Ethics in the public human resource management course: An integrated and case approach to decision making

ABSTRACT

With a solid foundation in public administration since the 1980s, few could argue that ethics is not an important aspect of a public service education. Yet, in many public human resource management (HRM) or personnel courses, ethics is relegated to one class discussion. In this study, we contend that ethics is best understood when situated within the context of other approaches to public administration. In supplying this revised theoretical and fourth approach to Rosenbloom’s three approaches to public administration, we also contend that ethics, as an equally important approach, is best utilized in the public HRM course when done so consistently and frequently using decision-making cases. First, we will explain the addition of ethics as an approach for analysis and introduce a decision-making case. Next, we discuss our research findings from a survey that assessed student responses to the decision-making case from two different MPA programs.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethics
• case teaching
• human resources

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mark K. McBeth

Mark K. McBeth is Professor of Political Science at Idaho State University where he directs the MPA program. He teaches and conducts research on public administration and public policy.

Adam M. Brewer

Adam M. Brewer is an Assistant Professor of Public Administration and Policy at the University of Montana. He teaches and conducts research on public administration and public policy.

Jennifer Lund

Jennifer Lund is a graduate student in the MPA program at Idaho State University.