On Effective Interdisciplinary Alliances in European Business Ethics Research: Discussion and Illustration

ABSTRACT. Cooperation in business ethics researchis important across disciplines, to help strengthen thebase of a field which is still new in Europe. A studyon recruitment interviewing in Germany, U.K. andthe Netherlands is used to demonstrate the value ofinterdisciplinary business ethics research, particularlyacross cultures.

Introduction

The theme of the 10th EBEN conference wasthe creation of effective alliances in the opera-tionalisation of business ethics. These alliancesmay be between government bodies, trade asso-ciations, consumers, religious groups, pressuregroups, and perhaps most significantly in thisforum, between business and academia. In thispaper, the case is argued for the “operationalisa-tion” of alliances within academia, not justbetween academic scholars and the business andpublic sectors. The main part of the essay is anexample where effective business ethics researchhas been achieved by combining inputs fromsociology, management and ethics, in order toaccomplish the research goal. The process is,however, two-way. Where interdisciplinary workis done, it is important to note the contributionthat the work makes back to various disciplines.The findings of the illustrative example are

reviewed in the light of their implications forsociology, ethics research and management.

The interdisciplinary nature of businessethics

European business ethics is currently locatedwithin an interdisciplinary framework of influ-ences. With no established research tradition, oreven agreement as to the appropriate subjectmatter, other disciplines are bound to be drawnupon to offer tools with which to begin buildinga research arena with an identity. Business ethicsis being worked on by individuals from a varietyof academic backgrounds, as Green points out;“Philosophers, economists, organizational theo-rists, students of marketing, accounting, financeand many other specialised fields contribute asequals to the books and journals of businessethics” (Green, 1993, p. 224). Others con-tributing to the field draw on law, theology, psy-chology, sociology and pedagogics (Mahoney,1990, p. 547; Steinmann and Kustermann, 1996,p. 17). Business ethics is also perceived by someto be an area of applied ethics. Thus a chapteron business ethics appears in the section on“Applications” in Singer’s book

A Companion toEthics (1993), and business ethics is treated along-side biomedical ethics and environmental ethicsin Winkler and Coombs’ Applied Ethics: A Reader(1993). Indeed, in this paper, contributions tobusiness ethics are treated as contributions toapplied ethics. As van Luijk argues “one wouldexpect all or at least most of the data concerningan emerging field or subject to be easily avail-

On Effective InterdisciplinaryAlliances in European Business Ethics Research:Discussion and Illustration

* Laura J. Spence

Journal of Business Ethics 17: 1029–1044, 1998.© 1998 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Laura J. Spence is active in European business ethicsresearch as an academic and an executive member of theUK association of the European Business EthicsNetwork. She is developing research on business ethicsin small firms in Europe.

able. This is not the case for business ethics. Westill have to search at various places, to combinefiles and to go through lengthy lists in order tofind – amidst many other things – what we reallyare looking for” (van Luijk, 1996). The inter-disciplinary nature of business ethics to date isconsequently affirmed.

The student of business ethics must hence takecare to be aware of the input from academicsrepresenting a wide variety of schools of thought.While this may be a cumbersome process, itneed not be detrimental for the development ofbusiness ethics, which may in fact remain a fieldwith inputs from various perspectives. As Shawnotes “it is hardly a forgone conclusion thatfurther research and dialogue will result in aunified academic paradigm. . . . One should notbe disappointed, however, if it turns out thatbusiness ethics never solidifies into a coherentdiscipline or academic specialty. . . . Many areasof human endeavor (religion is an example) aretoo rich for any one form of intellectual inquiryto capture, but that hardly diminishes theirimportance or their value of various studies ofthem” (Shaw, 1996, p. 499).

The interdisciplinary character of the field todate can be beneficial and desirable for an acad-emically rigorous examination of a topic forwhich the most relevant means of investigation,analysis and teaching has not yet emerged.Indeed, the wealth of different approaches ischampioned as a requirement for success by deGeorge who comments; “As a field businessethics requires the concrete descriptive compo-nent supplied by economists and those who studybusiness and corporations from sociological, psy-chological, and other social scientific perspec-tives; it requires the theory of organization,management and business activity providedby professors of business; and it requires thesystematic development and application ofmoral norms and normative theory providedby philosophers and theologians. The field isnecessarily interdisciplinary because all of theseare necessary and each discipline involved is tosome extent changed by its union with theothers” (de George, 1987, p. 204). Thus it isimportant to note that the relationship betweenbusiness ethics and other academic disciplines is

not simply one way. Business ethics researchdraws upon other disciplines and contributesto them. De George’s comments indicate theimportance of recognising the implications ofbusiness ethics research not only for the businessethics arena, but also for other disciplines: theinterdisciplinary relationship is two-way.

In this paper, an example of how an interdis-ciplinary approach to researching business ethicscan be successfully carried out is given, and thepossibility of drawing from and contributing toa variety of different disciplines demonstrated.

An illustration of interdisciplinary businessethics research

The example of business ethics research describedwas used for doctoral studies in the field of com-parative European business ethics.1 The countriesof comparison are Germany, the Netherlands andthe United Kingdom (UK), and the focus of theresearch was practices in recruitment inter-viewing. The interdisciplinary nature of the taskwas clear in the early stages of the research,which included a literature review of recruitmentinterviewing, with references drawn from a widerange of disciplines. Sources of particular rele-vance were from management, sociology and(business) ethics literatures.

The goal of the research can be summarisedas: to improve understanding of practices inrecruitment interviewing in business in Germany,the Netherlands and the UK, and identify theethical perspectives underpinning those practices.It is the research goal which informs the choiceof method; as Bryman (1989, p. 255) states “eachdesign and method should be taken on its meritsas a means of facilitating (or obscuring) theunderstanding of particular research problems,. . . a fetishistic espousal of favoured designs ormethods and an excessive preoccupation withtheir epistemological underpinnings can onlystand in the way of developing such an under-standing”. It is with this in mind that a researchdesign was adopted which incorporated the gath-ering and description of data on practices inrecruitment interviewing by using sociologicaltechniques, analysis from an ethical perspective

1030 Laura J. Spence

using ethical theory and, finally, considerationof the recruitment interview as an element ofbusiness management, particularly in the light ofcross-cultural recruitment.

In the remainder of this paper, the contribu-tions from and to these three areas; sociology,ethics and management, will be discussed. Thesubjects will be treated separately here for con-venience, but clearly the links cross falsely builtacademic boundaries.

Contributions from sociology, ethics andmanagement

Sociology: Gathering and making sense of data onactions and practices in context

The research goal required the accessing of actualpractices, not reported or desired practices. Thusempirical research which enabled the investiga-tion of the actions of individuals in terms of theircultural contexts lead to the recognition of therelevance in this case of ethnographic techniquesof data gathering. A case study approach wasadopted. To minimise the possible variables, asingle company was studied which was recruitingfor similar vacancies, in this case graduates, usingthe same standard structured interview technique,in Germany, the Netherlands and the UK.Approximately ten interviews in each countrywere investigated by a combination of ethno-graphic techniques, particularly observation,tape-recording and transcription of interviews,and semi-structured interviews with the inter-viewers and candidates. From this data it waspossible to build up an understanding of the dif-ferent ways in which the participants organisedtheir experience of the recruitment interview.Erving Goffman’s technique called frame analysis(Goffman, 1974) was adopted to help build thediffering perspectives of what goes on in arecruitment interview into four frames. Theseframes could then be analysed from an ethicalperspective more readily than trying to explainspecific actions recorded without the conceptionof the perspective or context in which they wereenacted. Frame analysis is advocated as a usefulmethod of studying the influences of macro

structures such as culture on micro level inter-actions (Smith, 1994; Goffman, 1983).

The four main frames of recruitment inter-viewing identified using frame analysis aredescribed below. They are called; the bureau-cratic test frame, the life-buoy frame, thehangman frame and the reciprocity frame. Eachof these frames was identified through discussionswith the interview participants and analysis of thetranscriptions.

The bureaucratic test frame is characterised byclose following of the detailed company guide-lines on recruitment interviewing. The processis completed clinically, being interviewer led(enabled by placid compliance by the candidate)with an emphasis on objective measurement ofa candidate’s ability in given areas by inter-changeable interviewers, and the standard appli-cation of procedures. The information flow ispredominantly from candidate to interviewer,with minimal interaction.

In the life-buoy frame the candidate isresponded to more pragmatically, and thedialogue becomes more interactive, with theinterviewer meeting the requirements for whichthe candidate is being tested in part him orherself, by giving hints and clues to the questionsasked. The hangman frame, conversely, is char-acterised by an acceptance on the part of thecandidate, and readiness on the part of the inter-viewer, for the candidate to be “caught out” inthe interview, and have his or her weaknesses,and lack of ability in the required areas, exposed.

The reciprocity frame represents the recruit-ment interview as a two-way dialogue in whicheither the candidate or the interviewer mighttake the lead. This frame is lead primarily by thecandidate, but is only possible where the inter-viewer allows it, either intentionally or bydefault.

Identifying frames of business interactions inthis way helps us to understand the context inwhich actions occur. The dominant frame maychange throughout any given interview, althoughnotably some frames were more regularly adoptedby participants observed from one culturecompared to another. In the Dutch interviews,for example, the bureaucratic test frame was con-sistently adopted. There was a high frequency of

On Effective Interdisciplinary Alliances in European Business Ethics Research 1031

the reciprocity frame in German interviews. Inthe UK interviews a pragmatic approach wastaken, with recourse to the life-buoy, hangmanand reciprocity frames common in addition tothe bureaucratic test frame.

It is suggested that empirical research byethnographic data gathering techniques and usingframe analysis are particularly useful in cross-cultural business ethics research, where ignoranceof the perspective, or frame in which actionsoccur could lead to false assumptions about whatis going on in the business interaction of a dif-ferent culture.

Ethics: Applying ethical theory to the interviewframes

The reason for applying ethical theory to businesspractice is to present some systematic means ofassessing the validity of the principles or beliefswhich guide actions. Ethical theories offer frame-works by which “agents can reflect on theacceptability of actions and evaluate moraljudgements and moral character” (Beauchampand Childress, 1994, p. 44). The purpose ofapplying ethical theory is not to make judge-ments about the right or wrong-ness of theactions observed in the opinion of the researcher.The theory enables a systematic analysis of theframes observed using established structures foranalysing behaviour from the perspective ofmoral philosophy.

Each of the four perspectives of the interviewwill be addressed in turn: bureaucratic test frame;life-buoy frame; hangman frame; reciprocityframe. The ethical theories recognised in theframes and used in the following analysis includeutilitarianism (consequence based), Kantianism(action based), social contract theory, virtuetheory (character based) and discourse theory.2

The bureaucratic test frame can be said to bethe intended form of the interview techniqueused at the company studied, adhering to theinterview guidelines and training. In the bureau-cratic test frame, it seems that the candidate andinterviewer have entered into agreements toadopt and accept this manner of doing the inter-view. The interviewer has agreed with the

company to use the guidelines, the candidate hasagreed with the interviewer to the interviewbeing carried out in this way.

Social contract theory is generally applied atthe societal level, however, transferring some ofthe principles to the organisational level seemsrelevant here. The interviewers have entered intoan agreement with the employer to act as arepresentative of the company on its behalf in theinterview. Having made this commitment, theinterviewer must – that is has a duty in Kantianterms to – comply with the rules of the company.In this instance, that means that in order to fulfilhis or her side of the company contract, theinterviewer has a duty, for its own sake, to do ass/he has been trained. In return, the companyfulfils its duty by giving the interviewer pay,benefits and training that it has contracted to do.This contract may be more than just the printed,hard copy contracts which must be in the pos-session of the interviewer/employee and filingsystems of the company. Research on the psy-chological contract and its relationship to pro-social behaviour has shown a positive correlationbetween the way employees feel they have beentreated by the company, and the way in whichthey respond to instructions and requests beyondthe specified contractual duties (Robinson andWolfe Morrison, 1995; O’Reilly and Chatman,1986).

While candidates might have acted to confirmthe bureaucratic test frame, thereby supportingthe standard application of procedures andinferred equality of opportunity for themselvesand all other candidates, they may not have beengenuinely comfortable with it. A consequence ofthe standard application of procedures is the dry,repetitive form of questioning the candidate, withminimal interaction. Persistent questioning wasfeatured in the bureaucratic test frame in therepeated prompting by saying “anything else?”,“anything else?” to get more information fromthe candidate when s/he has already providedsome answers. In a parallel example, in courtroom examinations between counsel and witness,Maxwell Atkinson notes that “the only acknowl-edgements of the witness’s answers are counsel’snext questions, which are all she has to go onwhen it comes to analyzing his response. Under


such circumstances, it is presumably difficult fora witness to come to any conclusions about whatthe counsel made of a just-completed utteranceuntil the next question has been asked. And thisproblem of trying to work out, solely on the basisof each next question, how counsel is respondingto the answers is almost certainly one of thefactors which give rise to the feelings of ner-vousness, bewilderment, and intimidation thatare so often reported by people who have beensubjected to court room examination or cross-examination” (Maxwell Atkinson, 1992, pp.201–202). The feelings of discomfort felt by wit-nesses being questioned were similarly reportedby some candidates in the sample: one com-mented that he “felt like a schoolboy who hadn’tdone his homework”; another said: “Those werebastard questions, in a pub it would be better‘cause you have an interaction, just having tostring off a list of points is unnatural”. Hence,although in practice accepting the implicitcontract between interviewer and candidate toadopt the bureaucratic test frame for the inter-view, the candidate may not in fact feel that s/hehas any genuine choice, and be unhappy in thepassive role.

The agreement to participate in the bureau-cratic test frame by the candidates was in somecases more explicit than others. Generally, the(proposed) format of the interview was explainedby the interviewer at the beginning of the inter-view, and the candidate asked if this was OK orwhether they agreed. In all instances the candi-date basically just said yes. While this can be seenas a verbal contract at the beginning of the inter-view, and is verbalised as such, in reality it seemsthat the candidates were being told what toexpect rather than reaching an agreementbetween two equal parties. At this early stage ofthe interview, the candidate has effectivelyalready agreed to be submitted to the process asthe company sees fit, and further, if the companydeigns to invite them to each subsequent stage.From a social contract point of view, the inter-viewer, in his or her role as company represen-tative has power on the basis of the consent ofthe candidate to be submitted to the recruitmentprocess as a whole, not just this interview. Justas citizens must put their trust in the sovereignty,

the candidate must put his or trust in thecompany/interviewer. The abdication of controlover the recruitment process seems unquestion-able and necessary for consideration to be furtherincluded. Tellingly, the guidelines do not includeany information on what should be done if thecandidate does not agree to the technique.

If the bureaucratic test frame represents adher-ence to the guidelines for a variety of broadlycontractual reasons, the other frames show thepresence of some influence, which intentionallyor otherwise, over-rides the strength of the inter-viewer’s commitment to the guidelines.

The life-buoy frame was sometimes adoptedby interviewers in order to elicit sought-foranswers from candidates with hints or even directcontributions from the interviewer him or herselffor which the candidate is subsequently credited.Such actions seem to be based on a convictionby the interviewer that the candidate does havethe necessary characteristics to be suitable for thecompany, although they are not demonstratingthem in the interview. If the interviewer cannotpresent the evidence that the candidate forexample, has ability to “motivate others”, s/hemay be rejected, even if the interviewer hasrecommended that s/he be accepted. Thus insome cases, the interviewer might think thateither the interview technique is being unsuc-cessful in eliciting the necessary evidence or that,for some legitimate reason, the candidate is justnot managing to give the evidence of which theyare capable. In one case, for example, the inter-viewer admitted that his gut-feeling about a can-didate was a deciding factor, over and above theevidence gathered in the interview.

In the life-buoy frame actions which do notcomply with the guidelines are taken because ofthe ends justifying the means – a consequentialistperspective. The interviewer uses his or her ownjudgement over the evidence being provided bythe candidate to either change or ignore theevidence and pre-determine the outcome. If theinterviewer’s judgement is correct, and some-thing is inhibiting the candidate from revealinghis or her actual character, this is defensible onthe grounds that the interviewer has compensatedfor an unsatisfactory situation – used his or herhuman sensitivity to correctly fill in the gaps left


by the technique. However, from the point ofview of equally capable candidates who are notgiven the benefit of the doubt in this way, theinconsistent application of procedures can beconsidered unjust and inequitable.

As with the life-buoy frame, where thehangman frame is adopted, the divergence fromthe guidelines for interviewing is evident.Interviewers step out of their contract with thecompany to stick to the guidelines when inter-viewing; again this might simply be human erroron the part of the interviewer. However, wherethe hangman frame is not adopted by mistake,for some reason, the interviewer responds nega-tively to an answer that is given, and instead ofsimply accepting the answer or asking for moreinformation, as the interview guidelines recom-mend, challenges its legitimacy. From a Kantianperspective the interviewer’s respect for the can-didate is called into question. The interviewer isusing the candidate to make a point, by usinghis or her controlling position in the interview.The end to which the candidate is being usedcould be as a vehicle for the interviewer todemonstrate his or her own superior knowledgein a particular area. It could be that the inter-viewer feels that, although the candidate is pro-viding good evidence for acceptance within thebureaucratic test frame, s/he should not beaccepted; for example because the interviewerdoubts the honesty of the answers the candidatehas given. The hangman frame might be a wayof altering the evidence given, either directly orindirectly by unnerving the candidate, so that thesubjectively reached outcome to reject the can-didate can be justified on the assessment forms.Thus the interviewer might be acting in accor-dance with a consequentialist perspective that theends justify the means.

The fact that the interviewer may dismiss thecandidate’s answer and reveal his or her apparentweaknesses is accepted and even expected bysome of the candidates, endorsing the hangmanframe further. Candidates draw on their experi-ence of previous interviews, and the informationthey have about how interviews might be, andbring their expectations with them. Where can-didates recognised a negative element in theinterview they accounted for it by assuming any

blame themselves, for example saying “we didn’tget on” or “I messed up”. The lack of respectfor their person that the hangman frame canindicate is not noticed by the candidates, whoperhaps are ready to submit themselves towhatever is necessary for the sought after rewardsof a job offer and career with the company. Inthis sense the candidates also act in accordancewith a consequentialist perspective, accepting themeans because of the anticipated rewards of the“ends”.

The adoption of the reciprocity frame supportsthe Kantian ideals of treating the candidatewith respect, and showing concern and opennessfor the contribution they wish to make, andthe information they need to form a decisionabout whether they want to join the company.This manifests itself in an approach to theinterview which demonstrates a discourse ethicsperspective.

Where the reciprocity frame is used the inten-tion is that a consensus must be reached, by theinterviewer and the candidate, about whether thecandidate should remain in the recruitmentprocess or not. The arrival at that decision isinfluenced by any contributions that intervieweror candidate can make, whether it be by theinterviewer providing information about thecompany, or the candidate offering informationnot directly asked for which might be useful forthe interviewer’s decision. The informationprovided on both sides should be listened to care-fully and treated with respect, adhering to anyrequired rules of confidentiality.

If the discourse ethics approach is firmlyadhered to, then the information exchangeswould voluntarily include information, whethernegative or positive, which might influence thedecision. Thus, the candidate could be expectedto say things like “Of course, you should knowthat I am useless at making balanced decisions”,and the interviewer would similarly include state-ments such as “In this company we have guide-lines for systems which are not always carried outequally by all members of staff ”. One wouldprobably not expect the degree of reciprocity toextend to such damning truths in a recruitmentinterview, nor to extend to questions about thecandidate’s personal life, thus the two way flow


of information is limited. As Goffman points out,we do not live our lives by revealing everythingto everyone (Goffman, 1974, pp. 168–169).Inevitably a selection of material to reveal is madein a given interaction and, unsurprisingly, we aremore likely to emphasise that which will workin our favour; we manage the impression made.This is true in recruitment interviews, evenwhere the reciprocity frame is adopted and thereis a will to mutual openness and informationgiving. However, since the powers of invitationto continue are weighted in favour of the inter-viewer, this will to openness might be misplaced:reciprocity in the interview is not matched byequal control over the outcome of the interview.Never-the-less, the candidate could of courserefuse an invitation to continue in the recruit-ment process if invited, so does at least retain apower of veto.

While each frame can be viewed from avariety of theoretical ethical perspectives, it hasbeen argued here that the dominant theoriesunderpinning each of the frames identified are:contractarianism (bureaucratic test frame), utili-tarianism (life-buoy frame and hangman frame),discourse theory (reciprocity frame). These ideasare open for debate, and it is clear that othersmight argue for a different emphasis or greaterrelevance of other theories not considered here.Through this process we may begin to under-stand implicit theoretical ethical perspectivesbehind practices observed in business.

The frames and interactions observed in thisstudy apply to the recruitment interview. Theinterview itself has a particular context; a role incompanies and business, which must also beunderstood in order to make full sense of thefindings.

Management: Understanding the role of recruitmentinterviewing in business

From the perspective of the business studiesarena, the role of the recruitment interview itself,is of interest. Recruitment is an issue in everycompany and has touched on every employee.Pratt and Bennett emphasize the importance ofrecruitment for the organisation’s future. They

write: “Recruitment and selection is one of themost routine yet one of the most vital functionsof any organization. Most employers would alsoagree that it is a costly and time-consumingprocess, and for this reason it must be plannedand carried out in an efficient manner. . . .Efficiency, although of prime importance, is onlypart of the story. There is a danger that organi-zations will treat recruitment as a mechanisticprocess based upon their own needs for staff. Itshould be remembered that there are two partiesinvolved and the needs of the individual mustalso be considered. . . . The employment of anindividual has always been a responsibility” (Prattand Bennett, 1989, p. 116).

As Arvey and Renz (1992) state the simple factthat one person is chosen over others musttrigger attention to potential wrong-doing andhence sensitivity to possible ethical dilemmas inrecruitment. Barclay (1993) writes that many ofthe issues involved in selection “are shot throughwith ethical elements”. In his article on thesearch for good employees, Brungs (1992) goesas far as to claim that “The national and inter-national competitive strength of Germany isincreasingly dependent upon the efficient recruit-ment of qualified personnel. To find and recruitthe ‘right man’ for an open position is becominga strategic success factor for the company.”3

In the context of a European Union with theintended reduction of boundaries including thepolitical, economic, legal and social, the poten-tially differing approaches to recruitment inter-viewing in different cultures is an important issue.While attention is given to the concrete differ-ences in recruitment in different European coun-tries; including language, information sources andsocial protection (see for example Holden, 1994),little mention is made of more discrete culturaldifferences in application which might act as abarrier once an interview has been reached,beyond cursory references to customs and culture(see for example Molle and van Mourik, 1990;Sieveking, 1990). The fairness of criteria usedand avoidance of inherent prejudice in themis, however, a common point of discussion(Heijtmajer, 1993). In these examples though,consideration of cultural barriers tends to bedirected at the case of immigrants and racial


groups as minorities (see Kuip, 1992; Plug,1993). Hence this work has important implica-tions for understanding recruitment interviewingacross cultures.

This company, like many others, perceives thata diverse workforce will bring sustained com-mercial success in the future. However there aremore subtle commercial implications. Candidatesmay be influenced in their choice of companiesto work for by their perception of equitable treat-ment of themselves and their peers, and thecompany culture which this purveys. Gillilandhas found that applicants note the fairness ofselection procedures when they apply to acompany, and that “reactions to selectionprocedures may influence the ability of the orga-nization to attract and hire highly qualifiedapplicants”, further, “organizations should beconcerned with the effects of selection proce-dures on the psychological well-being of appli-cants. For example, the perceived fairness ofselection testing may influence the efficacy andself-esteem of rejected applicants” (Gilliland,1993). In addition, there might be implicationsfor those who are subsequently hired (Welch,1996; Robertson et al., 1991). Whatever the case,the information the candidate gathers about thefairness of the interview might have some impacton the company itself at a later date.

There is an alternative perspective whichsuggests that ideas about fairness in recruitmentare not necessarily beneficial to the commercialcontribution of the new recruits. The mannerof the recruitment process and the influence onthe “job survival” of employees has beenresearched by Saks, who reports that informal,pragmatic (i.e. probably inequitable) processesof recruitment, are more likely to result inemployees who are well informed about andsatisfied with their role in the organisation,having a direct impact on job survival (Saks,1994). The element of Saks’ work of most rele-vance to this research is the possibility that themore discursive, two way interview witnessed inthe German data set, would be most likely toresult in the hiring of candidates who have arealistic idea of what they are entering into, andtherefore will only do so if they are likely tosurvive and do well in it.

Thus the arena of the recruitment interviewis an important one for business. The results ofthe study must be viewed in the light of the factthat they refer to an important business functionas an integral part of the future of the company,not just as an isolated interaction which happensto take place in a business organisation.

Having acknowledged the contribution fromthree disciplines to this research, it is importantto understand how this research feeds back intothose academic arenas.

Contribution to sociology, business ethicsand management

Sociology: Business as an institution and institutional talk

In addition to the contribution to the use ofErving Goffman’s frame analysis in understandinginteractions, the recruitment interview discoursesstudied in this research advance the study ofbusiness as an institution, and the investigation ofinstitutional discourse as distinct from everydayconversations.

Recruitment interviewing occurs, on thewhole, under the auspices of organisations. Thecompany in this study is an organisational man-ifestation of the institution of business. As asite of investigation of business, the company isequivalent to hospitals as organisational contextsof the institution of medicine, or courts as organ-isational contexts of the institution of law.Tannen and Wallet (1983) discuss the use ofdoctor/patient consultations as strategic sites ofconcrete action for studying social developmentsand institutional patterns of medicine Therecruitment interview can be similarly treated toreveal the patterns of the institution of business,since it is a further example where “(o)ne personof – a citizen of a modern nation/state – comesinto contact with another – a representative ofone of its institutions” (Agar, 1985, p. 147). Thefact that in this study the exchange is aninterface between an institutional member andsomeone who has an interest in becoming aninstitutional member, that is a fresh graduate whowants to become part of big business, highlights


the relevance of this dialogue to studying theinstitution of business.

The findings of this research, for example,show a variety of elements which give clues tobusiness (that is, as an institution) behaviour;what is business about? Internally, within theranks of the employees of business, it seems thatthere is an emphasis on progress upwards, onfitting profiles which are pre-set and demon-strating that one fits the required pattern. Theworld of business predetermines what one oughtto be and creates systems to try to objectify theprocedures for selecting who will succeed. Thesenotions of what (big) business is about; aboutimprovement, whether it be in terms of prof-itability, stability, cost cutting, or employmentprovision, seem to correlate with popular notionsof business. Successful business is not aboutstepping backwards, it is about going forwards,even if that does not translate into growth, itmight apply to stabilising the company’s clientbase, or improving customer service. Somewhere,in the metaphorical corridors of the institutionthat is big business, is the drive to advance, toprogress, to develop. Inherent in this is theimpression that the steps forward may be at thecost of someone or something else – just aseach candidate successfully selected reduces thechance of another candidate moving forward, oronwards. This might in fact be a reflection of theintentions of individuals in society – perhapsbusiness is the institutionalisation of the drive ofindividuals to progress, according to their ownor societal understandings of how this might bedefined.

Verbal communication in an institution suchas business, “institutional talk”, is identifiableby its departure from “ordinary” conversation(Silverman, 1993, p. 134). Features of everyday,non-institutional talk are that it is informal, withunorganised turn-taking, not bound to particulartopic areas and characterised by second stories,that is, responses given to what the other speakerhas said by adding one’s own related experiencesor opinion (Miller and Silverman, 1995, p. 727).Generally, institutional talk can be recognised byformal restrictions on turn taking, limited topicareas and an absence of second stories (Silverman,1993, p. 134).

In his article, Institutional discourse, Agar (1985)examines studies of discourse in different typesof institutions, particularly law and medicine, andbegins to identify patterns across them. Hedetermines there to be three segments to insti-tutional discourse; diagnoses, directives andreports. Diagnoses are that part of the discoursewhere the institutional representative fits theclient’s ways of talking to ways that fit the insti-tution’s ways of interpreting. Directives are thepart of the discourse where the institutionalrepresentative directs the client or the organisa-tion to do certain things on the basis of the fore-going discourse. Reports are the summary of theinstitutional discourse which the institutionalrepresentative produces. Agar notes that theanalysis requires enrichment by consideration ofdifferent types of institutions. This is an areawhere this study can make a contribution.

Using Agar’s typology as applied to thefindings of this research, there is certainlyevidence to confirm that the same segments existin recruitment interviewing as examples ofbusiness institution discourse. Candidates applyto, then are invited to come to the company foran interview for possible employment. Bothparties have thus expressed an interest in themeeting, and the submission of the candidate tobe studied by the interviewer as to his/her suit-ability for membership. Here the bureaucratic testframe, and particularly the interview guidelinesthemselves, fit to and supply the questions for the“institutional frame” to which Agar refers: “Thegoal of diagnosis requires the institutional repre-sentative to fit the client’s problem to the insti-tution’s frame; therefore, the active questioningof the institutional representative is not sur-prising” (Agar, 1985, p. 150). The “client’sproblem” can in this case be replaced with the“candidate’s profile”. He goes on to note that thecontrol of question-asking held by the institu-tional representative is also a discourse device,to keep the client/candidate focused on thetopics of the institutional frame. As with otherinstitutional talk, any questions from the non-institutional member may be specifically invitedby the representative, such as the specified“Questions from the candidate” section in theinterview guidelines for this study. A further


similarity is in the way in which representativesask questions, sometimes specifically to enableclients/candidates to show their competencies –the life-buoy frame can be considered an illus-tration of this, where candidates are enabled togive the answers which interviewers consider willconfirm their profile fits the one sought. Thehangman frame is further evident across differentinstitutions, particularly where the representativereacts or “metacomments” judgmentally to theclient/candidate’s answer.

The impression left by the candidate on theinterviewer has to be physically transferred to theofficial interview assessment form. This action ofcreating a concrete version of the candidate inprecisely the format the institution requires is thecreation of the report, which has equivalent man-ifestations in other institutions. The relationshipbetween the dialogue and the translation to thewritten form is a critical one and can result indifferences between groups applying the sameinstitutional tests. This was found in this researchwhere the German interviewers, partly as a resultof their questioning, and partly because of highgrading of the answers given by the candidate,consistently wrote better reports on candidatesthan their Dutch and German colleagues. Agarreports on a study which similarly found thatwomen who go to one clinic get hysterectomiesmore often than women who go to another,

despite no evidence in the medical records toexplain this (Agar, 1985, p. 155).

The directives of the recruitment interviewsin this study, effectively what is to be done, arenot determined by the interviewer, but by theco-ordinating recruitment manager; the inter-viewer simply makes a report and recommenda-tion. It is interesting to note, that, in the end,this is probably the most interesting bit for thecandidate, but emanates not from the institutionalrepresentative with which s/he has had contact(in other companies, this process may of coursediffer). Agar points out the critical nature ofdirectives, although acknowledges their relativelyunder-researched status in studies focusing ondiscourse analysis (Agar, 1985, p. 156).

The identification of how institutional repre-sentatives may handle a given interaction is afurther area to which this work contributes. Theframes were built simply on the basis of theresearch data, never-the-less, clear parallels canbe seen in classifications of other examples ofinstitutional talk. The standard classifications aresummarised below in Table I, with direct reflec-tions in the frames identified in the recruitmentinterviews in this study.

Clearly, this study makes a contribution tothe study of institutions, in that it confirms andreflects many of the points identified in otherinstitutional studies. This verifies the relevance


TABLE IInterview frames and Agar’s classification of ways institutional representatives handle institutional discourse

Agar’s institutional representatives’ responses Corresponding Interview frameto institutional discourse identified in this study

“Goes by the book” representative – clings to Bureaucratic test framethe officially prescribed institutional frames

“Nasty” representative – uses his or her position Hangman frameto browbeat clients

“Reasonable” representative – works more loosely to Life-buoy frameinterpret client frames to the institutional frames

“Advocate” representative – tries to map the client frame Reciprocity frameonto the institutional frame that will provide the bestoutcome for the client

(After Agar, 1985, p. 157)

of the type of research which has been done, andsupports the argument for more work on businessas an institution, broadening the research basisfrom the prolific writings on medicine and law.

Ethics: Empirical business ethics research andcultural comparisons

This research has covered, in depth, a smallpatch of the terrain – only looking at a handfulof recruitment interviews, only looking atone company, only looking at Germany, theNetherlands and the UK. The research has addedto much called for empirical research in businessethics (Robertson, 1993). Empirical businessethics studies which employ ethnographic tech-niques are limited to date. The work which hasbeen done, such as Yeager and Kram’s (1990),and Jackall’s (1988), focuses on what the lattercalls the “moral rules in use” in the organisation,concentrating on the role of managers. Thisresearch stands apart from Jackall’s and Yeager andKram’s because of the focus on recruitment inter-view dialogues only, but makes an importantcontribution to the comparison of particularelements of business, in this case the recruitmentinterview, across different cultures.

It is the extraction of the theoretical ethicalcomponents of one part of business practiceswhich makes the work a contribution to com-parative European business ethics as well as com-parative culture research. What emerges from thisresearch, from a business ethics perspective, isthat people from different cultures prioritise theiractions in business differently. From the sampleused in this case, implications can be identifiedparticularly in reference to comparisons betweenDutch, German and UK interviewers. While allinterviewers on the whole adopt the structuredapproach in which they are trained, the applica-tion of the techniques still vary in practice.Interviewers did not agree on the best, correct,or indeed most ethical in a normative sense,manner of applying the techniques.

From the Dutch perspective, for example, theindications are that equal opportunity on thebasis of merit is important, and that one mustabide by contractual agreements, take seriously

and fulfil ones role in the organisation andsociety. The perspective viewed seems to be oneof looking across time now, how things are today,and how they should be evened out with in that,so that no one has an unfair advantage or is notpulling their weight in order that society canfunction as a cohesive unit.

From the German perspective, the approachseems to be from a longitudinal perspective oftime – what happens now is a part of the pastand the future, and should be taken in thatcontext, bearing in mind the overriding principleof respect for persons; society is not sustainablewithout consideration of each person’s positionand welfare within it. From the UK perspective,the individual has the autonomy to make judge-ments on the basis of preferred outcomes – theconsequences are the priority, and acceptablecosts are the possibility of error and the disben-efit to particular individuals. The related ethicalperspectives justifying these positions are sum-marised in Figure 1.

Further research should test and challenge thefindings in this study to build a more robustpicture of ethical cultural differences. In this waya clearer picture of the ethical perspectivesbehind different business practices in the coun-tries of Europe can gradually be mapped out.

This research gives support to the inappropri-ateness of business ethics as a discipline in Europetaking a universalistic normative approach.Providing business with European-wide rules ofhow they ought to behave and defining absolute“best” practices makes very little sense in light ofthe findings of this study. The principles of whatconstitutes good practice have been shown todiffer between cultures. One of the difficultieswith this position is that, in a sense, researchingdifferent cultures is already too late. For multi-national companies employees and employersmay already be multilingual and influenced bymultiple cultures in their actions. Never-the-less,much of business activity remains nationally dis-tinctive. The rigorous identification of differencesin practices in different cultures, and the under-standing of the supported ethical perspectives isurged as an important area for future businessethics research in Europe.


Management: Recruitment interviews as barriers tocross-cultural recruitment

The findings of the research have importantimplications for business, and particularly for thecase study company. The predominant bureau-cratic test frame in recruitment interviewingreflects the intention of equal opportunity for all,which conveys to the candidate an intention offairness. The implications for the company arepositive if this is the case, because even wherecandidates are rejected, they must assume that thiswas fair because they do not fit the company’scriteria, and not due to some unreasonable biason the part of the individual interviewer.

From the research findings, it seems that all theframings and keyings observed were acceptable

to the candidate. Of course, they were unawarewhere the interviewer’s actions deviated fromthe guidelines, and might have been concernedif they had known, for example, that the inter-viewer had flouted the guidelines to the disad-vantage of the candidate, for example where thehangman frame was adopted. This frame, whichcan be said to be the most disagreeable for thecandidate in terms of an affront to his or herpersonal dignity, was accepted as a normal partof recruitment interviewing.

Awareness of the converse affect, where inter-viewers deviate from the guidelines to the likelybenefit of the candidate, particularly where thelife-buoy frame is adopted, might equally causeconcern for candidates. This may be eitherbecause others have benefited from a step out of


Figure 1. Contribution to European business ethics.

the bureaucratic test frame, or simply because themore pragmatic stance of the interviewer is seenas giving inequitable opportunities. In somecases, where empathy causes the life-buoy frameto be adopted, candidates might be heartened bythe humanity of the interviewers as individuals,and also as employees of the company.

The reciprocity frame, when introduced intothe recruitment interview, has the affect ofbringing the dialogue between interviewer andcandidate closer to “ordinary” talk, an everydayconversation rather than an institutional one.This reminds us that, even where a strip of talkis highly institutionalised such as the threequarters of an hour recruitment interviews in thisresearch, the dialogue can slip out of the standardidea of what an interview is and become moreof an informal exchange less rigidly imbibed withthe purpose of, for example, identifying the char-acteristics of the candidate. The recognition thateven the most professional people are not simplymachines, but individuals with human needs forcontact and informal exchange, is an importantone for this organisation and others alike.

The variations in the application of standardprocedures in this sample resulted in a tendencyfor UK and especially German candidates to berecommended to stay in the recruitment proce-dure more often than their Dutch peers. Thismight unwittingly result in the loss of potentiallyexcellent candidates who were simply notselected at the first interview stage because of theparticular interviewer they met. Further, someless able candidates might get through the systemat this stage, and waste a place at the selectioncentre or, perhaps more significantly still fromthe company’s viewpoint, be employed andperform poorly in the workplace costing thecompany time and money.

The results of this work demonstrate that evenwhen differences in procedures are apparentlyevened out between countries, culture can super-sede and undermine intended consistency. Thebarriers to cross-cultural recruitment are moredeeply ingrained than can be overcome by super-ficial attempts to standardise procedures. Theresult might be that the workforce is made upof a skewed selection of employees, as deter-mined by interviewer nationality and cultural dif-

ferences, which are likely to perpetuate barriersto building and maintaining a diverse workforce.Ironically, it is probably the case that companieswhich adopt a standardised policy are attemptingto offer equal access opportunities to their organ-isation, independent of nationality.

How then, is a trans-European company todevelop an interview policy which offers genuineequal opportunities for access to potentialemployees across Europe? It could be thatreverting to nationally developed policies, valuingthe diverse techniques which they bring to selec-tion is a solution. But the assumption of aninterviewer, and particularly a candidate as a toolof nationally based influences is a dubious one,particularly where countries are already multi/internationally present and seeking to ensure aculturally flexible workforce. The basis of anyattempt to develop a system of recruitmentwhich allows for access to employment by thecompany across cultures has to be studies like thisone, which develop understanding of actualdifferences in practices. While this offers no solu-tions, it does give recruitment managers a properunderstanding of some of the cultural differenceswith which they must reckon.

Conclusion

The interdisciplinary nature of business ethics issupported in this paper as an important elementto acknowledge and develop for the future ofthe subject. An example of where an interdisci-plinary approach is used has been given. Theresearch problem in the study discussed was tofind a meaningful way to compare business ethicsin Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. Aninterdisciplinary approach was necessary in orderto ensure the achievement of the task; sociology,management and ethics thus contribute to thisstudy. The work, however, also feeds back intothese areas. In a practical sense this has beenachieved by participation in conferences and anintention to publish in a variety of academicliteratures. The treatment of the three disciplineshas remained broadly separate in this paper,although further combination and meshing ofthe perspectives is possible. It could be argued


that this work is in fact more multidisciplinarythan interdisciplinary, but it is felt that this dis-tinction is less important at this stage than therecognition of the value of different disciplinaryinputs and outputs.

The use of sociological ethnographic tech-niques is a familiar one to gain first hand expe-rience of practices in context. Stopping short ofa full ethnography, the observation, transcriptionand semi-structured interviewing enabled amultifarious representation of recruitmentinterviewing in one company in Germany, theNetherlands and the UK to be constructed. Theanalysis of this data into expressive frames, ananalytical approach developed by ErvingGoffman, adds to the existing body of work usingthe technique, which has tended to focus oninteractions outside the business arena. Theresults of the work feed directly back into thestudy of business as an institution, and shows howthe recruitment interview is an example of insti-tutional talk.

The recruitment interview is an importantfactor in business success, since it determines thepeople who will be working in an organisationand gives outsiders a direct impression of theorganisational culture. This research confirms thatthere are differences in interviewing in differentcultures, even when a standard technique is used.This is an under-researched and poorly under-stood barrier to labour mobility. The implica-tions for recruiting a diverse workforce, and thedanger of assuming that a single procedureapplied across multiple cultures will be equitable,have been highlighted.

Finally, the research has drawn on establishedethical theories; utilitarianism, Kantianism, socialcontract theory, virtue theory and discoursetheory, to demonstrate how actions can be jus-tified and underpinned from different ethicalpositions. The findings lead directly back intoapplied ethics, showing how empirical work cangive evidence of the privileging of differentethical perspectives in different cultures. In thisresearch, it was found that equality of opportu-nity and contractarianism were important forDutch participants, discourse and Kantian respectfor the individuals were prioritised by Germanparticipants, and UK participants found the con-

sequences of actions and the liberty to act prag-matically to be most important.

The combination of three disciplines in thepursuit of rigorous business ethics researchhas been demonstrated. The interdisciplinaryapproach advocated has, in this case, enabledthe easy extraction of three different butrelevant analytical perspectives through the data.Unsurprisingly, this would be difficult in caseswhere a more unitary approach to the researchwere adopted. It is held that in other businessethics research too, an interdisciplinary approachwill enable a flexible and rigorous understandingof the findings. The degree of academic coop-eration which is being advocated requires a highlevel of teamwork and trust between collabora-tors to enable the effective interdisciplinaryalliances needed. Multidisciplinary business ethicscentres and cross-faculty communication andcooperation are undoubtedly the way forward.

The European business ethics field is stillyoung. As the foundations are being laid an openand creative approach to studying our subjectmust help to reinforce the early work, providinga solid base for the future. It is important,however, that we as business ethicists do notsimply plunder different disciplines with norecognition that our work has relevance to theareas from which we draw. Far from trying tobuild an isolated business ethics field, weshould recognise the contribution business ethicsresearch can make to different disciplinary areasand actively present progress made back to otheracademic fields.

An open approach to future researchon business ethics, combining disciplinaryapproaches where possible, is recommended as aform of effective alliance which could benefit thefuture of business ethics in Europe and beyond.The internally cooperative approach which it isheld will strengthen the academic business ethicsfield would no doubt be of equal value for thosebodies such as business groups, trainers andregulators who are focused more specifically onoperationalising business ethics in the marketplace.


Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to Dr. Peter W. F. Davies and tothe comments of, amongst others, delegates ofthe 1996 EBEN conference in Frankfurt for pro-voking thought in the development of the workpresented in this paper.

Notes

* Paper for the European Business Ethics Network,10th annual conference, 10–12 September 1997,Prague.1 The research was done while at the Centre forOrganisational and Professional Ethics, Buckingham-shire College, a College of Brunel University, UK.2 It is assumed that the reader is familiar with thesetheories.3 Translated by the author.

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On Effective Interdisciplinary Alliances in European Business Ethics Research: Discussion and Illustration