Organizational emphasis on inclusion as a cultural value and third-party response to sexual harassment

Abstract

PurposeReliance 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/approachParticipants (n=308) 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.FindingsOrganizational 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 implicationsIdentifying 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 implicationsA 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/valueThe paper presents the first experimental analysis of how a workplace cultural emphasis on inclusion affects the third-party observers’ reactions to SH.