MBA8000 - Applied Business Research and Ethics

Assignment 1
MBA8000
06-Mar-18
(Student Details: )

Assignment 1
Table of Contents
Part 1- Ethical Dilemma..................................................................................................................3
Part 2- Analysis of Ethical Dilemma...............................................................................................4
Consequentialism- Utilitarianism................................................................................................4
Non-consequentialism- Deontology theory.................................................................................5
Part 3- Reflection.............................................................................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................8
Bibliography....................................................................................................................................9
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Assignment 1
Part 1- Ethical Dilemma
Workplaces are a brewing ground for ethical dilemmas to be present. One of such ethical
dilemmas was raised in my workplace just a few weeks back. This was related to the matter
which revolved around sexual harassment. This case highlighted that males can also be the
victim of sexual harassment as one of the female co-workers at my workplace, went and
smacked the back of a male co-worker in a very unethical manner. The instance occurred when a
motivational meeting was going in the office and a group activity was being undertaken. As
everyone was busy in the activity, Alice winked at Max initially. After a few minutes, she cross
Max and smacked his back. I was helping myself with coffee and thus became witness of the
entire thing. It was very clear that Max was not comfortable with such behaviour. This is the
reason I approached Max after nearly half an hour and talked to him. He told me that Alice had
undertaken such acts earlier also and he was unsure of a complaint of sexual harassment being
successful against a female colleague. The reason is due to the common misconception that only
women have to face workplace sexual harassment. However, the same is not true, and there have
been cases where even the male co-workers face sexual harassment at workplace.
The ethical dilemma which I faced as a result of this entire scenario was to either stay silent or to
confront Alice in front of the entire office, when the motivation training was going on. However,
I refrained from having a public confrontation as I wanted to hear both sides of coin, before
doing something which could make the entire condition worse. This would also have made Max
very conscious. I was content and satisfied with the course of action I adopted and would give
myself a rating of 7. This is because I had thoroughly analysed the situation before I decided to
stay quiet, so as to stop the situation from escalating. The value which I found conflicting in such
situation was the clash between the virtue of justice and the choice of making the matters worse.
However, in sense of justice, I decided that it was better to stay quiet right now, and deal with the
matter later, where Alice can be talked about the entire case. Where I feel that Alice did
something wrong, I could always help Max in making a compliant in the human resource
department, in order to stop Alice from repeating such acts.
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