Organizational emphasis on inclusion as a cultural value and third-party response to sexual harassment
| Published date | 07 January 2019 |
| Date | 07 January 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-02-2018-0032 |
| Pages | 52-66 |
| Author | José Luis Collazo Jr,Julie A. Kmec |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
Organizational emphasis
on inclusion as a cultural value
and third-party response to
sexual harassment
José Luis Collazo Jr and Julie A. Kmec
Department of Sociology, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington, USA
Abstract
Purpose –Reliance on third-party judgments are common in efforts to identify and reduce workplace sexual
harassment (SH). The purpose of this paper is to identify whether a workplace emphasis on inclusion as a
cultural value is related to third-party labeling of and response to an exchange between a male manager and
his female subordinate.
Design/methodology/approach –Participants (n¼308) in an online survey experiment were randomly
assigned to a workplace that emphasized inclusion or one that emphasized individual achievement as a
cultural value. They read a vignette describing a workplace interaction between a male manager and his
female subordinate and responded to a series of questions.
Findings –Organizational emphasis on inclusion is unrelated to third-party labeling of the interaction as SH,
but positively associated with labeling the female’s intention to pursue harassment charges as an
overreaction, and support for the female subordinate in a claim of SH against her manager. Culture is
unassociated with willingness to defend the male manager in a SH claim.
Practical implications –Identifying how workplace culture shapes third-party reaction to harassment can
help employers use third-party witnesses and cultural value statements as tools to reduce SH.
Social implications –A workplace’s cultural emphasis on inclusion is positively related to third-party
support for SH victims implying the importance of workplace context in the fight against workplace SH.
Originality/value –The paper presents the first experimental analysis of how a workplace cultural
emphasis on inclusion affects the third-party observers’reactions to SH.
Keywords Inclusion, Organizational culture, Sexual harassment, Third-party observer
Paper type Research paper
Despite decades of laws prohibiting it, sexual harassment (SH) remains a serious problem at
work. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently resolved roughly
7,000 SH charges, at a cost of nearly $35m in payouts (Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission, 2017). The EEOC’s numbers likely understate the extent to which SH occurs in U.S.
workplaces because SH is underreported (Bowes-Sperry and O’Leary-Kelly, 2005; McDonald,
2012). SH harms its (mainly female) victims (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2017)
by increasing absenteeism, lowering job satisfaction and organizational commitment, and
reducing mental and physical health (Willness et al., 2007). What is more, SH investigations are
among the most sensitive (Dorfman et al., 2000) while SH lawsuits are reputation-damaging
( James and Wooten, 2006; Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2010) and expensive.
Understandably, employers and Human Resource (HR) officers are eager to eliminate SH.
Employers’legal responsibility for SH is linked to the way alleged victims perceive
potentially harassing behaviors (Elkins and Velez-Castrillon, 2008). Yet victims do not
always report incidents of workplace SH (Bowes-Sperry and O’Leary-Kelly, 2005).
Consequently, the identification –and subsequent prevention –of SH frequently relies on
Employee Relations
Vol. 41 No. 1, 2019
pp. 52-66
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-02-2018-0032
Received 2 February 2018
Revised 25 May 2018
Accepted 25 June 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0142-5455.htm
The authorswish to thank Stephen Benardand Emilio J. Castillafor their assistanceand feedback on the
manuscript.Also, the authorsthank the anonymous reviewersand the editor for helpfulcomments on the
manuscript.
52
ER
41,1
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