Mindy E. Bergman

Safety climate and injuries: an examination of theoretical and empirical relationships.

Our purpose in this study was to meta-analytically address several theoretical and empirical issues regarding the relationships between safety climate and injuries. First, we distinguished between extant safety climate-->injury and injury-->safety climate relationships for both organizational and psychological safety climates. Second, we examined several potential moderators of these relationships. Meta-analyses revealed that injuries were more predictive of organizational safety climate than safety climate was predictive of injuries. Additionally, the injury-->safety climate relationship was stronger for organizational climate than for psychological climate. Moderator analyses revealed that the degree of content contamination in safety climate measures inflated effects, whereas measurement deficiency attenuated effects. Additionally, moderator analyses showed that as the time period over which injuries were assessed lengthened, the safety climate-->injury relationship was attenuated. Supplemental meta-analyses of specific safety climate dimensions also revealed that perceived management commitment to safety is the most robust predictor of occupational injuries. Contrary to expectations, the operationalization of injuries did not meaningfully moderate safety climate-injury relationships. Implications and recommendations for future research and practice are discussed.

The (un)reasonableness of reporting: antecedents and consequences of reporting sexual harassment.

This study places the reporting of sexual harassment within an integrated model of the sexual harassment process. Two structural models were developed and tested in a sample (N = 6,417) of male and female military personnel. The 1st model identifies determinants and effects of reporting; reporting did not improve--and at times worsened--job, psychological, and health outcomes. The authors argue that organizational responses to reports (i.e., organizational remedies, organizational minimization, and retaliation) as well as procedural satisfaction can account for these negative effects. The 2nd model examines these mediating mechanisms; results suggest that these mediators, and not reporting itself, are the source of the negative effects of reporting. Organizational and legal implications of these findings are discussed.

Structural equation models of sexual harassment: longitudinal explorations and cross-sectional generalizations.

Sexual harassment and its corresponding outcomes develop and change over time, yet research on this issue has been limited primarily to cross-sectional data. In this article, longitudinal models of harassment were proposed and empirically evaluated via structural equations modeling using data from 217 women who responded to a computerized questionnaire in 1994 and again in 1996. Results indicate that sexual harassment influences both proximal and distal work-related variables (e.g., job satisfaction, work withdrawal, job withdrawal) and psychological outcomes (e.g., life satisfaction, psychological well-being, distress). In addition, a replication of the L. F. Fitzgerald, F. Drasgow, C.L. Hulin, M.J. Gelfand, and V.J. Magley (1997) model of harassment was supported. This research was an initial attempt to develop integrated models of the dynamic effects of sexual harassment over time.

Test of the cross-cultural generalizability of a model of sexual harassment

Sexual harassment research has been primarily limited to examination of the phenomena in U.S. organizations; attempts to explore the generalizability of constructs and theoretical models across cultures are rare. This study examined (a) the measurement equivalence of survey scales in U.S. and Turkish samples using mean and covariance structure analysis and (b) the generalizability of the L. F. Fitzgerald, F. Drasgow, C. L. Hulin, M. J. Gelfand, and V. J. Magley (1997) model of sexual harassment to the Turkish context using structural equations modeling. Analyses used questionnaire data from 336 Turkish women and 455 women from the United States. The results indicate that, in general, the survey scales demonstrate measurement equivalence and the pattern of relationships in the Fitzgerald et al. model generalizes to the Turkish culture. These results support the usefulness of the model for explaining sexual harassment experiences in a variety of organizational and cultural contexts.

Race as a moderator in a model of sexual harassment: an empirical test.

L. F. Fitzgerald, C. L. Hulin, and F. Drasgow (1995) proposed that victim characteristics, such as race, might moderate the relationships between sexual harassment and its job, psychological, and health status outcomes. This study describes 2 theoretical positions, tokenism and double jeopardy, that could account for this possible moderation by race, as well as the alternative view that no moderating effects exist. The effects of race are empirically examined through simultaneous path analysis. Results indicate that whereas mean levels of harassment differ across race, the phenomenon of sexual harassment unfolds similarly across races; race is not a moderator of the relationships between sexual harassment and the variables proposed as its antecedents and outcomes.

Identity and Language: Contributions to and Consequences of Speaking Spanish in the Workplace.

Language is an important marker of identity. Guided by social identity theory and using a grounded theory approach, this study examined how languages are chosen and shape experiences in the workplace. Results suggest that language use is influenced by both external (norms, business needs) and internal (identity, language comfort) processes. Furthermore, speaking Spanish in the workplace has both positive (inclusion, camaraderie) and negative effects (exclusion, harassment, discrimination), with many more negative effects reported by our participants. Speaking Spanish appears to mark the speaker as an outsider. Together, our results indicate that language use is an important choice, personally and professionally, for employees and plays an important role in the way individuals are treated in the workplace.

Test of Motowidlo et al.'s (1997) Theory of Individual Differences in Task and Contextual Performance

Although much attention has been given to noncognitive predictors of job performance, few theories have addressed why assessments of noncognitive abilities and orientations are predictive. Drawing on the work of Motowidlo, Borman, and Schmit (1997), a framework is tested to explain the proposed relationships among noncognitive abilities, cognitive abilities, and procedural knowledge. In this framework, procedural knowledge, or understanding of the social and psychological context in which core business processes are embedded, is proposed as a direct antecedent of contextual performance (Borman & Motowidlo, 1993, 1997). Further, both cognitive and noncognitive individual differences are proposed as antecedents of both procedural knowledge and contextual performance. Two studies, which provide initial empirical support for this framework, are presented.

Shouldering a silent burden: The toll of dirty tasks

Dirty work involves tasks that are stigmatized owing to characteristics that the public finds disgusting, degrading, or objectionable. Conservation of resources theory suggests such experiences should induce strain and decreased work satisfaction; social identity theory suggests such work should lead to strong psychological investment in the work, among other outcomes. Integrating these two perspectives, this study hypothesizes and presents quantitative evidence from 499 animal-shelter workers, demonstrating how dirty-work engagement relates to higher levels of strain, job involvement, and reluctance to discuss work while negatively influencing work satisfaction. Additionally, this study takes a unique perspective on dirty work by focusing on dirty tasks within a dirty-work occupation. The data suggest meaningful differences between the outcomes of dirty-task frequency and dirty-task psychological salience, providing additional insight into the complexity of stigmatized occupations and ways in which future research and theory benefit as a result.

Racial/ethnic harassment and discrimination, its antecedents, and its effect on job-related outcomes.

A general model of workplace prejudice acts, their antecedents, and their consequences is proposed and examined in the context of racial/ethnic harassment and discrimination (REHD). Antecedents proposed and tested here include context and climate, whereas consequences proposed and tested here include work, supervisor, and opportunity satisfaction and turnover intentions. The theoretical model is first tested and cross-validated in two ethnically diverse subsamples (approximately 2,000 each). Then, hierarchical multigroup modeling was conducted to determine whether the relationships among REHD, its antecedents, and its outcomes are equivalent across five racial/ethnic groups (N = 1,000 per group) in the U.S. military. This addresses the issue of differential exposure (i.e., varying amounts of stressors across groups) versus differential vulnerability (i.e., discrepant impact of a stressor on outcomes across groups) across racial/ethnic groups. Consistent with expectations, results suggest that although racial/ethnic groups differ in their mean exposure to REHD, the relationships among REHD and its outcomes are the same across race/ethnicity, supporting the differential exposure view. In addition, the results show some differences between antecedents and REHD across race/ethnicity.

Unique and Joint Effects of Sexual and Racial Harassment on College Students' Well-Being

This study examined the sexual harassment (SH) and racial harassment (RH) experiences of Asian, Black, multiracial, and White male and female college students (N = 2,009). Research questions were (a) Do sex and race influence the frequency of SH and RH; (b) Do SH and RH have unique, additive, and/or interactive effects on psychological outcomes; and (c) Do sex and race moderate the relationship between SH/RH and psychological well-being? Analyses indicated that SH/RH frequency varied as a result of ones combined sex–race identity, SH/RH had individual, additive, and interactive effects on psychological well-being, and both sex and race moderate the relationships between harassment and well-being. Further, three-way interactions of sex, race, and harassment type were found for the prediction of well-being indicators.