Sexual assault at workplace has been a major issue over the past years and yet, has been perpetually ignored. According to an article on Huffington Post, 71% of the women do no report to the HR department for being assaulted due to the male dominating culture discomforting women, mainly due to the reason that, it ‘requires men’ to be their reference to move up the organizational structure.
Harvey Weinstein has become the most recent sex assaulter making it on news, for allegedly paying victims millions to stay silent. In 2014, Weinstein offered sex to actress Emily Nestor, and in return he would ‘boost’ her career. Ever since Weinstein’s scandal flared-up last month, women around the world have come forward, opening up about sexually assaults, leading to the initiation of the #metoo campaign
Figure 1: Core values towards a positive workplace culture
Fox News’s former Anchor, Bill O’Reily who was fired in April 2017 has also been accused for the past decade, for sexually assaulting women. Similar to Weinstein’s scandal, women were reportedly paid millions by O’Reily or Fox News to stay silent over the assault. O’Reily had been reported to have paid $32 million to women before signing his previous contract with the corporation.
Sex scandals and other corporation cultural issues are now taken more seriously by personnel in the high levels of the organizational hierarchy. A blog written by my COMM 101 classmate, Boris Lai made a point on former UBER CEO, Travis Kalanick’s who allegedly had himself attached to strings of scandals, leading Uber to a loss of $3 billion. I believe that in the 21st century, culture is an aspect which should be taken seriously if a company wants to succeed. Today’s consumers do not only take the product into their consideration, they are more concerned about the whole process itself. Companies such as Uber or Weinstein can be axed with millions in legal costs, putting these companies in a poor financial position, hence causing them to lose their competitive position in their respective markets.
Moreover, to take a further insight into corporation culture, I believe corporate culture is always created by those who are in the higher levels of the hierarchy. This is because managers/CEOs who are in the higher levels of the organizational structure, communicate down the hierarchy; their practice and values are slowly adapted by the whole organization itself, making it a ‘norm’ for all employees. Hence, I believe the most significant aspect in a business is the CEO/leader of the company. Individuals placed at the highest hierarchical levels are responsible for the creation of the corporate culture in addition to determining how the organization should be ran.
I believe it is time for companies to focus more on corporate culture if they want to succeed.
Word Count: 450
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/ 2017/10/05/us/harvey-weinstein-harassment-allegations.html
http://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-oreilly-settlement-20171021-story.html
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/margaret-gardiner/why-women-dont-report-sex_b_11112996.html
http://www.rebeccajones.biz/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/dreamstime_l_44559445.jpg
https://blogs.ubc.ca/blaiblog/2017/09/25/the-future- of-ride-sharing/
