Employment-at-will (EAW) is the legal presumption that employers and employees may terminate an employment relationship for any or no reason. Defenders of EAW have argued that it promotes autonomy and efficiency. Critics have argued that it allows for the domination, subordination, and arbitrary treatment of employees. We intervene in this debate by arguing that the case for EAW is contextual in a way that existing business ethics scholarship has not considered. In particular, we argue that the justifiability of EAW for a given jurisdiction depends on existing complementarities among the institutions that constitute the jurisdiction’s political economy. Notably, our view takes seriously the ethical concerns EAW critics have raised by showing how these concerns can be mitigated through public policy measures that do not require eliminating EAW.

随意雇佣（EAW）是法律推定雇主和雇员可以以任何理由或无理由终止雇佣关系。EAW 的捍卫者认为它促进了自治和效率。批评者认为，它允许对员工进行支配、从属和任意对待。我们通过争辩说 EAW 的案例与现有商业道德学术没有考虑到的上下文相关，从而介入了这场辩论。特别是，我们认为 EAW 对特定司法管辖区的合理性取决于构成该司法管辖区政治经济的机构之间现有的互补性。值得注意的是，我们的观点认真对待 EAW 批评者提出的道德问题，展示了如何通过不需要消除 EAW 的公共政策措施来缓解这些问题。