Organisational responses to workplace harassment. An exploratory study
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/00483480910920697 |
| Published date | 26 December 2008 |
| Date | 26 December 2008 |
| Pages | 26-44 |
| Author | Denise Salin |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
Organisational responses to
workplace harassment
An exploratory study
Denise Salin
Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration, Management and
Organisation, Helsinki, Finland
Abstract
Purpose – The aim of this paper is to explore what kind of measures personnel managers have taken
to intervene in workplace harassment and to explore how organisational characteristics and the
characteristics of the personnel manager affect the choice of response strategies.
Design/methodology/approach – The study was exploratory and used a survey design. A
web-based questionnaire was sent to the personnel managers of all Finnish municipalities and data on
organisational responses and organisational characteristics were collected.
Findings – The study showed that the organisations surveyed relied heavily on reconciliatory
measures for responding to workplace harassment and that punitive measures were seldom used.
Findings indicated that personnel manager gender, size of municipality, use of “sophisticated” human
resource management practices and having provided information and training to increase awareness
about harassment all influence the organisational responses chosen.
Research limitations/implications – Only the effects of organisational and personnel manager
characteristics on organisational responses were analysed. Future studies need to include perpetrator
characteristics and harassment severity.
Practical implications – The study informs both practitioners and policy makers about the
measures that have been taken and that can be taken in order to stop harassment. It also questions the
effectiveness of written anti-harassment policies for influencing organisational responses to
harassment and draws attention to the role of gendered perceptions of harassment for choice of
response strategy.
Originality/value – This paper fills a gap in harassment research by reporting on the use of
different response strategies and by providing initial insights into factors affecting choice of
responses.
Keywords Bullying, Discipline, Human resourcemanagement, Gender, Harassment,Finland
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Studying harassment in the workplace is important because of the many negative
consequences associated with it. For example, different forms of harassment have been
shown to result in stress reactions, health complaints and lower job satisfaction
(Fitzgerald et al., 1997; Mikkelsen and Einarsen, 2002). This means that organisational
profitability may be negatively affected through higher absenteeism, a higher turnover
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0048-3486.htm
The author would like to thank Jeff Hearn and other members of the Research Group on Gender
Relations in Organisations, Management and Society at the Swedish School of Economics for
helpful and constructive comments in connection with this study. The study was funded by the
Academy of Finland (decision number 212759).
PR
38,1
26
Received 26 February 2007
Revised March 2007
Accepted 11 November 2007
Personnel Review
Vol. 38 No. 1, 2009
pp. 26-44
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0048-3486
DOI 10.1108/00483480910920697
of personnel and lower productivity (Di Martino et al., 2003; Faley et al., 1999; Hoel et al.,
2003). Despite this, we know relatively little about what organisations actually do
when harassment is reported or otherwise discovered (cf. Brown and Sumner, 2006 on
workplace aggression). Thus, this study aims to explore organisational responses to
harassment. More precisely, it aims to describe and explain forms of organisational
responses to harassment in Finnish municipalities.
Workplace harassment can take many different forms. Although sexual harassment
has received much attention in US literature, some studies have indicated that other
forms of generalised workplace harassment are even more common (Richman et al.,
1999). What is more, in European studies, the reported prevalence rates of non-sexual
forms of harassing behaviours have been much higher than the prevalence of
“unwanted sexual attention” (e.g. Hoel and Cooper, 2000). In several Western European
countries, broader anti-harassment legislation, which explicit ly addresses also
psychological non-sexual harassment, has been introduced lately (e.g. Di Martino
et al., 2003). As the first region in Northern American jurisdiction, Quebec enacted
similar legislation in 2004 (Harvey and Keashly, 2005).
In Finland, since 2003, employers have been required to “by available means take
measures to remedy the situation” if harassment or other inappropriate treatment
occurs (Occupational Safety and Health Act 738/2002). The term “harassment or other
inappropriate treatment” refers to both psychological harassment, or “bullying”, and
sexual harassment, although separate legislation on sexual harassment ha s been
enacted previously. In line with Finnish legislation, in this study, the term
“harassment” has been used as an umbrella term for both psychological
harassment/bullying and sexual harassment; however, emphasis is placed on the
former. Empirical studies have also confirmed that when Finnish personnel managers
are asked to define and describe workplace harassment they mention both sexual and
psychological forms of harassment, but report the latter form as considerably more
common (Salin, 2006a).
Although a number of studies have been conducted concerning the prevalence of
sexual and psychological workplace harassment (see, e.g. Ilies et al., 2003 and Zapf
et al., 2003 for reviews) and factors increasing the risk for different forms of
harassment (see, e.g. Hoel and Salin, 2003; Pryor and Fitzgerald, 2003 for reviews), we
know little about organisational responses to these problems. Even in countries where
employers are explicitly required by law to intervene in harassment, employers are
typically themselves required to decide the nature of the response or responses needed
to end the harassment. For instance, in Finland there is still no general consensus on
what or how much an employer is expected to do, and both in Finland and other
countries there is a paucity of research on how organisations actually are responding.
What is more, the vast majority of studies on harassment have been conducted by
collecting data from self-reported targets, while the perspective of organisational
representatives, such as senior managers, line managers or hum an resource
management (HRM) professionals, is largely missing. While individual responses to
harassment (e.g. Zapf and Gross, 2001) and employee perceptions of organisations’
capabilities to take action (Salin, 2006b) have been studied, organisational responses
have been consistently ignored in research. Some researchers have addressed the
effectiveness of preventative measures, such as training programmes (e.g. Antecol and
Cobb-Clark, 2003). Still, there is little research on what the organisational responses
Responses to
workplace
harassment
27
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