Power, Status, and Abuse at Work: General and Sexual Harassment Compared

Workplace harassment can be devastating for employees and damaging for organizations. In this article, we expand the literature by identifying common and distinct processes related to general workplace harassment and workplace sexual harassment. Using both structural equation modeling and in-depth case immersion, we analyze content-coded data from the full population of workplace ethnographies—ethnographies that provide in-depth information on the nature and causes of both general and sexual harassment that would otherwise be difficult to gather. Importantly, both forms of harassment emerge in settings characterized by physically demanding work and minority work groups. In such contexts, both general and sexual harassment enforce formal and informal status hierarchies and social exclusion. Grievance mechanisms and “team models” of workplace organization reduce sexual harassment but have no effect on general harassment. We conclude with a discussion of theoretical, legal, and policy implications for identifying and remedying harassment as a widespread and devastating form of inequality and social exclusion in organizations.

[1]  Steven P. Vallas,et al.  The Adventures of Managerial Hegemony: Teamwork, Ideology, and Worker Resistance , 2003 .

[2]  Alexandra Kalev,et al.  Best Practices or Best Guesses? Assessing the Efficacy of Corporate Affirmative Action and Diversity Policies , 2006 .

[3]  T. Juravich.  Chaos on the shop floor: A worker's view of quality, productivity, and management , 1985 .

[4]  J. Fitzmaurice.  Economy and Society , 1998 .

[5]  C. Mueller,et al.  Routine Activities and Sexual Harassment in the Workplace , 1999 .

[6]  Christopher Wright,et al.  Employing Bureaucracy: Managers, Unions, and the Transformation of Work in the 20th Century [Book Review] , 2004 .

[7]  Crossing the Great Divide: Worker Risk and Opportunity in the New Economy , 2002 .

[8]  L. Edelman,et al.  Diversity Rhetoric and the Managerialization of Law1 , 2001, American Journal of Sociology.

[9]  Helene M. Lawson.  Ladies on the Lot: Women, Car Sales, and the Pursuit of the American Dream , 2000 .

[10]  K. Serafin.  [Dignity of work]. , 1978, Pielegniarka i polozna.

[11]  L. Zimmer.  Women Guarding Men , 1987 .

[12]  L. Bereni.  What is sexual harassment , 2004 .

[13]  T. Wan.  Structural Equation Models with Latent Variables , 2002 .

[14]  Amy Blackstone,et al.  Sexual Harassment as a Gendered Expression of Power , 2004 .

[15]  M. Vartia.  The sources of bullying–psychological work environment and organizational climate , 1996 .

[16]  B. Byrne.  Structural equation modeling with EQS : basic concepts, applications, and programming , 2000 .

[17]  C. Morrill.  The Executive Way: Conflict Management in Corporations , 1995 .

[18]  L. Cortina,et al.  Interpersonal mistreatment in the workplace: the interface and impact of general incivility and sexual harassment. , 2005, The Journal of applied psychology.

[19]  Linda D. Molm.  Coercive power in social exchange , 1997 .

[20]  C. Perrow.  Complex Organizations: A Critical Essay , 1975 .

[21]  J. Gruber.  The Impact of Male Work Environments and Organizational Policies on Women's Experiences of Sexual Harassment , 1998 .

[22]  S. Welsh,et al.  Gender and sexual harassment , 1999 .

[23]  Karen A. Hegtvedt,et al.  Justice Beyond the Individual: A Future with Legitimation* , 2000 .

[24]  Jennifer L. Berdahl.  Harassment Based on Sex: Protecting Social Status in the Context of Gender Hierarchy , 2007 .

[25]  P. Blau.  Exchange and Power in Social Life , 1964 .

[26]  L. Hong,et al.  Living Rooms as Factories: Class, Gender, and the Satellite Factory System in Taiwan , 1996 .

[27]  A. Saguy,et al.  Employment discrimination or sexual violence? Defining sexual harassment in American and French law , 2000 .

[28]  Ali Rattansi.  The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 , 1982 .

[29]  Barbara M. Byrne,et al.  Structural equation modeling with AMOS , 2010 .

[30]  N. DiTomaso.  Sexuality in the workplace: Discrimination and harassment. , 1989 .

[31]  Blake E. Ashforth,et al.  Petty Tyranny in Organizations , 1994 .

[32]  L. Edelman.  Legal Environments and Organizational Governance: The Expansion of Due Process in the Workplace , 1990 .

[33]  Denise Salin,et al.  Ways of Explaining Workplace Bullying: A Review of Enabling, Motivating and Precipitating Structures and Processes in the Work Environment , 2003 .

[34]  Helge Hoel,et al.  Bullying and emotional abuse in the workplace : international perspectives in research and practice , 2002 .

[35]  C. Chetkovich,et al.  Real Heat: Gender and Race in the Urban Fire Service , 1997 .

[36]  P. Blau.  The Dynamics Of Bureaucracy , 1955 .

[37]  Barry Hopewell,et al.  In Search of Management , 2002 .

[38]  L. Laflamme,et al.  Abusive Events at Work Among Young Working Adults: Magnitude of the Problem and its Effect on Self-Rated Health , 2005 .

[39]  C. Cooper,et al.  Empirical findings of bullying in the workplace , 2002 .

[40]  Lawrence E. Cohen,et al.  Social Change and Crime Rate Trends: A Routine Activity Approach , 1979 .

[41]  Jayaram K. Sankaran,et al.  On the Study of Settings Marked by Severe Superior-Subordinate Conflict , 1997 .

[42]  A. Gouldner.  Patterns Of Industrial Bureaucracy , 1954 .

[43]  Jane J. Mansbridge.  Beyond Adversary Democracy , 1980 .

[44]  A. Satorra.  Structural Equation Models with Latent Variables , 2002 .

[45]  D. Fink.  Cutting into the meatpacking line: workers and change in the rural midwest. , 1998 .

[46]  Gary Alan Fine.  Kitchens: The Culture of Restaurant Work , 1996 .

[47]  Paul H. Noguchi.  Staying on the Line: Blue‐Collar Women in Contemporary Japan. Glenda S. Roberts , 1994 .

[48]  L. Graham,et al.  On the Line at Subaru-Isuzu: The Japanese Model and the American Worker , 1995 .

[49]  L. Keister,et al.  Gender and the South China Miracle: Two Worlds of Factory Women. , 1998 .

[50]  Steven P. Vallas,et al.  Empowerment Redux: Structure, Agency, and the Remaking of Managerial Authority1 , 2006, American Journal of Sociology.

[51]  J. Sallaz.  Manufacturing concessions: attritionary outsourcing at General Motor’s Lordstown, USA assembly plant , 2004 .

[52]  J. Hearn,et al.  Gender, Sexuality and Violence in Organizations: The Unspoken Forces of Organization Violations , 2001 .

[53]  L. Edelman.  Legality and the Endogeneity of Law , 2001 .

[54]  Employing Bureaucracy: Managers, Unions, and the Transformation of Work in the 20th Century (revised edition) , 2005 .

[55]  Barbara A. Gutek,et al.  Demographic Differences in Organizations: Current Research and Future Directions , 1999 .

[56]  Morris Freilich,et al.  Royal Blue: The Culture of Construction Workers , 1982 .

[57]  Robert H. Guest,et al.  The Foreman on the Assembly Line , 1959 .

[58]  B. R. Ragins,et al.  Antecedents and work-related correlates of reported sexual harassment: An empirical investigation of competing hypotheses , 1995 .

[59]  L. Edelman,et al.  Legal Ambiguity and Symbolic Structures: Organizational Mediation of Civil Rights Law , 1992, American Journal of Sociology.

[60]  Barbara Molony.  Staying on the Line: Blue-Collar Women in Contemporary Japan , 1994, The Journal of Asian Studies.

[61]  Joan Acker.  HIERARCHIES, JOBS, BODIES: , 1990 .

[62]  Elizabeth Clark-Lewis.  Between Women: Domestics and Their Employers. , 1988 .

[63]  L. Edelman,et al.  Legal Environments and Organizational Governance: The Expansion of Due Process in the American Workplace , 1990, American Journal of Sociology.

[64]  Carol T. Kulik,et al.  THIRD-PARTY REACTIONS TO EMPLOYEE (MIS)TREATMENT: A JUSTICE PERSPECTIVE , 2004 .

[65]  Anna Pollert,et al.  Girls, wives, factory lives , 1981 .

[66]  J. Pierce.  Gender Trials: Emotional Lives in Contemporary Law Firms , 1996 .