Sexual Harassment in the Workplace: Unanticipated Consequences of Modern Social Control in Organizations

Abstract

The authors integrate research on the causes and consequences of sexual harassment victimization with organizational research to better understand the relationship between harassment and the work outcomes of job satisfaction, job stress, and intention to quit an organization. In doing so, the authors broaden the narrow conceptualization of organizational context that has been considered in previous research on sexual harassment. This broadened conceptualization incorporates features of modern organizational structure, including social integration, structural differentiation, decentralization, and formalization—all argued to indirectly control employees by increasing employee job satisfaction and commitment (and to ultimately increase productivity and reduce turnover). Although these features of modern organizational structure are not intended to reduce sexual harassment, the authors propose and find with a national sample of almost 6,000 employees that they have the unintended consequence of doing so. The authors also propose and find that this context-harassment linkage improves understanding of the often reported relationship between sexual harassment and job dissatisfaction, job stress, and intention to quit.