Exploring the organizational drivers of sexual harassment. Empowered jobs against isolation and tolerant climates
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-04-2017-0074 |
| Date | 12 February 2018 |
| Published date | 12 February 2018 |
| Pages | 174-192 |
| Author | Andrea Ollo-López,Imanol Nuñez |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
Exploring the organizational
drivers of sexual harassment
Empowered jobs against isolation and
tolerant climates
Andrea Ollo-López and Imanol Nuñez
Department of Business and Management,
Public University of Navarre, Pamplona, Spain
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to investigate and identify the organizational drivers of sexual
harassment (SH).
Design/methodology/approach –Drawing on data from a representative sample of workers in Spain, this
paper sheds light on the likelihood of SH influenced by: organizational environment and climate,
organizational forms and structure, and job design parameters.
Findings –The analysis reveals that organizational climates where negative behaviors are tolerated are
particularly advantageous for harassers. Furthermore, the profile of the victims of SH is that they work in
isolation, are contracted through employment agencies, are not given training opportunities, and have low
status in the firm. Analysis also reveals, however, that firms can reduce the risk of SH by empowering jobs
and improving time flexibility.
Research limitations/implications –The use of secondary data implies some constrains: the type of
measure and the failure to control for the role of SH perpetrators.
Practical implications –Managers should adopt some organizational policies, such as empower job or
improve time flexibility, since they reduce the risk of SH.
Originality/value –This paper identifies some objective organizational settings where SH is more likely
and provides some easy to apply solutions to prevent it.
Keywords Sexual harassment, Organizational context, Job parameters
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
While at the beginning sexual harassment (SH) has been treated as a joke, since the 1990s,
eradicating occupational SH from the workplace has become a critical target for workers,
firms, and administration (Thomas and Kitzinger, 1994). In Europe, the Directive 2002/73/EC
is the most ambitiousattempt on eradicating SH on the workplace, even if its applicationhas
faced some important difficulties and challenges Particularly, the arduousness of finding a
clear-cut definition of SH and protecting employers from liability has hindered the total
implementation of the Directive (Gomes et al., 2004).
According to the Directive, SH occurs “where an unwanted conduct related to the sex of a
person occurs with the purpose or effect of violating the dignity of the person, and of
creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment.”
By means of new legislation, all developed countries have tried to protect the victims and
prosecute the perpetrators of SH. Despite all these efforts, recent figures show that SH is still
a serious problem, as many workers and firms are still suffering its consequences
(Aggarwal and Gupta, 2000). It is obvious that harassed individuals (usually women) are the
main victims of SH, and therefore, are the primary focus of all actions intended to prevent it.
As Djurkovic et al. (2008) point out, any workplace bulling affects not only the victims but
also those who witness the bullying, having negative consequences for firms. In this line,
Employee Relations
Vol. 40 No. 2, 2018
pp. 174-192
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-04-2017-0074
Received 3 April 2017
Revised 3 April 2017
23 October 2017
Accepted 31 October 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0142-5455.htm
This research was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education ECO2013-46954-C3-1-R awarded to
Imanol Nuñez and ECO2013-48496-C04-2-R awarded to Andrea Ollo-López.
174
ER
40,2
academic research suggests that they are also serious and costly consequences for firms and
organizations (Knapp et al., 1997; Mueller et al., 2001).
In particular, Willness et al. (2007) find that SH situations intensify job withdrawal,
reduce workgroup productivity, and increase worker distraction. Further, Gettman and
Gelfand (2007) stress that SH is associated with lower organizational commitment, more
turnover intentions, and may accelerate the withdrawal of clients. Lengnick-Hall (1995) also
suggests that SH may generate unwanted publicity, increase legal fees, or repel highly
skilled workers. In general, all these studies stress that tackling SH will undoubtedly benefit
firms’economic and social performance, in addition to protecting workers from the
unacceptable consequences of SH.
The scope of the SH problem has therefore widened, extending the traditional
psychological/legal approach to anorganizational/managerial perspective. Bland and Stalcup
(2001) stress that managing harassment shouldbe based on the application of sound human
resource techniques. This new perspective has been enforced by several researchers from the
field of HR management and organizational studies, and opens interesting new avenues for
research. In a recent research by O’Leary-Kellyet al. (2009), the main results and goalsof this
new perspective on the analysis of SH are described. In particular, the key goal is to identify
and prevent the organizational conditions under which harassment is more likely to occur.
Previous literature in this area has chiefly focused on the organizational context directly
related to SH. In particular, Hulinet al. (1996) introduce the organizational tolerance of sexual
harassment (OTSH) construct, as a measure of the organizational response to SH, which is
much more likely to happen in organizations with high OTSH. However, as pointed out by
O’Leary-Kelly et al. (2009), there is a need to investigate otherorganizational and managerial
factors, as the picture depicted by these directly related factors is not complete. Some other
studies have also analyzed the effectiveness of organizational intervention against SH, with
particular attention to SH training (Walsh et al., 2013; Bustamante and Golom, 2010).
The effect of general job design parameters and organizational factors has been less
investigated and, consequently, several stressors or inducer s of SH may remain
unidentified. Several studies have started to extend SH analysis to managerial elements
such as organizational climate (Willness et al., 2007), organizational procedures and
policies (Williams et al., 1999), or organizational structures (Mueller et al., 2001). Such an
investigation needs to adopt a broader focus; however, perhaps it should follow recent
research on workplace aggression and be more developed in terms of analyzing the effect of
organizational factors (O’Leary-Kelly et al., 2009).
This paper contributes to the current research, chiefly, in two ways. First, several
hypotheses regarding the impact of classic organizational factors on SH are posited and
tested. Well-established managerial concepts such as empowerment, supervision level, or
job formalization are tested against the likelihood of SH. Second, this paper also extends the
analysis of SH to new labor markets, since the existing literature is overwhelmingly (North)
American. The meta-analysis by Topa-Cantisano et al. (2008), for example, does not include
any study based on Spain, and only 11.7 percent of all analyses are based on the European
legislative context. However, D’Cruz et al. (2016) show that cultural and national dimensions
are important and can significantly influence workplace bullying and SH. In this context, the
Spanish case may be particularly interesting in order to show if the precursors of SH are
universal. As explained below, the present analysis is based on two waves (2007 and 2011)
of the Encuesta Nacional de Condiciones de Trabajo (NSWC) official survey of over
19,000 workers from firms based in Spain.
Organizational factors and SH
O’Leary-Kelly et al. (2009) distinguishtwo types of SH antecedents: target-relatedantecedents
(linked to the individual) and organizational antecedents (associated with the firm).
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Exploring the
organizational
drivers of SH
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