Business Ethics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words - 5

Business Ethics - Essay Example However, the fact is that when she received a harassing message from a prospective employer on a professional networking site, she finally reached her tipping about online sexual harassment. A portion of the message read that â€Å"I think you are beautiful and I and interested to hear more about your modelling experience. Have you ever thought about being an executive assistant? I make a lot of money and travel to some amazing places. I would take good care of you. One question though, are you single?† Quite clearly, for a professional networking, which people used to build business connections, this message did not only cross the limit of acceptability but also creepiness. There are no doubts about the fact that sexual harassment (Ferrell, Fraedrich, & Ferrell, 2012, pg. 74) is a serious issue and that even before the advent and mass proliferation of social media, employers and managers had always been facing a difficult time in combating with ever increasing sexual harassme nt at workplace. Now that social networking sites have become an imperative aspect of the lives of people, it appears that they have provided a new medium and breeding ground for harassers (Trevino & Nelson, 2010, p. 42; Ferrell, et al., 2012, p. 74). This paper makes an attempt to understand the issue of sexual harassment as discussed in the article Casserly (2013) from the perspective of business ethics, provide recommendations for combating with this problem and identify its impact on the stakeholders. Discussion Dynamics of Sexual Harassment and Online Sexual Harassment Much of the online sexual harassment on is â€Å"quid pro-quo† in nature (Devettere, 2002, p. 467). Quid Pro-Quo refers to an arrangement of giving something in return for something else. In most cases, the victims are likely to receive a message from someone with a higher position, authority and influence with a dreamy but conditional offer; the condition being their willingness to provide sexual favours or entering into a sexual relationship with that person. The immorality of these messages is massively apparent as it coerces the subject into doing something that he or she would not have done in normal circumstances (Trevino & Nelson, 2010, p. 42; Ferrell, et al., 2012, p. 74). As mentioned earlier that the business ethics issue highlighted in this article is that of online sexual harassment as faced by Hatcher, the case in focus, and several other women highlighted in the article from LinkedIn, specifically and several other online networking sites as well. There are several definitions of sexual harassments. In fact, legislators, experts, researchers and policymakers from different parts of the world have taken different approaches to define sexual harassment. Furthermore, sexual harassment might take different forms but one singular, common and defining element of sexual harassment is when the victim feeling being excessively â€Å"uncomfortable†. This is exactly what ha ppened in the case of Hatcher, as argued in this article, that this invitation or message from Marcus was so disturbing and stressful for her that she no longer felt safe and comfortable regarding the same. Although, the data about the victims of sexual harassment (Ferrell, Fraedrich, & Ferrell, 2012, pg. 74) reveals that both the genders have been