You Good and Faithful Servant? The Presentation of Ethics in Human Resource Management Textbooks

Human Resource Management (HRM) is often thought of as the "conscience of the corporation" and a profession with special ethical responsibilities (Edwards & Bennett, 1987: 66). This study investigates the presentation of ethics in 26 HRM textbooks recommended by the Canadian Council of Human Resources Associations. Using thematic analysis, we analyzed how ethics was described, rationales for being ethical, the kinds of ethical dilemmas and issues that were highlighted, and the groups that were most likely to appear in ethically murky situations. Ethical dilemmas were also analyzed using cognitive moral development theory. The majority of textbooks incorporated content on ethics, and overall textbooks outlined a variety of ethical challenges. At the same time, ethics was described as subjective, earlier stages of moral reasoning appeared most often, and self-interested reasons to be ethical or unethical were heavily emphasized. While HRM was frequently mentioned in micro-level situations involving individu...