Blowing the whistle on workplace sexual harassment : Examining the role of harasser status and types of sexual harassment

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate service workers’ intention to report the “customer harasses colleague” and “colleague harasses customer” problems, and how the intention is influenced by the service workers’ perception of conflict, company integrity and criminal evidence.

Design/methodology/approach

Questionnaires were used as the research instrument, and full-time life insurance salespeople were taken as a research sample. The research design helps us to see to what extent the respondents rely on the harasser's status and the types of sexual harassment to form their whistle-blowing intention.

Findings

The main findings showed that: sexual harassment problems are likely to be evaluated from a “who is the harasser” perspective. The respondents appeared more tolerant of the “colleague harasses customer” problems as opposed to the “customer harasses colleague” problems. The respondents exhibited higher intention to report the hostile environment sexual harassment as opposed to quid pro quo sexual harassment.

Originality/value

Sexual harassment has been described as an extremely harmful behavior in organizations. However, relevant discussions about the “customer harasses colleague” problems and “colleague harasses customer” problems are rare. The research provided an examination of these issues.

Citation

Tseng, L.-M. (2014), "Blowing the whistle on workplace sexual harassment : Examining the role of harasser status and types of sexual harassment", Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, Vol. 33 No. 6, pp. 510-522. https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-11-2013-0092