Taking advantage of a ‘Captive Audience’
School days were the best — a phrase where most of us would have uttered indefinite times. In Sri Lanka, the proportionate of students who attended a government school is very high. A very well established free education system which gives the opportunity for everyone to learn. Since the education is given free and the facilities fee paid to schools are low — concerns regarding the quality of service and value delivery exist, like any other service which is provided at low or no cost. The poor service, teaching and time constraints in school learning lead students to attend private classes. Tutorial Institutes and Teachers are very well known to attract numbers in large in terms of profit and students.
The comparatively low incentives provided by the government have lured its teachers into this industry too. To withstand the competition in the market with other competitors — its important for teachers to have numbers. Therefore, some of these teachers utilize their classrooms as platforms to directly or indirectly pitch the services they provide outside school. Directly pitching would be a teacher openly asking students join his/her tutorial institute and indirect methods could be from providing higher marks for students who attend their private classes in tests, cornering of students, punishing and etc. This method of attraction of a set of students are known as ‘Captive Audience’ and the Teacher is taking advantage on them. Schools are not the only places that these take place — all types of organizations face a situation like this and it can pretty much be toxic to the organization and it’s operations at times. An example for this would be a member of the executive board of a company — who is a part of the hiring process of the organization, can utilize the particular process to recruit employees for his/her personal entrepreneurial venture.
These situations of taking advantage of captive audience leads us to the questioning of ethics and moral. Is it the right thing to do? Well as the question still is on debate as there are various opinions in the air — let me drop mine too.
What is a ‘Captive Audience’?
a person or people who are unable to leave a place and are thus forced to listen to what is being said, these are the people who have no choice but to consume the advertisement as they are captivated in a situation.
As we understand what a captive audience means, to ensure the morality of taking advantage we are in need to know about undue influence and duress too.
Let us go to the example taken in the first instance, that teacher at school had an improper influence on the students and their freedom of choice as the teacher was in a higher role — and the students had no choice but to substitute their desire of attending a tuition class that they wish by attending the school teacher’s one. Personally from experience we have seen this taking place at multiple occasions — students who attend these classes due to the improper influence of the teacher can only be guaranteed good grades (not all teachers provide good grades to those who attend their classes) in the school papers and not the common general exams held nationwide. This vulnerable moment faced by students are the cause of ‘undue influence’. In the legal context when two parties get into a contract undue influence is considered to be not so legal. The legality or illegality of this situation is questionable — what we understand is the nature of influence made by the student to teacher.
What is ‘Undue Influence’?
Improper influence that deprives a person of freedom of choice or substitutes another’s choice or desire for the person’s own
We discussed about the teachers that deliberately punish students or threat them to attend their tuition classes. Well, these type of teachers are inducing wrongful compulsion to students against their will. This wrongful compulsion is also known as ‘duress’. This usually can be considered as an unlawful act from a legal context.
What is ‘Duress’?
Wrongful and usually unlawful compulsion (as threats of physical violence) that induces a person to act against his or her will
We should also look at this from the different perspectives of relevant parties too. The teacher, student and school in a school — the customer, employee and organization respectively. In the organizational context this situation can also arise between employee, manager and company or vice versa where employees markets his venture to the managers which mostly won’t happen due to job security and retention related issues. Any organization operates with a goal and purpose and employees join an organizations by adhering to its agreement. Thus, what an employee would be doing is not ethical and moral as they are verily breaching the opportunities and environment set by the organization. Utilizing the company resources itself is not to be considered as an acceptable practice.
“Side-hustle, Not the same business,” are the usual justifications given to address the misuse of captive audience. In the current context yes there can be businesses that do not align the sector or industry of one another but the interdependency and globalization are connecting links to all organizations despite the nature of its operations. A food catering service, and a shipping company are not in the same sector targeting the same audience but when the shipping company organizes a conference or a dinner it falls under the target audience of the food caterer — not only this shipping company in particular but all shipping companies that plans to host a dinner. This dinner might be business or networking session and can contribute towards the quality and value delivery of the company also the prices charged for food will affect the profits. Even though such occasions can arise on a continuous basis it is would be the duty of the employee to have the integrity and make measured moves. Legally it cannot be a breach but morally it should. Occasions like this would also put personnel into questioning their biasness, and loyalty towards the organizations. For those who claim it to be a side hustle too, the question of morality and ethics exists. I personally do not see it as a side hustle, when you have agreed to work for an organization and contribute towards achieving its purpose — a side hustle can merely be another source of income but also the credibility of the employee is put on line. Why would a company hire and employee who is going to be doing a side business? How can the company ensure that the employee will be loyal and long term?
Finally in conclusion, I would like to express that the idea of entrepreneurship is good — the world needs more entrepreneurs but it should not affect the credibility of the person involved and the development of the organization they are employed.
Hustle, but not while you are a part of someone else’s hustle
