The Price of Opportunity for a Fresh Graduate

The case follows Agness, a young graduate beginning her first professional role in a luxury real estate firm dominated by male employees. As she navigates an attractive career opportunity, she encounters increasingly ambiguous interactions with the firm's owner-manager, including personal attention, expensive gifts, and implicit expectations that appear to blur professional and personal boundaries. Through Agness's experiences, the case encourages discussion about the definition and perception of sexual harassment, the role of power asymmetries, and the particular vulnerabilities that employees may face in a small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) where formal governance structures and human resource processes are generally absent. The case also highlights the practical dilemmas of responding to inappropriate workplace behaviour when the alleged perpetrator is the organisation’s key decision-maker. Keywords: Sexual harassment; small and medium-sized enterprise (SME); employee silence; employee well-being; boundary management; human resource management. The case relates to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals: · SDG 5 (Gender equality) · SDG 8 (Decent work and economic growth) · SDG 10 (Reduced inequalities) Teaching notes for this case available for educators: Šilenskytė, A., & Delecour, T. (2026, September 7). TEACHING NOTES for the case: The Price of Opportunity for a Fresh Graduate. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22644611