Pieter Kriel

Quality of Worklife Redefined: the Role of Morals, Ethics and Justice Pieter Kriel

Recent developments in evolutionary psychology informs us that the human mind has innate mechanisms shaped by our ancient social history. Consequently, specifically-evolved mental mechanisms exist that assist the human mind in dealing with social phenomena, such as cooperation. Central to successful human cooperation, we find concepts such as fairness, trust, autonomy, reciprocity, democracy and social recognition. Because the associated mental mechanisms have evolved over millennia they are largely hardwired into the human brain, are slow to evolve, and have not been able to keep pace with the vast and rapid social change brought about through modernity resulting in psychological stressors because of the resultant mismatches. The study highlights the incongruent landscape lying between business ethics and personal moral ethics. Utilising social critical theory within an evolutionary psychology framework, it challenges the orthodoxy concerning the relationships between personal liberty, justice and the neo-liberal market economy. For HR professionals and others within the field, this redefines QWL accordingly as a way of bringing about meaningful change within the workplace.