Essay Sample on Business Ethics: A Key to Organizational Success & Preventing Unethical Issues

The success of any organization extensively depends on business ethics, because observation of fundamental ethical principles relating to internal relationships boosts employees' morale and commitment, hence foster optimal productivity. In this regard, employers and employees must adhere to all social and inter-personal relationship boundaries to evade and eliminate the possible emergence of unethical issues such as sexual harassment. This ethical issue culminates in the poor performance of business organizations because they create a hostile working environment, which diminishes job satisfaction among industrious employees and end up in an inflated employee turnover rate. Cases of sexual harassment emerged in the last three years in some companies such as Fox News Group, an American based Media Corporation.

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Thesis Statement

Sexual harassment at workplaces constitutes an ethical issue that adversely affects organizational performance by creating the feeling of job dissatisfaction among employees, increase turnover rates, and tarnish organization profile.

Description of Sexual Harassment Issue and the Overall Impact

Sexual harassment has become a prominent ethical issue at the workplaces in recent years, where women are the most affected. According to Cheung, Baum, and Hsueh (2018), research conducted among workers in the tourism sector in Asia indicated that sexual harassment is fuelled by several factors such as the prevalence of alcohol, long working hours, night shift programs and power differences. Disappointingly, males, particularly in top positions such as managers, use their power to push for sexual attention from the employees. Notably, in some cases, women are obliged to give in the demands either under the influence or by free will, primarily to safeguard their jobs or avoid being sidelined when companies promote employees to new positions. The USMSPB survey of 1980, 1987, 1994, and 2016, 44% of females and 19% of males experienced sexual harassment at the workplace in 1994 (Hersch, 2019). These research findings reveal that not only women suffer from sexual harassment, but even men go through sexual demand pressure at the workplace.

Noteworthy, sexual harassment has a tremendous impact on the affected employees as well as the general performance of the concerned organization. Cheung et al. (2018) indicate that sexual harassment results in deterioration of working relationships that culminate in employee dissatisfaction and, ultimately, high employee turnover. Unwanted sexual advances at workplaces lead to stress among the affected employees who prefer quitting their jobs since the hostile environment affects their self-esteem. On the other hand, the organization where such cases get reported experience financial losses besides the negative portrayal of the company image. For example, ford Motor Company lost revenue of $75.325 billion (0.09%) in 2017 compared to the year 1998, which emanated from sexual harassment liability (Hersch, 2019). The author also indicates that "in 2016, Fox News CEO and Chairman Roger Ailes was ousted in light of the barrage of evidence of longstanding sexual harassment against many female Fox News employees"(p.156). These two cases confirm the many negative impacts of sexual harassment on the image and performance of organizations.

Practices That Eliminate Negative Behaviors in Organizations

Despite the prevalence of negative ethical behaviors at the workplace, such as the mentioned sexual harassment, there are many approaches that organizations can adopt to solve these problems. Employers should always draft and disseminate a policy that prohibits harassment and outline the reporting procedures (Hersch, 2019). The availability of this policy deters some employees from engaging in harassment acts with the fear of harsh disciplinary actions. Additionally, the organizations can set extremely high damage fee that follows lawsuits for any individual involved in sexual harassment. Looking at the case of Fox news organization, its ethical practices stand on an average rate because, despite its good intentions in the media industry, some of its managerial employees engage in sexual harassment at the workplace hence demeaning the efforts of the organization.

References

Cheung, C., Baum, T., & Hsueh, A. (2018). Workplace sexual harassment: exploring the experience of tour leaders in an Asian context. Current Issues in Tourism, 21(13), 1468-1485. https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/59251/1/Cheung_Baum_Hsueh_CIT_2017_Workplace_sexual_harassment.pdf

Hersch, J. (2019, May). Efficient Deterrence of Workplace Sexual Harassment. In the University of Chicago Legal Forum, Forthcoming (pp. 19-18). https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2135&context=faculty-publications