This study examines the mediating role of rumination, state anger, and blame attribution, and the moderating role of trait forgiveness in the relationship between workplace harassment intensity and revenge among employed students at a medium-sized Midwestern U.S. university and full-time employees from various industries in Shanghai, China. We tested the proposed model using techniques described by Hayes. Results within both samples suggested that workplace harassment intensity is positively associated with both major and minor revenge. Results of (...) multiple mediation tests showed that state anger and blame attribution mediated the relationships between workplace harassment intensity and both types of revenge behavior. Furthermore, trait forgiveness moderated the relationship between blame attribution and major revenge. (shrink)

Drawing on the hypothesis that workplace harassment may be considered a genre of negative communication serving malicious purposes, the purposes of this paper are threefold. In the first place, we consider the difficulties involved in proving workplace harassment before administration or in court. In the second place, we analyse the challenges workplace harassment poses to linguistic analysis, with special reference to genre theory, and suggest ways of making the theory compatible with the new linguistic (...) input the language of harassment provides. Finally, we illustrate the knowledge the expert linguist can offer from the perspective of genre theory in cases involving workplace harassment. In order not to build a castle in the sky, our analysis is grounded in an exemplary case study relating to a specific type of harassment in the workplace that Leymann named « workplace mobbing ». (shrink)

Using 2015 International Social Survey Program (ISSP) data on 38,179 individuals from 36 countries in 9 relatively homogeneous global regions, we analyze the gender differences and the gender gap in perceived workplace harassment (PWH) with particular attention to gender equality's and gender egalitarianism's roles in molding these differences. We find that despite large regional differences, women in most countries are more likely than men to perceive workplace harassment, although this likelihood is higher in countries that score (...) favorably on our gender equality measures. Hence, political empowerment and better economic opportunities alter women's perceptions of workplace harassment, increasing the probability of their experiencing it. Our results also underscore the important roles of values and gender egalitarian practices. Whereas enhanced gender egalitarianism values increase women's perceptions of workplace harassment, concrete practices tend to reduce them. Especially for management, this result highlights the importance of actually implementing gender equality policies at a corporate level, because a discrepancy between corporate values and practices on this issue will only accentuate the perception of harassment. (shrink)

This study was undertaken to investigate whether work variables identified in theory and research as being related to employee experiences/behaviours add to the understanding and explain employees' experiences of workplace harassment. The extent to which social cognitive theory (SCT), specifically moral disengagement, explains the processes by which work characteristics are related to harassment was also examined. The purpose of the study was to identify the presence of relationships among work characteristics, satisfaction, moral disengagement and workplace (...) class='Hi'>harassment. According to the results, employees with negative opinions of their work tended to experience negative affect and to believe that it is acceptable to harm others. The results of this study provide evidence of (1) relationships between harassment and several workplace characteristics and (2) the applicability of SCT to the explanation of how work characteristics relate to harassment. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

This paper takes seriously the idea that one person in a workplace could cause a co-worker to feel ashamed without realising it. This is because the most widely accepted conception of shame does not adequately explain the eliciting conditions of that emotion. I begin by setting out what I take to be the most common account of shame. Next, I note what predictions we would make about which situations will elicit shame in a subject were we to embrace that (...) conception. I then show that these predictions are actually false in three cases out of four. A second analysis of shame is proposed as an alternative that makes better predictions about when shame will be elicited than the first account, and can explain more of the relevant phenomena even when the two accounts of shame make the same prediction about whether the emotion will be elicited in a given scenario. I close with a practical discussion of how this new conception of shame should inform workplace managers who encounter situations in which one worker feels harassed by a colleague and the accused does not understand why her actions made the other worker feel the way they did. (shrink)

This paper takes seriously the idea that one person in a workplace could cause a co-worker to feel ashamed without realising it. This is because the most widely accepted conception of shame does not adequately explain the eliciting conditions of that emotion. I begin by setting out what I take to be the most common account of shame. Next, I note what predictions we would make about which situations will elicit shame in a subject were we to embrace that (...) conception. I then show that these predictions are actually false in three cases out of four. A second analysis of shame is proposed as an alternative that makes better predictions about when shame will be elicited than the first account, and can explain more of the relevant phenomena even when the two accounts of shame make the same prediction about whether the emotion will be elicited in a given scenario. I close with a practical discussion of how this new conception of shame should inform workplace managers who encounter situations in which one worker feels harassed by a colleague and the accused does not understand why her actions made the other worker feel the way they did. (shrink)

Since the mid-nineteenth century, women in Europe, North America and elsewhere have played an increasing role in the workforce. Women started pursuing jobs in factories, offices and businesses instead of being dependent on men for their livelihood. However, along with this significant improvement in the status of women, they still face obstacles, such as the gender pay gab and harassment in the workplace. Although both males and females experience harassment, the available literature clearly suggests that females are (...) more likely to be harassed. Much of the research concerning workplace harassment against women has been conducted in the West while little is known about this phenomenon in workplaces across the Arab and Muslim countries. In fact, gender relations and the nature of workplaces in Arab countries vary significantly from the Western workplace due to religious, social and cultural traditions. Muslim women live in the midst of patriarchal cultures where women’s honour is believed to be sacred. The ideology of women’s seclusion and subordination resulted in the restriction of their ability to participate in the labour force even where females are in urgent need of earned income. In this regard, harassment considers a crucial subject on various international agendas. The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) for instance, reinforces the implementation of legislation that protects women against gender discrimination. Islam in a similar manner respects women and acknowledges their major role within a society. Therefore, as women living in Muslim communities where issues related to sexuality are sensitive, and people are reluctant to discuss such questions in public, this paper aims to discuss women seclusion, the situation of Muslim women with regard to harassment in the workplace, how international human rights deals with harassment as well as the relation between the Islamic jurisprudence and the international human rights with regard harassment in the workplace. (shrink)

The present study endeavors to give a description of a famous case of sexual harass- ment at the workplace and critique it in terms of its embedment of an intertwined relationship between two pervasive ideologies prevalent in our society: patriarchy and consumerism. By focusing on the favorable conditions, ways of resolution, and outcomes of the lawsuit, this essay approaches the organization- al culture of Mitsubishi Motor Manufacturing of America through the lens of critical theory. Selective literature review on sexual (...) harassment, as well as general coverage of the event by the media and the parties involved demonstrate the validity of the claim that this study has made. (shrink)

This article examines ethical implications from workplace romances that may subsequently turn into sexual harassment through the use of social media technologies, such as YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, text messaging, IMing, and other forms of digital communication between office colleagues. We examine common ethical models such as Jones (Acad Manag Rev 16:366–395, 1991) issue-contingent decision-making model, Rest’s (Moral development: Advances in research and theory, 1986) Stages of Ethical Decision-Making model, and Pierce and Aguinis’s (J Org Behav 26(6):727–732,2005) review (...) of workplace romance versus sexual harassment issues. The article makes a contribution by developing a new communication ethics model that includes response positive and response negative contingencies to guide decision-making about inappropriate social media contacts that spillover into the workplace. In addition, we recommend that human resource personnel take a more active role in communicating appropriate ethical rules of conduct concerning the use of social media technologies inside and outside the office. (shrink)

It is widely recognized that workplace sexual harassment has significant negative psychological and personal consequences, and employees facing harassment suffer reductions in productivity. Our contribution is to propose a novel measure of workplace sexual harassment risk and provide a fuller estimation of the firm value impact of sexual harassment. In contrast to recent studies that focus on short-run market reactions to media announcements of harassment scandals, we use employee job reviews to identify low-profile (...) harassment incidents that better reflect the pervasive, toxic environment pertaining to sexual harassment than do newsworthy scandals, and we measure the longer-term effect on firm value starting from the date when harassment risk affects employee morale. We identify firm harassment risk by analyzing employee job reviews and estimate the sexual harassment score (SH) through textual analysis of online job reviews. Our sample of high-SH firms, or firms with unusually high-SH scores, exhibits significant reductions in future stock performance and profitability. For example, firms with a top 2% SH score earn a value-weighted risk-adjusted stock return of − 17% in the 1-year period after high-SH classification, and this damage is concentrated in firms with higher investor attention. Furthermore, high-SH firms experience a decline in operating profitability and an increase in labor costs during a 5-year period around high-SH classification. Our evidence suggests that sexual harassment can cause greater damages to firm value than previously documented. (shrink)

BackgroundSexual harassment in the workplace has many negative consequences for nurses and the delivery of patient care. Appropriate policies and strategies can help to create a safe work environment for nurses. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate Iranian nurses’ strategies for preventing sexual harassment in the workplace.Materials and methodsThis qualitative descriptive-explorative study used conventional content analysis to investigate how Iranian nurses cope with sexual harassment. Participants were selected using a purposeful sampling method. Data was (...) collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews from September 2020 to April 2021. In order to obtain rich information, maximum variation was considered. The Guba and Lincoln criteria were used to increase the study’s trustworthiness, while the Graneheim and Lundman approach was used to analyze the content.ResultsOne hundred and twelve codes, one main category, four categories, and 12 subcategories were extracted. The main category, strategies to prevent sexual harassment among nurses in the workplace, includes four categories: behavioral response, working conditions adjustment, informing, and performance of hospital security guards. The most common strategy used by nurses was behavioral response.ConclusionBasic measures are required to prevent sexual misconduct against nurses, which is an obvious part of the professional organizational culture. Managers and policymakers should develop workplace ethics, legal accountability, and safety. They should also develop training programs and prevention strategies to help nurses improve their coping skills. Further quantitative and qualitative research in other healthcare groups is required to confirm the findings of this study. (shrink)

The persistence of sexual harassment in the workplace, despite the general abhorrence for the behavior and programs designed to eradicate it, is puzzling. This paper proposes that gender differences in perceptions of sexual harassment and power differentials in the workplace which permit men to legitimize and institutionalize their perspective are implicated. These two phenomena combine to result in blaming the victim of sexual harassment for her own plight. Shifting attention to the target of sexual (...) class='Hi'>harassment facilitates the persistence of sexual harassment because the institutionalized responses to the problem remain unquestioned. (shrink)

Most discussions of sexual harassment and laws addressing sexual harassment focus solely on sexual harassment in the workplace and/or in academe. In this paper, I will explore sexual harassment in public spaces such as streets and public transportation. Street and/or transportation harassment is a major problem for women in a number of countries. These forms of harassment constrain women’s freedom of movement, preventing them from taking advantage of opportunities at school, at work, and (...) in politics. I will argue that such harassment must be eliminated if women are to have equal opportunities in society. (shrink)

This article considers, from a feminist perspective, the introduction of the European Equal Treatment Amendment Directive (E.T.A.D.) and its impact on the law of sexual harassment in the United Kingdom. Since feminists identified sexual harassment as a problem for women in the 1970s, feminist legal scholars have focused their attention on the law as a means of redressing it. Bringing claims in the U.K. has been difficult because of the absence of a definition of sexual harassment and (...) reliance in the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 on a comparator approach. These problems are illustrated by the recent House of Lords decision in Pearce v. Governing Body of Mayfield Secondary School(2003). The failure of the House of Lords in Pearce to understand sexual harassment as an issue of substantive equality for women makes the introduction of the European law all the more the pressing. The author discusses the implications of the changes embodied in the E.T.A.D. in the light of feminist theory. She argues that the changes envisaged constitute welcome developments which will make it easier to remedy workplace sexual harassment. However, it is also likely that problems will remain for women in establishing sexual harassment claims, particularly if concepts of reasonableness and unwelcome behaviour continue to form part of the legal definition. (shrink)

Most discussions of sexual harassment and laws addressing sexual harassment focus solely on sexual harassment in the workplace and/or in academe. In this paper, I will explore sexual harassment in public spaces such as streets and public transportation. Street and/or transportation harassment is a major problem for women in a number of countries. These forms of harassment constrain women’s freedom of movement, preventing them from taking advantage of opportunities at school, at work, and (...) in politics. I will argue that such harassment must be eliminated if women are to have equal opportunities in society. (shrink)

Focusing on the U.S. military as a gendered and raced institution and using 33 in-depth interviews with U.S. servicewomen, this study identifies tactics and consequences of workplace harassment that occur through administrative channels, a phenomenon I label bureaucratic harassment. I identify bureaucratic harassment as a force by which some servicemen harass, intimidate, and control individual, as well as groups of, servicewomen through bureaucratic channels. Examples include issuing minor infractions with the intention of delaying or stopping promotions, (...) threatening to withhold military benefits for reporting sexual abuse/harassment, and revoking servicewomen’s qualifications in order to remove them from positions or units. The manipulation of administrative rules and regulations is made possible by the interplay between a gendered and raced organizational climate and bureaucratic features such as discretion, hierarchy, and the blending of work and personal life. I show that bureaucratic harassment has both raced and gendered implications. Ultimately, harassment that is enacted through bureaucratic means is often overlooked but carries distinct consequences for the professional careers and workplace experiences of the victims. (shrink)

The question of what constitutes sexual harassment—from suggestive remarks to outright threats, from off-color jokes to lewd posters on office walls—is contentious, as is the question of how to address sexual harassment. Do all instances of sexual harassment constitute sex discrimination? Are some instances merely sexual attraction gone wrong? Do social policies aimed at eliminating sexual harassment in the workplace violate freedom of expression or do they make working relationships possible between women and men? In (...) this uncompromising yet respectful debate, two philosophers of widely divergent views present clear arguments and then respond directly to each other's reasoning. LeMonchek argues for a feminist perspective on sexual harassment that is sensitive to the politics of gender. Hajdin contends that this perspective is both morally confusing and legally problematic, and that sexual harassment can be better addressed by traditional moral and legal categories. (shrink)

In industrial societies workplace is the only battlefield where people can kill another without running the risk of facing the courts (Leynman, 1996). This picture of dehumanization work reveals that organizations stand as the scene of the permissibility and the justification of harassment at the workplace (mobbing), whichincreased gradually and adverse effects are alarming at the moment, without considering the quality of working life because so far few companies have woken to the fact that it can no (...) longer continue explaining the bankruptcy and instability of these causes as shrinking market, loss of investors, misguided government policies, strategies ineffective advertising and sale but the time has come to recognize that the conspiracies, sabotage, in a word, the struggle for power within each organization is a kind of silent and asymptomatic disease that eventually will kill to make their recovery process irreversible and even less hope of success, although some leaders unconscious be limited to talk about this as mere gossip, but envy is more professional than a potential threat is a lethal weapon that destroys companies from their foundations and from emerging as such. "Everyone against one !...¡ That is the question!". (shrink)

Most businesses are aware of the costs associated with sexual harassment and are concerned about limiting its presence in the workplace. Although the business ethics literature contains work on sexual harassment, it has very little to say on chastity or its value in the workplace, even though unchaste behavior underlies the prevalence of sexual harassment. This article begins this investigation into chastity worth having in the workplace, taking typical company policies as a guide for (...) what kind of chastity is worth having in the workplace in particular. The first question asked in this article is: for what reasons is chastity worth having in the workplace? I consider four answers—harm prevention, respect for employee consent/dissent, respect for others’ dignity, and conflict of interest avoidance—and I examine workplace policies that enforce chaste behavior in search for a unified and underlying reason for these policies. In the process of locating the primary reason for the value of being chaste in the workplace in particular, we will be given tools to develop an account of chastity worth having in the workplace, which I will argue is primarily cognitive, rather than volitional or affective. I conclude that chastity is the disposition not to construe a coworker as a satisfier of one’s sexual interest, and I argue that chastity is valuable in the workplace because it secures coworkers’ ability to have their contributions appropriately valued. The hope is that once the reason and locus of chastity is identified, the professionals who know how to train businesspeople in developing virtues will better be able to focus their attention and efforts. (shrink)

Workplace bullying has been recognized as a major occupational stressor since the mid 1980s. A number of different terms have been used to describe it, including employee abuse, emotional abuse, mistreatment and neglect at work, mobbing, and harassment. In the United Kingdom, a number of reports from trades unions illustrating the pain, psychological distress, physical illness, and career damage suffered by the victims of bullying first drew attention to the issue. However, academic interest in the issue began only (...) recently, and there are still few empirical studies. The most systematic research comes from Scandinavia, where there is strong public awareness and antibullying legislation. (shrink)

Research has shown that a majority of employed women experience sexual harassment and suffer negative repercussions because of it; yet only a minority of these women label their experiences “sexual harassment.” To investigate how people identify sexual harassment, in-depth interviews were conducted with 18 waitpeople in restaurants in Austin, Texas. Most respondents worked in highly sexualized work environments. Respondents labeled sexual advances as sexual harassment only in four specific contexts: when perpetrated by someone who exploited their (...) powerful position for personal sexual gain; when the perpetrator was of a different race/ethnicity than the victim—typically a minority man harassing a white woman; when the perpetrator was of a different sexual orientation than the victim—typically a gay man harassing a straight man; or when violence or the threat of violence was used. The authors argue that the hegemonic norms of acceptable sexual activity privilege heterosexual relationships, legitimize institutionalized forms of sexual exploitation in the workplace, and may protect assailants of the same race and sexual orientation as their victims from charges of sexual harassment. (shrink)

The activities and consequences of workplace bullying and harassment have been widely explored in the literature but mainly studied within the scope of individuals or at the team level. Taking a holistic approach, we associate the concept of bullying with firm-level performance as well as stakeholders’ responses in the market. In this paper, we examine whether and how market investors react to the news of corporate harassment by top officials of publicly listed firms in Korea. Using a (...) standard event study methodology and multiple regression analysis with matched sample, we find significantly negative stock price reactions to news of corporate bullying. We also find that the impact is more salient if emotional bullying is involved and discuss both the theoretical and practical implications of these findings. (shrink)

There is disagreement in the coercion literature over whether an offer, which necessarily lacks a threat, could be coercive, which tends to imply at least some affinity with coercion, which, in paradigm cases, includes a threat. In one difficult sexual harassment case, someone is offered a promotion in exchange for sex, but there is, due to the arrangement of the case, no implied threat or repercussion for refusal. I argue this case counts as coercive since the offer-making attempts to (...) recast the agent's self-image simply by making the offer: the harasser attempts to define his employee as a sexualized object in the workplace to whom it is acceptable to make this kind of offer. Yet, such an offer can only be acceptably made to a woman who would accept sexual intrusions in her career, and it can never be right to assume others are willing to have their business lives sexualized. Thus, the offer is coercive in its disrespect for the employee's autonomy, although it involves no threat. (shrink)

This paper shows that in order to understand and to resolve the problem of sexual harassment in the workplace, the corporate world will have to relinquish some myths. Sexual harassment does not result from ignorance about fact or law. It is not merely a cultural, gender, or communication problem. It is a problem which will be resolved only when the corporate world recognizes that sexual harassment is a moral problem and provides moral education for employees. Until (...) then, it will remain an explosive problem for communication specialists. (shrink)

In industrial societies workplace is the only battlefield where people can kill another without running the risk of facing the courts (Leynman, 1996). This picture of dehumanization work reveals that organizations stand as the scene of the permissibility and the justification of harassment at the workplace (mobbing), whichincreased gradually and adverse effects are alarming at the moment, without considering the quality of working life because so far few companies have woken to the fact that it can no (...) longer continue explaining the bankruptcy and instability of these causes as shrinking market, loss of investors, misguided government policies, strategies ineffective advertising and sale but the time has come to recognize that the conspiracies, sabotage, in a word, the struggle for power within each organization is a kind of silent and asymptomatic disease that eventually will kill to make their recovery process irreversible and even less hope of success, although some leaders unconscious be limited to talk about this as mere gossip, but envy is more professional than a potential threat is a lethal weapon that destroys companies from their foundations and from emerging as such. "Everyone against one!...¡ That is the question!". (shrink)

In determining when sexual behavior in the workplace creates a hostile working environment, some courts have asked, Would a reasonableperson view this as a hostile environment? Two recent court decisions, recognizing male-female differences in the perception of social sexual behavior at work, modified this standard to ask, Would a reasonablevictim view this as a hostile environment? As yet, there is no consensus in the legal community regarding which of these standards is just.We propose that moral theory provides the framework (...) from which business people can construct just procedures regarding sexually hostile environments. We argue that the natural duty of mutual respect of persons and the natural duty not to harm the innocent compels business people to identify sexually hostile work environments from the perspective of the reasonable victim, usually from the woman's perspective. (shrink)

This article examines why an organization might wish to manage workplace romance, and describes a number of alternative approaches to managing dating. At first sight the ethics of dating bans balances the need to protect female employees from harassment against employee rights to privacy and freedom of association — a rights versus rights issue. However, dating bans seem not to be directed at protecting female employees from harm, but rather protect employers from sexual harassment liability claims -an (...) employer self-interest versus employee rights issue. This article advocates a consequentialist approach to the problem, via the factoring in of other harms caused by prohibiting workplace romance. Given that most workplace romances end up in marriage or long-term partnerships, a ban on workplace romance is argued to be antisocial. The incidence of sexual harassment is very low in comparison to the number of longterm relationships initiated in the workplace. This article concludes by citing examples of firms that encourage romance, showing that is feasible to manage any resulting problems within these firms' existing conflict of interest and sexual harassment rules. (shrink)

Observer intervention can be useful in preventing workplace harassment. This research extends the workplace harassment literature by using the Jones et al. ( 1984 ) stigma dimensions and related research (Summers et al., 2018 ; Weiner et al., 1988 ) to highlight differences and similarities between three forms of harassment (i.e., sexual, sexual orientation, religious) and their relations to observer intervention in workplace harassment incidents. Results from two studies reveal differences (controllability, stability, visibility) (...) and similarities (disruptiveness, peril, bystander efficacy, position authority) across forms of harassment in associations with observer intervention. Several differences across harassment of different religious subgroups (Atheists, Christians, Jews, Muslims) are also noted. We explore the implications of these findings and suggest future directions for research in the observer intervention and workplace harassment literature. (shrink)

This study examined the relationship between workplace sexual harassment as perceived by female employees and the family satisfaction of their husbands. It also considered the mediating roles of employees’ job tension and work-to-family conflict and the moderating role of employees’ work–home segmentation preference in this relationship. The results, based on data from 210 Chinese employee–spouse dyads collected at four time points, indicated that employees’ perceptions of sexual harassment were positively related to their job tension, which in turn (...) increased WFC. Moreover, WFC was negatively related to spouse family satisfaction. The negative relationship between sexual harassment and spouse family satisfaction was mediated by employees’ job tension and WFC. Finally, work–home segmentation preference attenuated the relationship between job tension and WFC. Our results provided insightful theoretical contributions and managerial implications for the sexual harassment and work–family literatures. (shrink)

Workplace bullying has a well-established body of research internationally, but the United States has lagged behind the rest of the world in the identification and investigation of this phenomenon. This paper presents a managerial perspective on bullying in organizations. The lack of attention to the concept of workplace dignity in American organizational structures has supported and even encouraged both casual and more severe forms of harassment that our workplace laws do not currently cover. The demoralization victims (...) suffer can create toxic working environments and impair organizational productivity. Some methods of protecting your organization from this blight of bullying are proposed. Bullying has always been part of the human condition; history is rife with references to abuse of power and unnecessary or excessive force. The classic bully story is of Joseph and his brothers, a tale of envy and hostility. The refinement of bullying to include various forms of legally defined social harassment is a relatively late phenomenon, however, dating to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In the United States, bullying is not illegal, whereas it is illegal in many other countries. Bullying is not about benign teasing, nor does it include the off-color jokes, racial slurs, or unwelcome advances that are the hallmarks of legally defined harassment. Workplace bullying is the pattern of destructive and generally deliberate demeaning of co-workers or subordinates that reminds us of the activities of the schoolyard bully. Unlike the schoolyard bully, however, the workplace bully is an adult, usually (but not always) aware of the impact of his or her behavior on others. Bullying in the workplace, often tacitly accepted by the organizational leadership, can create an environment of psychological threat that diminishes corporate productivity and inhibits individual and group commitment. The two examples that follow will help to clarify the difference between harassment and bullying. (shrink)

Sexual harassment is a problem for many organizations. Organizations must understand that sexual harassment lies within the broader context of sex discrimination and inequality of opportunity in the workplace. Sexual harassment is both an illegal and unethical practice. Companies need to implement a policy which respects the rights of individual employees by prohibiting sexual harassment. This policy need to be clearly stated in the company Code of Ethics and enforced rigorously.

This study investigated the relationship between supervisor personality and subordinate reports of exposure to bullying and harassment at work. Three research questions were examined: (a) Is there a direct relationship between supervisor personality and reports of workplace bullying? (b) Is there an interaction between supervisor personality and supervisors' perceived stress as predictors of workplace bullying? (c) Will subordinates who experience bullying at their workplace rate their supervisor's personality more negatively (negative halo effect)? The sample consisted of (...) 207 supervisors and employees within 70 Norwegian restaurants. Supervisors low on conscientiousness, high on neuroticism and portraying high levels of exposure to stress were the subject of significantly more reports from subordinates of exposure to workplace bullying. An interaction between agreeableness and stress was found showing that agreeableness is related to bullying under low levels of stress. In addition, subordinates who perceived their supervisor as being low on agreeableness and high on introversion reported significantly more workplace bullying, supporting a negative halo effect hypothesis. (shrink)

Contrapower sexual harassment occurs when the target of harassment possesses greater formal organizational power than the perpetrator. Traditional conceptualizations of power underlying sexual harassment have either focused on location within organizational hierarchies or sociocultural status differences between men and women. We suggest the utility of simultaneously considering the influence of gender, race, and class on power dynamics at organizational, sociocultural, and interpersonal or individual levels. Using qualitative data obtained from 8 focus groups, 20 interviews, and 1 in-depth (...) case study, we examine how gender, race, and class influence varied sources of power available to perpetrators and targets in workplace contrapower situations. We argue that the exploration of the dynamics involved in contrapower sexual harassment can illuminate broader processes of doing gender and power in the workplace. (shrink)

Workplace politeness concerns the structural, interactional and individual level. Using the example of mobbing, it is illustrated how small acts of impoliteness can lead to the destruction a person psychologically and physically. Particularly, so-called downward mobbing is an increasing problem worldwide; most of the cases are orchestrated by superiors, the people subordinates depend on the most. Data clearly illustrate the social toxin created by up to 45 seemingly small actions in five areas of work life. These actions result in (...) health hazards and ultimately loss of jobs. By example of workplace harassment, it is illustrated how systematic acts of impoliteness are used to manipulate a person's emotion and identity, to ensure anxiety-born solidarity in others while abusing power, with high costs for the target, the organisation, and society. The discussion gives way to considerations about intercultural cooperation at the workplace, showing similarities between subtle devaluations in intercultural communication called microaggression and what has been discussed as mobbing. Overall, impoliteness is deconstructed as a sign of degrading social bonds, security and health, thereby raising awareness of the importance of intercultural interaction without microaggression. The practical value of linguistic impoliteness research and its connection to work psychology becomes apparent. (shrink)

Women's experiences with sexual harassment were analyzed with three types of variables: occupational and workplace sex ratios, organizational policies and procedures for dealing with sexual harassment problems, and women's cultural status. Regression analyses revealed that extent of contact with men was a key predictor of incidence of harassment, number of different types of harrassment, sexual comments, sexual categorical remarks, and sexual materials. Gender predominance was a significant predictor of physical threats and sexual materials. Informational methods were (...) less successful than proactive methods in reducing incidents of sexual harassment. The analyses support two generalizations. The “contact hypothesis” tested and verified by Gutek and her colleagues provides a substantive understanding of our findings on workplace and occupational numerical predominance. Second, organizations that take a variety of steps to address sexual harassment are more apt to be successful in curtailing the problem than those relying mainly on “get out the word” techniques. (shrink)

Analysing sexual harassment law in British Columbia, this paper argues that in highly sexualised work environments, in which practices including sexual ‘jokes’ or innuendo may be common, law embodies and (re)creates the gendered subtext of the workplace. When a complaint of sexual harassment from a sexualised workplace is raised in a legal forum, a complainant has an obligation to clearly object to the sexual remarks, ‘jokes,’ banter, etc.—which may be the ‘norm’—to show the conduct in question (...) was unwelcome. At the same time, however, a workplace may be structured, in part by law, in a way that restricts employee resistance to uncomfortable sexual experiences. This is the case, I argue, for women working in full-service restaurants when it comes to sexual interactions with customers. This paper explores how restaurant work, in the Canadian context with a focus on the province of British Columbia, is organised in a manner that makes women vulnerable to enduring sexually harassing practices as a routine part of their jobs. (shrink)

Although sexual harassment in the workplace is illegal, it often goes unreported. This study employs causal evidence to evaluate one deterrent to reporting: bias against women known to be sexual harassment targets. I theorize about the form this bias takes and test the argument with a national survey experiment run in five waves from October 2017 to February 2018, where participants were asked to propose employment outcomes for an employee with one of four harassment experiences. Participants (...) were less likely to recommend a woman for promotion if she self-reported sexual harassment relative to otherwise identical women who experienced nonsexual harassment or whose sexual harassment was reported by a coworker. The woman who self-reported sexual harassment experienced normative discrimination: that is, the promotion bias was significantly mediated by perceptions that she was less moral, warm, and socially skilled than the woman whose coworker reported her sexual harassment. These results indicate that women may hesitate to report sexual harassment because they rightly perceive that doing so could cause them to experience bias. Yet they also suggest that bias can be avoided if a bystander reports the harassment. Finally, exploratory analyses suggest that in the wake of #MeToo this bias may be fading. (shrink)

Research on sexual harassment in the workplace has followed several trajectories: the extent of sexual harassment, labeling sexual harassment, responses to sexual harassment, and contributing factors to sexual harassment. Much of this research has been necessarily applied, leaving theoretical frameworks concerning sexual harassment underdeveloped. This research uses the case of the sexual harassment of temporary workers to develop grounded theory to provide a more structural understanding of sexual harassment. While temporary employment (...) has increased dramatically in the past 15 years, researchers have only recently begun to document the effects of this trend. This research is based on 68 in-depth interviews from two broader studies on clerical temporary work in Chicago and Los Angeles. The researchers find that the organization of temporary work fosters sexual harassment through the magnification of asymmetrical power relationships. (shrink)

It is shocking to notice that universities still research few of what daily happens inside their walls. Even though knowledge amount to just a small part of the numerous things that are produced in/between academic relations, it is rare to find investigations in which academic modus operandi is the research focus. The text relies on references like Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari to investigate the subjectivities produced in Academia’s daily routines. With attention to experiences, to what many times is naturalized and (...) said only in the corridors and behind the scenes, this paper uses autoethnography as its method with the aim of analysing academic relations in the context of a Brazilian public university. The narratives constructed here are traversed by songs, lived situations, and affectations. Stories that deal with trajectories of a professor since his arrival at a new workplace. E-mails, threats, exoneration. What is considered to be normal in Academia? What still shocks and affect us? The paper draws on concepts like moral harassment and academic pimping to guide the written narratives and to deepen analyses built throughout the paper. How is it possible to de-naturalize what we daily do in universities? Without predefined or definite answers, the text questions the ways how we relate to each other in Academia and stimulates reflections on the impacts of our academic relations, not only to work itself, but also to the lives of the involved ones. (shrink)

Research on sexual harassment in the workplace is extensive, yet research on sexual harassment in housing is extremely limited. In this study, the author qualitatively analyzes 60 cases of sexual harassment in rental housing to expand on recent research addressing this topic by examining the forms and processes of housing-related sexual harassment in more detail, with a particular focus on class and race. This study reveals that sexual coercion is the most common form of sexual (...) harassment for women in housing. It also demonstrates the intersections of race, gender, and class in shaping this harassment. Landlords used their institutional authority in the housing context and racialized gender stereotypes to exploit tenants'economic vulnerabilities and sexually coerce them. Landlords also used these strategies to defend themselves against complaints of harassment. (shrink)

Researchers have given some attention to women law enforcement officers' experiences and perceptions of sexual harassment. Yet, few studies have determined how the interaction of gender and race affect African American women's perception of this workplace impediment. This article explores one group of women's experiences in a U.S. sheriff's department. Interview data gathered from 65 African American women who are active and former law enforcement officers provide a comprehensive examination of how African American women in nontraditional criminal justice (...) occupations experience racialized sexual harassment. Differences in degree and frequency of harassment are found among the women in different cohorts based on their job tenure, marital status, and the race of their harassers. (shrink)

This study investigated the relationship between supervisor personality and subordinate reports of exposure to bullying and harassment at work. Three research questions were examined: Is there a direct relationship between supervisor personality and reports of workplace bullying? Is there an interaction between supervisor personality and supervisors’ perceived stress as predictors of workplace bullying? Will subordinates who experience bullying at their workplace rate their supervisor’s personality more negatively? The sample consisted of 207 supervisors and employees within 70 (...) Norwegian restaurants. Supervisors low on conscientiousness, high on neuroticism and portraying high levels of exposure to stress were the subject of significantly more reports from subordinates of exposure to workplace bullying. An interaction between agreeableness and stress was found showing that agreeableness is related to bullying under low levels of stress. In addition, subordinates who perceived their supervisor as being low on agreeableness and high on introversion reported significantly more workplace bullying, supporting a negative halo effect hypothesis. (shrink)

In 2018, three journalists accused one of the Members of the Russian Parliament of harassment at workplace. Many influential persons of the Russian elite engaged themselves in the public discussion of the conflict. We studied that high-profiled discussion using a hybrid method merging human- and logic-oriented approaches in argumentation studies. The method develops ideas of the new dialectics, the argumentation logic and the logical-cognitive approach to argumentation, on which is based the algorithm for determining of dispute resolution by (...) aggregating formal and informal tools of analysis. We have reconstructed the discussion as two disputes about questions A and B. A: Did the MP violate the code of conduct by making statements or actions against the journalists? B: Are actions like the behavior of the MP harassment? The opinions of the discussion participants were grouped into the four points of view: A1 – the MP did not violate the code of conduct, A2 – the MP violated the code of conduct, B3 – the actions are not harassment, B4 – the actions are harassment. We mapped arguments in support or against each of them using OVA software, evaluated the arguments with the help of the critical questions, a tool proposed in the new dialectics, and determined the ultimate A + B resolution by applying of the algorithm that combines elements of gradual and labelling semantics from the argumentation logic and the classification of disputes from the dialectical approaches. The resolution was a subset of four arguments that ensured the victory of A1+B4. However, the substantial incompatibility of those arguments highlighted a deep disagreement, an unresolvable difference of opinion, between the parties about the permissibility of courtship. The deep disagreement, a bonus result yielded by the application of the hybrid method, excluded the interpretation of the determined resolution as convincing for the parties, but pointed out a way to smooth the difference of opinions by elaborating of legal, social and moral aspects of the problem of harassment at workplace. (shrink)

The recent deluge of sexual harassment allegations in the media serves as a reminder that sexual harassment remains a pervasive, destructive occurrence in the workplace. Organizations in the United States have taken a legal‐centric approach to managing workplace sexual harassment, resulting in impotent anti‐harassment policies, ineffective sexual harassment training, and underused reporting mechanisms. In this conceptual paper, I argue that men's differential perceptions of sociosexual behaviors have propagated this legal‐centric approach, which fails to (...) meet organizations’ ethical obligation to provide a safe and healthy work environment. Specifically, men have a different psychological experience of sexual harassment, which may inhibit their ability to take the perspective of targets. This lack of perspective‐taking has influenced the jurisprudence on workplace sexual harassment, which has in turn informed organizations’ approach to managing the phenomenon. I contribute to research on both business ethics and workplace sexual harassment by integrating two bodies of scholarship that have developed largely independent of one another: organizational psychology and legal. In so doing, I offer an explanation for the continued pervasiveness of workplace sexual harassment despite decades of legal sanction, organizational interventions, and research. (shrink)