Political correctness and workplace culture: A phenomenological study

2 Developing an Applied Research Study Topics I am interested in examining for my applied research study are: whether political correctness (PC) is helpful or hurtful to a workplace culture; what attitudes are associated with PC-culture and how they are experienced in a business-place environment; how employees and leaders react to PC and non-PC expressions and what this means for developers of workplace culture. The preliminary title for my study is: “Testing the Limits of PC-Culture in the Workplace: A Phenomenological Analysis of the Helpfulness and Hurtfulness of Political Correctness in the Workplace.” The problem that has led me to become interested in studying this topic is that PC-culture has dominated the news in recent years; it has been lampooned by comics (Season 19 of the long-running animated adult cartoon show South Park was dedicated entirely to satirizing political correctness); it has acted as a support for movements among college campuses, where “safe spaces” have been installed to protect peoples’ feelings; it has changed the way businesses approach the workplace environment, as people struggle with the fear of facing termination or even prosecution for committing an offense against PC-culture norms. In a country that has long valued free-speech but also valued equality and fraternity, the effect of PC on workplace environments is particularly controversial because of the limitations and standards it imposes. The question remains: are they helpful or hurtful for workplace cultures? The subjects I would like to study are workers in a public radio broadcasting station. The culture of the workplace environment is representative of the other workplace cultures because it is situated within a PC-framework. What is interesting about this workplace is that in adhering to PC norms, it has become more and more apolitical in its expressions—culminating most recently with the CEO advising all employees to refrain from making political statements at or away from work during the recent 2016 presidential election. The fear was that if an employee made a comment that was viewed as insensitive or offense to someone else, the radio station might experience unwanted blowback—so all manner of political expression was warned against. This disgruntled many employees, who felt their rights were being violated. Did the workplace culture suffer as a result? The importance of studying this problem is that it gets to the heart of what it means to bring ethics into the business environment on a social level. PC-culture is dedicated to placing standards upon people that not all people wish to abide by. If PC-culture causes some to chafe and become resistant to the overall aims of the company as a result, should political correctness be used as an appropriate framework for developing a workplace culture? What I hope to accomplish with this research is to test the limitations of PC culture in a real workplace environment by using phenomenological analysis to assess the individual experiences of employees at the radio station, identify themes that emerge, and use imaginative variation to distill the essence of the experiences into a single, coherent narrative that can provide an understanding of the helpfulness and hurtfulness of political correctness in the workplace. The value that this would bring to the field of business and business ethics is that it would give workplace culture developers a better sense of what to do and what not to do when devising and implementing a strategy to enhance their own workplace culture and advance the aims of the company.