Lynn Bowes-Sperry

Sexual Harassment at Work: A Decade (Plus) of Progress

This review examines research addressing workplace sexual harassment (SH) since the last major review in a management journal in 1995. The authors examine several aspects of recent research: current definitions, labeling of SH, antecedents to SH, responses to SH, and consequences resulting from SH. They then make suggestions for future research, using research on workplace aggression as a framework.

Why Do Racial Slurs Remain Prevalent in the Workplace? Integrating Theory on Intergroup Behavior

Racial slurs are prevalent in organizations; however, the social context in which racial slurs are exchanged remains poorly understood. To address this limitation, we integrate three intergroup theories (social dominance, gendered prejudice, and social identity) and complement the traditional emphasis on aggressors and targets with an emphasis on observers. In three studies, we test two primary expectations: (1) when racial slurs are exchanged, whites will act in a manner more consistent with social dominance than blacks; and (2) this difference will be greater for white and black men than for white and black women. In a survey ( n = 471), we show that whites are less likely to be targets of racial slurs and are more likely to target blacks than blacks are to target them. We also show that the difference between white and black men is greater than the difference between white and black women. In an archival study that spans five years ( n = 2,480), we found that white men are more likely to observe racial slurs than are black men, and that the difference between white and black men is greater than the difference between white and black women. In a behavioral study ( n = 133), analyses showed that whites who observe racial slurs are more likely to remain silent than blacks who observe slurs. We also find that social dominance orientation (SDO) predicts observer silence and that racial identification enhances the effect of race on SDO for men, but not for women. Further, mediated moderation analyses show that SDO mediates the effect of the interaction between race, gender, and racial identification on observer silence.

Improving Organizational Responses to Sexual Harassment Using the Giving Voice to Values Approach

Despite significant expenditures on organizational responses to sexual harassment, it remains a persistent challenge. We argue that the legal environment has unduly and negatively influenced the ways in which organizations address the problem of sexual harassment and offer an alternative. Giving Voice to Values (GVV) is an action-oriented approach to business ethics education that can be used to improve the ways in which organizations address the phenomenon of sexual harassment (SH). Because of its focus on action and expressing personal values, GVV can be used to prepare targets, observers, and managers to intervene in instances where they may encounter this behavior at work. The original contribution of this article is a detailed application of GVV to the unique organizational issue of SH training. Ways of developing dialogue in response to sexual behavior at work are presented and implications of the GVV approach are discussed.