Self Interest Vs Company Interest Case Study

Self interest v.s. company interest

Power is of paramount importance in workplace. It is the ability of a person, team, or organization to influence others. With the power, politics behavior in workplace will be generated. Manager or employers have power in the workplace. Whether equity can be achieved highly depends on how the employers or managers use their power. Equity can be achieved if all the managers put the company interest first rather than their self interest. However, we cannot guarantee all the employer in workplace put the company at a higher place than their own interest. Thus, equity cannot be achieved all the time in workplace.

Job demotion and promotion as one of the common inequality in workplace. Some managers would misuse

It is about an individual controlling or threatening another individual. In most cases, it is an abuse of power (Greenberg, 2011). Sexual harassment in workplace happens usually when there is large power difference. The supervisors use what the employees desire or afraid of to control the employees. For instance, the promotion, higher performance in evaluation form, increase in salary etc. Some employees may tolerate owing to these resources held by the supervisors. It is no doubt that the unwelcome sexual behaviour is against the law which mean that the employee can sue the manager or the company in order to achieve justice. However, not every victim will report their case as they know what they will face once they have reported to the police. As reporting the case will bring negative impact to the company as well as the employee’s future career, the employees may also worry that they may lose their job too. On the other hand, the victim may worry that their complaint will be claimed as false since the lack of evidence. Therefore, not every victim will report their case, some may tolerate and hide the problem. Thus, the equity cannot be achieved when the power in workplace is too strong that make them to keep it as

For example, according to ‘Social Trends in American Life: Findings from the General Social Survey Since 1972’, there are still people stereotypes that Whites are more hardworking compared to Blacks. If a manager keeps this perception and stereotypes Blacks as less hard working, he or she can make a wrong decision in the management process, e.g. prefer to hire a White applicant instead of a Black applicant. The wrong judgment was being proven to occur in the famous study done by Bertrand and Mullainathan (2004). Their study tests how likely applicants with a typical Black name will receive a chance of interview compare with those with a typical White name. The test is done by sending bogus resumes with typical Black names and typical White names and see whether each of them can receive an interview opportunity. The result shows that African-Americans were 16% less likely to be invited for an interview compared with White Americans. As long as the racism concept appears in managers’ mind, race discrimination cannot be eliminated and equity cannot be achieved in the workplace.

Age discrimination is another factor that leads to inequity in the workplace. The Equal Opportunities Commission has just released the findings on age discrimination in employment. More than one in three employed respondents have faced some form of age discrimination at work over the past five years. Mature workers, especially those aged 50 and above,