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Edited by Susan T. Fiske, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, and approved May 6, 2019 (received for review November 2, 2018)
Significance
Do corporate sexual harassment programs reduce harassment? Those that do should boost the share of women in management, because harassment causes women to quit. Sexual harassment grievance procedures incite retaliation, according to surveys, and our analyses show that they are followed by reductions in women managers. Sexual harassment training for managers, which treats managers as victims’ allies and gives them tools to intervene, are followed by increases in women managers. Training for employees, which treats trainees as suspects, can backfire. Programs work better in workplaces with more women managers, who are less likely than men to respond negatively to harassment complaints and training. Employers should select managers—men and women—committed to eradicating harassment.
Abstract
Two decades ago, the Supreme Court vetted the workplace harassment programs popular at the time: sexual harassment grievance procedures and training. However, harassment at work remains common. Do these programs reduce harassment? Program effects have been difficult to measure, but, because women frequently quit their jobs after being harassed, programs that reduce harassment should help firms retain current and aspiring women managers. Thus, effective programs should be followed by increases in women managers. We analyze data from 805 companies over 32 y to explore how new sexual harassment programs affect the representation of white, black, Hispanic, and Asian-American women in management. We find support for several propositions. First, sexual harassment grievance procedures, shown in surveys to incite retaliation without satisfying complainants, are followed by decreases in women managers. Second, training for managers, which encourages managers to look for signs of trouble and intervene, is followed by increases in women managers. Third, employee training, which proscribes specific behaviors and signals that male trainees are potential perpetrators, is followed by decreases in women managers. Two propositions specify how management composition moderates program effects. One, because women are more likely to believe harassment complaints and less likely to respond negatively to training, in firms with more women managers, programs work better. Two, in firms with more women managers, harassment programs may activate group threat and backlash against some groups of women. Positive and negative program effects are found in different sorts of workplaces.
Footnotes
- ↵1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: frank_dobbin{at}harvard.edu.
Author contributions: F.D. and A.K. designed research, performed research, and wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
Data deposition: Our Stata code and the blinded survey data have been deposited in the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) database, http://doi.org/10.3886/E109781V3.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1818477116/-/DCSupplemental.
- Copyright © 2019 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.
This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND).
- aDepartment of Sociology, Harvard University, Cambridge MA 02138;
- bDepartment of Sociology and Anthropology, Tel Aviv University, 6997801 Tel Aviv, Israel
Edited by Susan T. Fiske, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, and approved May 6, 2019 (received for review November 2, 2018)
Significance
Do corporate sexual harassment programs reduce harassment? Those that do should boost the share of women in management, because harassment causes women to quit. Sexual harassment grievance procedures incite retaliation, according to surveys, and our analyses show that they are followed by reductions in women managers. Sexual harassment training for managers, which treats managers as victims’ allies and gives them tools to intervene, are followed by increases in women managers. Training for employees, which treats trainees as suspects, can backfire. Programs work better in workplaces with more women managers, who are less likely than men to respond negatively to harassment complaints and training. Employers should select managers—men and women—committed to eradicating harassment.
Abstract
Two decades ago, the Supreme Court vetted the workplace harassment programs popular at the time: sexual harassment grievance procedures and training. However, harassment at work remains common. Do these programs reduce harassment? Program effects have been difficult to measure, but, because women frequently quit their jobs after being harassed, programs that reduce harassment should help firms retain current and aspiring women managers. Thus, effective programs should be followed by increases in women managers. We analyze data from 805 companies over 32 y to explore how new sexual harassment programs affect the representation of white, black, Hispanic, and Asian-American women in management. We find support for several propositions. First, sexual harassment grievance procedures, shown in surveys to incite retaliation without satisfying complainants, are followed by decreases in women managers. Second, training for managers, which encourages managers to look for signs of trouble and intervene, is followed by increases in women managers. Third, employee training, which proscribes specific behaviors and signals that male trainees are potential perpetrators, is followed by decreases in women managers. Two propositions specify how management composition moderates program effects. One, because women are more likely to believe harassment complaints and less likely to respond negatively to training, in firms with more women managers, programs work better. Two, in firms with more women managers, harassment programs may activate group threat and backlash against some groups of women. Positive and negative program effects are found in different sorts of workplaces.
- sexual harassment
- workforce diversity
- grievance procedure
- harassment training
Footnotes
- ↵1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: frank_dobbin{at}harvard.edu.
Author contributions: F.D. and A.K. designed research, performed research, and wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
Data deposition: Our Stata code and the blinded survey data have been deposited in the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) database, http://doi.org/10.3886/E109781V3.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1818477116/-/DCSupplemental.
- Copyright © 2019 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.
This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND).
The promise and peril of sexual harassment programs
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