Organizational failure to ethically manage sexual harassment: Limits to #metoo

Abstract

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.

#Metoo or #Hertoo? A Moderated Mediation Model of Gender Differences in Perceptions of Sexual Harassment

“…Investigation of gender differences remains relevant because legislatures, the judiciary, and organizational leadership continue to be male dominated (Chappie & Humphrey, 2014 ; George & Yoon, 2016 ). Public and organizational policy regarding sexual harassment is still largely determined by men (Clarke, 2020 ). Men’s differential experience of sociosexual behaviors in the workplace may contribute to the insufficiency of public and organizational policy in curtailing harassment.…”

“…However, the #metoo movement founded by Tarana Burke and a myriad of media accounts of high-profile perpetrators (see, e.g., Carlsen et al, 2018), have brought to light that workplace sexual harassment remains a serious problem. One reason for this may be that gender differences in the psychological experience of sociosexual behaviors prevent many men from taking the perspective of sexual harassment targets (Clarke, 2020). Several gender differences related to sexual harassment find support in the literature.…”

“…It appears that no published studies have examined whether harassment is perceived to be employment discrimination since Murrell et al ( 1995 ). Yet sexual harassment is an exercise of power and used to maintain social dominance over the target (Berdahl, 2007 ; Clarke, 2020 ). Clarke et al ( 2016 ) posited that due to women’s historical and persisting inequality in the workplace, being the target of sociosexual behaviors at work is a reminder of that inequality.…”

Imagine yourself in her shoes: Investigating the role of perspective-taking on perceptions of sexual harassment

“…Despite specific definitions of sexual harassment in research and legal and institutional policies, there remains widespread disagreement among lay people about what behaviors constitute sexual harassment as well as considerable group differences in these perceptions (e.g., Clarke, 2020;Fitzgerald & Ormerod, 1991). For example, some evidence suggests older adults may be more attuned to sexual harassment than college-aged perceivers (e.g., Blackstone et al, 2014;O'Connor et al, 2004;Ohse & Stockdale, 2008) and women tend to have a broader definition of sexual harassment than men do (e.g., Gutek & O'Connor, 1995;Rotundo et al, 2001).…”

Antecedents of Sexual Harassment: A Case of Asian Firm’s Financial Performance

“…In other conditions, the annoying erotic behavior of co-workers makes the working environment antagonistic and unfriendly-putting unintended burden on her to leave the job. Occasionally, the worker is so disturbed by the nuisance that she agonizes serious expressive and corporeal concerns and very often, turn out to be incapable to complete her job correctly (Clarke, 2020). Additionally, sexual harassment is statistically connected to over-all rudeness and it inclines to co-occur in organizations, leading to grander deteriorated worker comfort with the addition of each type of workplace exploitation (Harrison, Trevethan, Pasciak, & Irwin, 2020).…”