Personalekonomi och "det goda" – om etik och effektivitet i arbetet Human Resource Costing and Accounting and the Good – about ethics, efficiency and work

Sammanfattning: Can Human Resource Costing and Accounting (HRCA) contribute when creating ”the good work”? What kind of perceptions are dominating among HRCA-actors – the system directed striving to attain organisational utility or the actor-directed aimed at ”the dignity of the individual”? What consequences are discernable if one of them is dominant? ”The good” can be characterised by utilitarianism – to create the utmost possible utility. ”The good” can also be considered from an action-theoretical perspective, that is based on Aristotle’s ideas about ethics (phronesis and praxis). I have used a hermeneutic interpreting method. Interviews are made with a couple of actors who have worked, or in some other way been in touch with, HRCA and ”the good”. HRCA-methods, especially in accounting, have had problems in becoming recognised as a useful instrument with regard to reaching effectiveness as well as encouraging ”the dignity of the individual”. The result of this is that the thought of HRCA being able to contribute to ”the good work” disappears. There are examples of measures which have been taken and that can be connected with ”good work”. But these types of actions are first connected with the convictions of the individual. Beliefs and intentions are of greater importance than utility-maximizing account and calculations systems. Utility-maximizing is the dominant idea. If the utilising assumption is strained then the studied organisations risk becoming even more instrumentalized. A further build-up of the system does not necessarily lead to more and better measures on actor-level.