Double Victimization in the Workplace Discussion Paper

Research question: What business decision can be made to better ensure that the code of ethics is fully enforced?

This research question is important to the research design of the organization because it will determine what measures should be taken as well as help in the executive decisions to arrive at a conclusion. The research design is based on the guidelines of a literature review which will include presumed knowledge as well as new findings from secondary research in regard to the topic; that being sexual harassment in the work environment. (Zikmund, W. G., Babin, B. J., Carr, J. C., & Griffin, M. 2013)

Sexual harassment is a social phenomenon of multiple and different dimensions, denounced by different organizations and institutions and confirmed by various research projects have demonstrated the existence, extent and gravity in the work environment. (Dionisi, Barling, & Dupre 2012)

The current status of the situation in the organization is a lack of enforcement of the ethics code for the organization. Although it has been pointed out that in some cases of workplace bullying can also be given behaviors that could be within the sexual harassment. There is reasonable distinction between the two. This difference is that, in sexual harassment behaviors revolve around sex, and that the victim of sexual harassment, a perception of the behavior of harassment is immediate, while the victims of workplace bullying take time to notice the behavior of harassment. Both have common characteristics, such as the situation of humiliation and attack on the dignity of people in both situations, but sexual harassment has specificity by the goal of the conduct of the harasser and the type of behavior. (Mainiero & Jones 2013) . Double Victimization in the Workplace Discussion Paper

It is one more way to violence, which is a form of intolerable behavior that violates the fundamental rights of the person, with a social impact important enough, because the victims, although there are some cases in both sexes, in the vast majority are women. This effect could become enhanced by a precarious labor situation.  All of this affects the working conditions, as an increasingly serious problem for the organization. (Nielsen & Einarsen 2012)

Concerning sexual harassment in the work environment, and especially concerning victims, there is a widespread belief, which can be classified as a myth that is related to the canons of beauty; however, the problem of sexual harassment has to do with power relations. For example, a worker in a position of power may feel that they can get away with sexual harassment against their subordinate workers. (Diekmann, K. A., Walker, S. D. S., Galinsky, A. D., & Tenbrunsel, A. E. 2013)

The frequency of sexual harassment is repeated; therefore it is not a question of isolated behaviors. Sexual harassment in the organizations is favored by organizational aspects such as the sexualization of the workspace, the proportion of men-women, and the type of tasks they perform, sexual discrimination, the labor climate or the valuation of the work. (Diekmann, K. A., Walker, S. D. S., Galinsky, A. D., & Tenbrunsel, A. E. 2013)

Sexual harassment may be suffered by both men and women. However, perhaps the woman is the main victim, because the labor market is their situation more than hierarchical subordination or unstable employment. Sexual harassment affects mainly young women, low-income, non-professional education, which has been under siege for a long time and only decide to denounce the fact, as a last resort. (Devi 2014)

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One of the problematic aspects of the sexual harassment resides in those cases in which the undesirable behaviors do not lead to a violent action. This may come through insinuations, proposals, verbal expressions which also violate the affected employee, but that makes it more from a psychological perspective that physical, since the violent actions have a clear criminal coverage. (McLaughlin, H., Uggen, C., & Blackstone, A 2014)

If this type of behavior is not addressed, then it may lead to inadequate results produced by employees. This is simply because the existence of sexual harassment in the work environment only serves as a distraction to workers. This distraction hinders work results, employee work output, competence, and focus of business goals. The victim cannot concentrate on their work because they are being harassed. The harasser is unable to focus because they are too busy carrying out their unethical behavior and trying to conceal it. (McLaughlin, H., Uggen, C., & Blackstone, A 2014)

Each person is responsible for determining the behavior that approves or tolerated, which makes it impossible to make a relationship of oppressive behavior. Therefore, the determination of what behaviors are annoying or not is something that depends on the receiver of the behaviors, still at this point irrelevant the intentionality of the issuer of the behaviors. (Diekmann, K. A., Walker, S. D. S., Galinsky, A. D., & Tenbrunsel, A. E. 2013)

Therefore, the sexual harassment consists in the action imposed without reciprocity, unexpected and not well received, frequent and repetitive so that that it can have a devastating effect on the victim. This can include fondling, insinuations, visions, attitudes shocking, jokes with offensive language, allusions to the private and personal lives, references to sexual orientation, sexual innuendo with connotation, allusions to the figure and clothing, etc. In short, this is an unexpected behavior of a sexual nature or other conduct based on sex that affects the dignity of the person. This includes conduct of verbal or non-verbal, physical and undesired behavior. There are a range of behaviors that may constitute as sexual harassment. Such conduct must be unexpected unreasonable, unacceptable and offensive to the recipient. (Nielsen & Einarsen 2012)

The sexual harassment environmental is generated when workers create a hostile work environment with sexual misconduct. This can be sufficiently severe and intense as to alter the conditions of the employees and create an abusive working environment. In this type of harassment the defamatory is the development of a behavior of a sexual nature of any type (jokes persistent and serious of a sexual nature, allusions or rude comments on the intimate life of the worker, requirements for workers to lead a sexually suggestive clothing, etc.). This creates a negative labor context -intimidating, hostile, offensive, humiliating – for the worker, which has as a consequence that the worker is unable to develop its work in a suitable environment, because it is subjected to a kind of pressure from the conduct of a sexual nature in the work that ends up creating a situation intolerable to conduct work. Unfortunately, on many occasions this inadequate work environment can be accepted as a custom or a normal situation in culture. (Dionisi, Barling, & Dupre 2012)

In conclusion, sexual harassment can occur between people of the whole hierarchy labor, both among professionals as among the less skilled workers. In addition, sexual harassment has no age limit. The profile of the victim is not clearly defined, depends on the person and their employment situation. Almost thirty percent of the incidents have been as protagonists to workers without a contract. Therefore, it might be inferred that the precariousness of work is a risk factor. It is because of these variables that business decisions must be made to better enforce the ethics code of the organization to better deter sexual harassment in the work environment. (Zikmund, W. G., Babin, B. J., Carr, J. C., & Griffin, M. 2013)

References

Diekmann, K. A., Walker, S. D. S., Galinsky, A. D., & Tenbrunsel, A. E. (2013). Double victimization in the workplace: Why observers condemn passive victims of sexual harassment. Organization Science, 24(2), 614-628.

Dionisi, A. M., Barling, J., & Dupré, K. E. (2012). Revisiting the comparative outcomes of workplace aggression and sexual harassment. Journal of occupational health psychology, 17(4), 398.

Devi, K. (2014). Sexual harassment of women at work place: myth and reality.VIDHIGYA: The Journal of Legal Awareness, 9(2), 14-19.

Mainiero, L. A., & Jones, K. J. (2013). Workplace romance 2.0: Developing a

communication ethics model to address potential sexual harassment from inappropriate social media contacts between coworkers. Journal of business ethics, 114(2), 367-379.

McLaughlin, H., Uggen, C., & Blackstone, A. (2012). Sexual harassment, workplace authority, and the paradox of power. American sociological review,77(4), 625-647.

Nielsen, M. B., & Einarsen, S. (2012). Prospective relationships between workplace sexual harassment and psychological distress. Occupational medicine, kqs010.

Zikmund, W. G., Babin, B. J., Carr, J. C., & Griffin, M. (2013). Business research methods (9th ed.). Mason, OH: South-Western.

Double Victimization in the Workplace Discussion Paper