Ethical and Legal Issues in Human Resource Development: Evolving Roles and Emerging Trends

By Claretha Hughes

This book explores the role of HRD professionals in ethical and legal decision making in the workplace. While previous books have described the need for ethics in HRD, this book presents ways that HRD scholars and professionals can influence, through collaborative relationships, effective implementation of ethical policies and legal standards in the workplace. The ethical policies of an organization provide a key insight into its values, and this book shows the relationship between those values and HRD practices, such as training and development, career development, and organization development. Exploring such topics as protected classes, diversity intelligence, employee rights, and employee privacy, this book will inform HRD scholars and professionals on researching and enhancing ethical and legal decision making in the workplace.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Release date: Oct 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9783319995281

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© The Author(s) 2019

Claretha HughesEthical and Legal Issues in Human Resource Developmenthttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99528-1_1

1. Introduction: Examining Ethical and Legal Issues in Human Resource Development

Claretha Hughes¹  

(1)

University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, Fayetteville, AR, USA

Claretha Hughes

According to Hatcher (2002), little had been done at that time by human resource development (HRD) to address issues related to ethics and social responsibility besides Swanson’s (2001) addition of the ethics rug beneath the HRD three-legged stool and Kaufman and Watkins’ (2000) work related to addressing societal issues and using strategic planning for HRD (Kaufman, 1992; Kaufman & Guerra, 2002; Watkins, Leigh, & Kaufman, 2000). Swanson depicted ethics as the rug upon which the economic, system, and psychological HRD theories sit and stated that an ‘ethical rug’ serves as a filter through which the integrity of both HRD and the host organization can be maintained (p. 305). There are few theoretical frameworks in HRD for consistently addressing ethics and corporate social responsibility (Ardichvili, 2013; Noelliste, 2013). Therefore, the organization, its processes, and individual performance are often lacking in ethical influence from empirical work of HRD scholars and professionals despite the fact that "[t]he whole theory of HRD is proposed to be the integration of psychological, economic and system theories within an ethical frame" (Swanson, 2001, p. 307).

Nowell-Smith (1957) noted that the words morals and ethics were derivatives of words meaning custom or behavior. Despite being some of the most ethically and legally supportive scholars and professionals, HRD scholars and professionals seem to continuously exert efforts to justify their credibility either within business and industry (Addison & Haig, 1994; Delaney & Sockell, 1992; Gubbins, Harney, van de Werff, & Rousseau, 2018; Rosania, 2000; Woodd, 1997) or within the academic community (Ruona, 2016). Having and abiding by a code of ethics supports ethical and legal efforts but does not ensure that all situations encountered within the workplace or through human interactions, in general, are covered. HRD scholars and professionals are in a unique position to bridge the gap between ethical and legal philosophizing and practice.

Many interactions between people occur daily through either face-to-face engagements or technological interventions (email, social media, and/or artificial intelligence). The emphasis used to be on face-to-face interactions, but the introduction of technology has exponentially escalated the need for comprehensive understanding of ethical and legal issues by HRD scholars and professionals who are often tasked with developing appropriate ethical and legal training and education content and materials for employees and students. Most of the content and materials are designed for enhancing interpersonal interactions among people who must comply with regulations, guidelines, conduct, law, procedures, rules, constraints, and standards that may be new to them. This newness may cause them to not be prepared for the potentially negative influence of the opinions of others on their behavior in the workplace (Ashforth & Anand, 2003; Trevino, 1986; Trevino & Brown, 2004).

This book will explore the role of HRD professionals in ethical and legal decisions making in the workplace. Many workplace decisions may be considered legal but not ethical or vice versa. Distinguishing whether an incident is organizational policy or a legal mandate can create confusion in the workplace. Confusion and competing concerns in the decision-making process may cause a disconnection between employee morals and compliance with the law. It can also cause employee indecisiveness with regards to whether or not they are making a moral decision and whether or not they are in compliance with the law. HRD professionals are expected to encourage individual growth and development of employees’ and leaders’ ethical and legal mindsets through continued dialogue about integrity (Marsick, 1997; Noelliste, 2013). The mindset is very important since behavior emanates from the mind (Dweck,