Chapter 16: Business Ethics and Social Responsibility in the Human Resource Management Curriculum

Human resource management (HRM) has an increasingly important role to play in enabling more socially responsible and responsive management. However, at present, employee issues are typically taught in a haphazard, piecemeal approach in introductory business ethics courses without a strong emphasis on the human resource (HR) functions that can support corporate social responsibility. To infuse HR ethics teaching with a clearer organization, this chapter presents possible teaching techniques in all of the four key functions of HRM: staffing, performance appraisal, compensation, and training and development. Hence, this chapter proposes a curriculum that addresses the key issues—identified by Orlitzky & Swanson (2006)—as part of a more socially responsible approach to HRM.