MGMT 4125-01-HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT | Social Responsibility within the NBA | Instructor: Carolyn Brown |

By: Montilia Tripp
9/21/2012
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Ever since I was a kid, I have taken a liking to the National Basketball Association better known as the NBA. Like millions of other kids around the world, the NBA caught my attention because of its larger than life athletes. Some of whom are the best athletes on the planet. I wanted to be just like those athletes, and the athletes that I have idolized wanted to be like the ones before them. Although known to most for its great athletes, the NBA’s business people are equally as awesome. “The NBA was founded in New York on June 6th of 1946 by a group of Hockey Arena Owners and began as the Basketball Association of America.” (www.nba.com). As a very small sports organization, it began with only 11 teams. After combining its association with another basketball league the BAA changed its name to the National Basketball Association or in short NBA. With great leadership and aggressive marketing efforts the small league of 11 teams has blossomed into one of the most, if not the absolute most, successful sports entertainment organizations in the world. “It features 30 teams throughout the United States and Canada, and currently has offices in China, South Africa, England, Turkey, Spain, Mexico, France, and Moscow” (www.nba.com). As a business, “the league has made a commitment to excellence,” believes in equal opportunity, and “recognizes the importance of job satisfaction and the need to balance the demands of work and personal life” (www.nba.com). It has incorporated a developmental league to help with player development and helped facilitate the dream of so many to play in the NBA called the National Basketball Developmental League (NBDL). It has also been at the forefront of providing women a forum to perform professionally in the United States with the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA). NBA also “understands that the visibility of the teams and its players obligate them to demonstrate leadership in social responsibility” (www.nba.com). “Corporate social responsibility is a company’s commitment to meeting the needs of the parties with an interest in the company’s success” (www.nba.com). “Human resource departments support this type of strategy by helping establish programs that enable and reward employees for efforts at social responsibility” (Fundamentals of HRM, p. 45). There are several other responsibilities of a company’s HR department such as designing jobs, recruiting, hiring, training, performance management, and employee relations just to name a few. However, “the strategic challenge of how to be both profitable and socially responsible” is becoming one of the main responsibilities for HR departments in today’s companies (p. 45). With the increasing number of environmental and community problems that our world is facing today, organizations are finding it humane, satisfying, and even profitable to give back and invest into the communities and environments that it serves. Some of the ways that the companies are exercising social responsibility include minimizing environmental impact, providing high-quality products and services, and measuring how well the company is meeting the needs of its customers, community, investors, and employees. Companies are realizing, more and more, that having a positive image and lasting effect on the people you serve is great for business. People want to be associated with a business that is visibly providing a hands-on service to the communities, constantly doing positive works for the environment, and is at the forefront of helping society break down barriers. Those barriers range from diversity in society and the workplace, change in the role of women in society and the workplace, and even equal opportunity for handicapped and people alike. In business, the bottom line is that all companies are