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Enkelejda Kokonozi
Gerri Ippolito
Business Ethics 250
23 January 2015

Business Ethics About Sexsual Harassment

Business ethics about sexual harassment
Business ethic are set of codes of conduct within an enterprise organization to cater
for the needs of the employees in a business environment. These ethics have established
practical means that are aimed to managers or leaders in a workplace. Business ethics is about
on moral standards that ensure behaviors get aligned with the core values of the business
(Keith,20) Additionally business ethics concentrates on the moral standards that need to get
applied in business institutions, policies, and behaviors.
Business ethics recognizes there are three different types of issues namely;
individual, systemic and corporate. Firstly, personal issues in trade ethics are the ethical
problems brought about by particular individual or just a mere individual in the workplace.
Secondly, the corporate issues, in a business workplace are problems raised by a particular
company. Eventually, ethical questions raised by the social, political and economic systems in
an enterprise environment are known as systemic issues. For this reason, business ethics by
definition is a kind of applied ethics that incorporate not only the moral values but also
analysis of the moral forms. But it also attempts to findings of the analysis of the
technologies, assorted institutions, activities, transactions, and pursuits (Joseph, 132).
As a result, business ethics, in other words, is a form of applied ethics. It includes not
only includes the study of moral values, moral norms, but also tries to implement the

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conclusions of the report to that variety of institutions, transactions, pursuits, activities, and
technologies. In general, the business ethics are based on in determining what is wrong or
right in a business working place. This regards with effects of services or products and in
relation to stakeholders. It is essential to note that business ethics is important in making a
business successful, this can also be an attributed to the reason many business organization
fail to become successful. Business ethics is based on law, but at times they provide a
blueprint that organization has to follow in order to be publically accepted and for an
organization to be successful.
Although there has been much interest in practicing healthy business ethic in the
workplace or any business organizations, little to no attention has been focused on healthy
relations between sexual harassment and ethical business practices. While most organization
have taken a step to address the issue regarding sexual harassment at the corporate level by
enforcing sexual harassment policies and business ethical codes there is no evidential
research that has been considered in examining the ethical ideology. Various studies have
been carried to investigate the link on how to identify unethical social-sexual behaviors
between employee and employee moral ideas behind it. The results from the study clearly
dictate that moral ideas have a great impact on the employee ability to realize any form of
sexual and verbal harassment behavior. The effect of such actions is widely noticeable from
afar by how person correlate in a working environment.
Cases of sexual harassment in an ethical business workplace are often severe
and much more complex, complicated, sophisticated, and engrossed with social behaviors,
emotional state, political affair and mental condition of an individual. Relationship at
workplace can sometimes result into an intense, personal and very intimate. This kind of
feeling being close to another person, can be the stepping stone to crossing the boundaries
(Praveen and John, 174-175). In most working place employees reliable on each other

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support considerably but also depend a lot on the approval of their supervisors and managers
for a chance of career success and job promotions. In some rare cases, the supervisor or
managers can overuse their authorities and power on the employee which can also lead to
sexual harassment. Sexual harassment can also be contributed to other aspects outside a
business organization like divorce, losing of a person in ones family, financial difficulties
among other things (Joseph, 132).
Although there may be many method to stop the fight against one being harassed in a
workplace the most operational and advisable way if for any employee to eliminate sexual
harassment by being ethical as much as one can in a working environment and avoiding
personal favors. Sexual harassment can get defined as any unnecessary sexual favor or
attention that can be physical or verbal. It can also get termed as an exploitation behavior by
person who are in higher rank exploiting their power to their junior or the people with lower
ranks. All employees need to get protected from exploitation and abuse by the federal and
state laws against the sexual harassment in the working places (Keith, 75). The federal and
state laws offer resolution against being abused in workplaces through the civil rights act. The
civil right law against discrimination in business working place provides protections to all
business organization with more than fifteen employees. On the other hand the smaller
companies with less than fifteen employee, the employee are under the protection of the State
laws against sexual harassment in other word the Sexual Harassment Law.
There are two primary classifications of the sexual harassment in an ethical business
workplace namely; Violent Work Environment Aggravation and QUID Pro Quo Aggravation.
The Quid Pro Quo Harassment is typically observed in the enterprise environment by an
individual with more power over other persons. Quid pro quo has a meaning of this for that
or one action need to be reciprocated by another action. Quid pro quo harassment entails
expression or an implication for sexual favors so a for the other party to gain some benefit

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like a salary raise, recommendation, good grades or a job promotions so at the other party
which is an employee no to be demoted, have a bad grade, be terminated or retrenched within
a business organization. The second category, Hostile work environment harassment is
observed in a by an unwelcoming, degrading work environment characterized offensive
behavior. The aggressive behavior can be in different forms like: unnecessary comment from
one employee to another regarding their appearance, circulation of offensive picture,
offensive jokes, gifting of offensive sexual objects, intimidation, and hostility, gossiping
about an employee sex or family life. All the named offensive behavior have not direct
relation to the job but have a great impact to the person who is the receiving end. All the
named aggressive behavior have not direct relation to the job but have a significant impact on
the person who is the receiving end (Praveen and John, 174-175).
According to recent studies, sexual harassment in a business organization is a
phenomenon that is gradually increasing over the years. The most effect between men and
women is the later. With the world evolving women have risen and currently occupying posts
that used to be mainly occupied by men thus, is why they are the primary target in
workplaces. Additionally these studies have clearly indicate that among the most sexual
cases reported almost 70% of them were against women and only 30% or fewer men had
experienced discrimination and sexual harassment in working the environment(Joseph,
135).. In conclusion, sexual harassment is a very demeaning, illegal, and discriminating
behavior in any institution whether a school or business organization. Laws and legal
enforcement need to get taken seriously against individual who is practicing this unethical
behavior.

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Works Cited
Joseph, Weiss. Business Ethics: A Stakeholder and Issues Management Approach.
Cengage Learning. Copyright, 2008, Print.
Keith, Dromm. Sexual Harassment: An Introduction to the Conceptual and Ethical
Issues. Broadview Press. Copyright, 2012,Print.
Praveen, Parboteeah and John, B. Cullen. Business Ethics Routledge. Copyright,
2013, Print.