ABSTRACT
John Edmonds, in his chapter, contrasts the world of global competition and the need for tight financial discipline with the needs of the workforce. He asks why the demands of global competition should be used as a reason for not attending to the needs of the workforce. He claims that not all businesses are subject to this competition and that where they are it does not provide grounds for ignoring these needs. Underlying this is a fundamental point about ethics and moral psychology, highlighted by the Milgram experiments, which purport to show how easy it is for the most reasonable of people to deny their responsibility to others.1 Is it possible, though, to balance responsibility towards the workforce with the need to respond to the pressures of the free market? The John Lewis Partnership (JLP) is one of the most remarkable examples in Britain of awareness of, and attention to, the work community, embodying respect for the workforce and corporate integrity. At the same time it succeeds in the market place.
