Abstract

Each of the chapters in this Handbook focuses on determinants of how the organizational human resource (HR) practice of employee selection can be done well. That is, the contents are aimed at providing the guidance needed to develop selection and promotion procedures that are accurate, valid, and useful for organizations. In this chapter we suggest another standard. In addition to doing selection well, we add a concern for doing it right. Hence, added to the technical and procedural knowledge and empirical criteria that guide employee selection, this chapter emphasizes the normative or moral standards associated with notions of the good, right, fair, or just. We suggest that doing selection well (i.e., technical competence) is inextricably bound up with doing it right. This approach also opens to reflection the implicit values and moral justification underlying the practice itself, in addition to considering the manner in which its constituent activities are implemented. In other words, the ethics of employee selection are as relevant as the ethics in employee selection.