What Do Norwegian Leaders Claim to be Doing to Prevent Sexual Harassment in their Organizations?

Abstract

This study explores Norwegian leader's claims about the sexual harassment policies and approaches in their organizations. Based on twelve interviews we find that although leaders claim that their organizations have reporting procedures, most leader’s lacked clear definitions of sexual harassment and presented policies that were not integrated with other organizational policies, and did not include continuous training and follow up. Using template analysis we found three themes in leader’s presentation of their approaches and policies: certainty and uncertainty, clarity and ambiguity, and proactive and reactive. The leader’s descriptions of what their organizations do were often characterized by uncertainty and ambiguity, yet most of the leaders had proactive approaches embedded in their policies. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.