"Budd proposes a fresh set of objectives for modern democracies - efficiency, equity, and voice - and supports this new triad with an intellectual framework for analyzing employment institutions and practices. In the process, he draws on scholarship from industrial relations, law, political science, moral philosophy, theology, psychology, sociology, and economics and advances debates over free markets, globalization, human rights, and ethics. He applies...

In recent years, by following media coverage of many scandals of accounting and accountability, the public has gained a greater understanding of what can happen when businesses do not adhere to ethical practices. It is now time for the human resources and industrial relations communities to explore the application of ethics to the employment relationship and to discover the importance of treating employees, not just numbers, properly.