Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Journal of Business Ethics https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-019-04257-x ORIGINAL PAPER An Institutional Approach to Ethical Human Resource Management Practice: Comparing Brazil, Colombia and the UK Beatriz Maria Braga 1  · Eduardo de Camargo Oliva 2  · Edson Keyso de Miranda Kubo 2  · Steve McKenna 3  · Julia Richardson 3  · Terry Wales 4 Received: 2 May 2017 / Accepted: 29 July 2019 © Springer Nature B.V. 2019 Abstract The impact of contextual infuences on human resource management and management more generally has been the focus of much scholarly interest. However, we still know very little about how context impacts on the practice of ethical HRM specifcally. Therefore, drawing on 59 in-depth interviews with HR practitioners in Brazil, Colombia and the UK, this paper theorizes how they perceive the ethical dimensions of their roles within their respective national contexts and how the way they act in relation to them is informed, shaped and directed by the institutional context. In doing so it provides an important insight into three key themes: frst, the views of HRM practitioners and managers about ethical HRM and how they articulate what it means to be ethical; second, how they respond to perceived ethical dilemmas; and third, how their responses are infuenced by institutional forces and associated beliefs, values and scripts. In addition to providing an ‘emic’ perspective of this increasingly important topic and theorizing the experience and practice of ethical HRM, the paper answers calls for more international comparisons of ethical HRM practice in contemporary organizations. Keywords Comparative ethical HRM · Institutional theory · Qualitative methods An Institutional Approach to Ethical Human Resource Management (HRM) Practice There has been increasing interest in the relationship between HRM and ethics and particularly in what has been described as ‘ethical HRM practice’ (Caldwell et al. 2011; Greenwood and Freeman 2011; Guest and Woodrow 2012; Van Buren et al. 2011; Wilcox 2012). The focus of current interest, however, has moved away from earlier scholarship centring on the application of “everyday ethical frameworks” (Woodall and Winstanley 2001, p. 45), to examine ethical HRM practice itself. This feld of enquiry is still relatively under-developed (Linehan and O’Brien 2016), however, with limited theorization or empirical study of ethical HRM practices across diferent national contexts and particularly in emergent countries (Cooke et al. 2017). Indeed, recent contributions to ethical HRM continue (e.g. Guest 2017) to ignore the impact of the broader institutional environments while emphasizing still that ethical HRM largely concerns “rational adaptations to technical and environmental condi- tions” (Barley and Tolbert 1997, p. 93). Given the contested nature of ethical HRM, the pau- city of empirical and theoretical scholarship is perhaps Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-019-04257-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Steve McKenna stephen.mckenna@curtin.edu.au Beatriz Maria Braga beatriz.braga@fgv.br Eduardo de Camargo Oliva eduardo.oliva@uscs.edu.br Edson Keyso de Miranda Kubo edsonkubo@gvmail.br Julia Richardson julia.richardson@curtin.edu.au Terry Wales t.wales@ucs.ac.uk 1 Fundação Getulio Vargas – Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo (FGV-EAESP), Bela Vista, Brazil 2 Universidade Municipal de São Caetano do Sul (USCS), São Caetano do Sul, SP, Brazil 3 Curtin Business School, Perth, WA, Australia 4 University Campus Sufolk, Sufolk, UK