenditure of time and energy. In its electronic indirect form, communication is necessarily fragmented, loses its dialogic character and breaks down into individual one-sided monologues, and overall becomes extended in time, because between the individual fragments of communication there appear greater or lesser pauses of non-communication. Moreover, each individual fragment is subject to individual interpretation and misinterpretation, which in itself then requires the expenditure of additional time and energy for correction and clarification. Part of this inefficiency in communication is then compensated for by the expectation on the part of management that employees participate in communication also outside working hours, i.e., in their free time, which in itself has a negative effect on the work morale of employees. As for the psychological dimension of consequences, the application of the electronic form of communication reinforces the social isolation of employees and contributes to feelings of alienation. Direct, face-to-face, dialogic and group forms of communication, which the participative approach presupposes and prefers, in many cases represent a more efficient way of communication, in terms of both time expended and the communication itself.
Ultimately, what is decisive here is not the form, but the content of communication and its quality; or rather, the form is not an end in itself, but merely a means to communication, which has its own goals. The ethical participative approach of management and dialogic communication, when the values of fairness, respect, equality and transparency are authentically applied, create strong preconditions for open, critical and information-rich discussion, the results of which provide a basis for qualified decision-making. In an autocratic, directive and highly competitive environment, with one-sided and power-laden communication, workers have a justified fear of openly communicating their opinions; they select information, or purposefully communicate it in a distorted form. Evaluating information in such an environment is usually very demanding, drains a great deal of energy, and the result nevertheless remains questionable.
Conclusion
The arguments presented in favor of ethical management as an effective approach to human resource management have their basis in economic rationality; however, their application in practice depends on many external factors that may act as constraints. Even the high rate of employee turnover in enterprises, which is generally on the rise and is sometimes even considered desirable, undermines the conditions and possibilities for developing ethical management. Nor is it helped by the "seemingly innocent idea of management theorists from the 1980s, according to which a successful company must first and foremost provide the world with a brand. The product comes only in second place" (Kleinová, 2012, p. 3). As Naomi (2012, p. 198) shows in her extensive analysis of the brand-focused economy, "according to this logic, corporations should not expend their limited resources on factories that will require maintenance, on machines that corrode, nor on employees who will most certainly grow old and die." Such a perspective then has far-reaching consequences for companies and organizations, for their methods of management and their approach to employees, for the devaluation of the value of human work from the perspective of management. It is noteworthy that even at the theoretical level, disputes still continue about how to understand employees from the perspective of the enterprise, whether "as wealth, as assets" or "as costs," "overhead costs" (Armstrong, 2007, pp. 48-50).
The real application of the principles of managerial ethics into everyday management practice is indeed an extraordinarily demanding task under current conditions. On the part of the manager, it requires not only an awareness of the meaningfulness and value of the ethical approach, but also the personal courage to go perhaps against established ways, the ability to trust in human potential, as well as the ability to think conceptually from a long-term perspective. On the part of the organization and its top management, it requires a well-thought-out strategy for its functioning and a vision of its long-term progress, with a well-considered and clarified question of what role and weight human capital and the creative potential of its employees play in this strategy. If the success of an enterprise or organization depends on them, then an ethical approach towards them should be considered essential, because only such an approach makes it possible to create the necessary space and suitable environment for human potential to fully develop.
Author: Mgr. Ciprian Turčan, PhD.
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