Ethical Dilemmas in Human Service Management: Identifying and Resolving the Challenges Cheryl A. Hyde Human service managers are called on to make a variety of difficult decisions that often involve fundamental conflicts in values. Such conflicts constitute ethical dilemmas. This qualitative exploratory study examines how human service managers (N �40), from the United States, identify and resolve ethical dilemmas. The dilemmas identified by the managers tended to result in the restriction of missions, programs, services and practice methods. The resolution of these ethical problems often rested on following the very rules that created the dilemmas. Additional strategies included consultations and reliance on abstract principles, specifically those of one’s spiritual faith. Missing, however, were systematic or evidence-based procedures for resolving challenges that often threatened the very goals of the human service agencies. The need for more careful training in the area of ethical problem solving that maintains the vision of human services is presented. Keywords Ethical Dilemmas; Solution s; Human Service Managers; Qualitative Methods Human service managers constantly are called upon to make difficult decisions with regard to service provision, staff support, resource acquisition, and program development. At the heart of many decisions are fundamental conflicts in values: accessibility versus efficiency, social change versus security, or compassion versus compliance. Such conflicts constitute ethical dilemmas, the resolution of which often involves prioritizing and then selecting from a set of competing values and attendant actions. While the importance of ethical conduct is widely acknowledged in the human services, how managers identify and resolve ethical issues has received relatively ISSN 1749-6535 print/1749-6543 online/12/040351-17 # 2012 Taylor & Francis http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17496535.2011.615753 Cheryl A. Hyde, PhD, MSW, is Associate Professor at the Temple University School of Social Work. She serves as Coordinator for the Community and Policy Practice Concentration and Coordinator for the Education, Training and Community Outreach Core of the Center for Intervention Practice and Research. Her primary areas of interest are organizational change, community capacity building, social movements and macro practice ethics. Correspondence to: Cheryl A. Hyde, School of Social Work, College of Health Professions and Social Work, Temple University, 1301 Cecil B. Moore Ave, 517 Ritter Annex Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA. Email: [email protected] ETHICS AND SOCIAL WELFARE VOLUME 6 NUMBER 4 (DECEMBER 2012) http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17496535.2011.615753 little attention (but see Levy 1982; Manning 2003). As a partial means of addressing this gap in the scholarship, I examine how 40 managers, from US human service agencies, name and then address ethical dilemmas in their organizational practice. Based on this analysis, I d.