Binary logics and the discursive interpretation of organizational policy: Making meaning of sexual harassment policy

Abstract

Although workplace policies are written in neutral terms that give the appearance of rationality, research shows that policy meanings are in fact constructed and negotiated through discursive practices. Sexual harassment policies illustrate this phenomenon. Sexual harassment is a highly complex and fluid phenomenon that is dependent on context and culture for its meaning. Although sexual harassment policies tend to use language that appears to lie outside of the interpretive stream, these policies are in fact always subject to discursive interpretation. One particularly powerful form of discursive interpretation lies in the interplay between binary logics and binary language. This study explored the interplay between macro-level binary logics, mezzo-level sexual harassment policy and micro-level binary language during organizational members' discussions about their organization's sexual harassment policy. Our analysis of focus group and interview data revealed that participants discursively produced what we have termed a complex binary web that reshaped the meaning of the policy, such that usage of the policy contradicted organizational norms and values. Understanding sexual harassment policy discourse as constructed in a binary web reveals that rational assumptions underlying sexual harassment policy may be inconsistent with the lived experiences in organizational cultures.

Managers' practice of managing diversity revealed: A practice-theoretical account

“…Additionally, given this study identified variation in managers' practice regardless of whether the organization had a strong diversity mandate, future research should empirically examine how organizations' (conflicting) diversity policies and activities produce and reproduce particular managerial ways of performing managing diversity. This is particularly pertinent in light of recent empirical research, demonstrating how “objective” organizational policies are interpreted in multiple ways in people's lived experience of them (Dougherty & Goldstein Hode, ).…”

Reconstructing Retirement as an Enterprising Endeavor

“…The construction of retirement as a period of entrepreneurial endeavour highlights how successful ageing has failed to resolve the issue of heterogeneity in later life. The construction does not treat the binary pairing of the success/decline discourses as neutral or morally equivalent (Dougherty & Hode, 2016). Rather it privileges a particular version of successful ageing (one where enterprise may be required) over earlier versions (where health and activity were sufficient markers) which are now aligned with decline.…”

“…These discourses of continued youthfulness and decline work together with consequences for individuals through the construction of identities that promote 'a particular view of what persons are and what they should be allowed to become ' (du Gay, 1996, p.3). Underpinning binary logics shape the structure by which meaning is produced and create subject positions which are linked to other hierarchical binary pairings such as young/old and male/female (Dougherty & Hode, 2016). Those positioned within the binary discourses of continued youthfulness and decline may find themselves targeted with new and problematic labels, particularly in relation to work.…”

Online Commentary Regarding Workplace Harassment

“…To combat this issue, organizations are attempting to minimize harassment in the workplace by creating anti-harassment policies (DOL, 201;Dougherty & Goldstein, 2016) and offering harassment training (Levin, 2016). While policies and trainings offer awareness of the functional definitions of workplace harassment, these strategies may prove inadequate for eradicating harassment in the workplace due to ambiguous definitions and confused perceptions of what qualifies as harassment (Branch, Ramsay & Barker, 2013;Gordon, Cohen, Grauer & Rogelbert, 2005;Pierucci, Echterhoff, Marchal, & Klein, 2014;Toker, 2016).…”