Names: Bacay, Rv Joy Date: November 8, 2022

Saplan, Vanessa
Section: BSA-2

Governance, Business Ethics, Risk Management and Control

Case study: Ethics And Responsibility

A woman is sexually harassed by a top-level senior executive in a large company. She

sues the company, and during settlement discussions she is offered an extremely large
monetary settlement. In the agreement, the woman is required to confirm that the
executive did nothing wrong, and after the agreement is signed the woman is prohibited
from discussing anything about the incident publicly. Before the date scheduled to sign
the settlement agreement, the woman's lawyer mentions that she has heard the
executive has done this before, and the settlement amount is very large because the
company probably had a legal obligation to dismiss the executive previously. The
company however wants to keep the executive because he is a big money maker for
the company.

Case Analyzation:

The issues of integrity in this case is that the company is obviously ignoring her
civil rights as an individual. The company kept a man who is known for sexual
harassment in their company just because of the amount of profit he brings into the
company. There should be a higher moral standard for the company itself, this
executive is going to constantly present an inappropriate image for the company. Soon
people are going to stop applying there because the employees aren’t treated equally.
Even though they are providing hush money for the woman, that doesn’t mean that her
memory of harassment will disappear. As I see it the woman has about two options in
this situation. One, she can decline the settlement amount and continue with the sexual
harassment case. This is a risk that’ll possibly cause her to be fired from this job,
however if she wants true justice, she should expose the executive for who he truly is,
instead of being another quiet victim. The second option is that she can accept the
settlement, keep her job there at the company, and become another victim of sexual
harassment. Which may cause another girl the fall in the same position that she was
once in.
 The case study illustrates how a corporation strives to conceal the truth, resulting
in the integrity of the organization being compromised. The company is not
demonstrating its integrity by admitting the truth; instead, they are attempting to conceal
the true nature of the problem. The ethical issue raised in the case study is that the
corporation is not adhering to ethical standards since its employees are engaging in
unethical actions, and the company is assisting them rather than standing up against
the wrong; they are standing with the wrongdoings of their CEO. Furthermore, there are
no ethical values to be identified in the company's business practices. The corporation
goes to great lengths just to protect their executive from the woman's legal actions.
Legal concerns raised in the case study includes the corporation demanding to
sign a settlement agreement with the woman in order to acknowledge that the CEO has
done nothing wrong and to pledge not to expose the subject in the future. Taking legal
action is not the best course of action since it encourages the wrong behavior being
carried out by one of the company's senior executives. The woman is faced with a
decision between two options. (1) The first option is to accept the company's offer to
sign the settlement agreement and accept the substantial monetary compensation. (2)
The second option is for her to reject the offer and proceed with her legal action against
the firm.
The woman should ideally choose the second option since it will teach a lesson
to the senior executive and also because she will be able to assist in preventing a
similar issue from occurring in the future. The woman can also protect other female
candidates working for the organization from being subjected to the same type of
harassment as she was. She can also alert the other female candidates to the fact that
this type of harassment is taking on in the organization. If she accepts the monetary
amount and signs the agreement, the senior executive will not learn a lesson from the
experience; rather, he will grow in strength and will be encouraged to engage in similar
behaviors in the future as a result of the experience.