Organizational failure to ethically manage sexual harassment: Limits to #metoo

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/beer.12282
• Author: Heather M. Clarke
• Date: 01 July 2020
• Published date: 01 July 2020

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  wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/beer Business Ethics: A Eur Rev. 2020;29:544–556.© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

1 | INTRODUCTION

The recent expl osion of sexual harassm ent allegations acro ss sectors

in the United State s has demonstrated that sex ual harassment con-

tinues to be a seri ous problem in the workpl ace. The majority of the

cases repor ted in the media depict the s tereotypical powerf ul male

harassing a less p owerful femal e (Criss, 2017). They de pict women

being object ified; being see n as lesser; bein g treated unequa lly.

These inciden ts continue to manifest despi te over 30 years of legal

sanction.

In the 1986 decision of Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, the United

States Supreme Court deemed workplace sexual harassment to be

sex discriminat ion and therefor e, illegal pursu ant to the Civil Rights

Act of 1964 (1964). In response to this lega l risk, organizations have

adopted sexual harassment policies, training, and reporting mech-

anisms. For inst ance, a recent sur vey suggests t hat 94 percent of

organization s in the United State s have an anti-harassm ent policy

(Society for Hu man Resource Mana gement [SHRM], 2018). Why,

then, does sex ual harassment continue t o be such an insidious force

in so many differ ent work setting s? Why does it continue to b e so

pervasive, as witnessed by the growing #metoo movement?

One of the reason s sexual harassment endur es in the workplace

is the legal-cent ric approach organizati ons have adopted to manage

this phenomenon. A legal-centric approach to sexual harassment

involves the adop tion of policies and p rocedures that w ill provide

a defense should a c laim of sexual harassment be b rought, notwith-

standing evi dence that these p olicies and proce dures are inef fec-

tive in preventing h arassment. Th is legal-centric a pproach has had

several consequ ences in the United States. F irst, sexual harassm ent

continues to be pr evalent in the workplace (Ber dahl & Raver, 2011).

The majority of incidents of work place sexual harassment go unre -

ported (Clarke, 2014). Finally, sexual harassment training remains

Received: 31 Oct ober 2018 

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  Revised: 9 March 20 20 

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  Accepted: 13 March 20 20

DOI: 10 .1111/bee r.12282

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Organizational failure to ethically manage sexual harassment:

Limits to #metoo

Heather M. Clarke

Austin E. Cofrin School of Business,

Universit y of Wisconsin—Gree n Bay, Green

Bay, WI, USA

Correspondence

Heather M. Cl arke, Austin E. Cofr in School

of Business, U niversity of Wisco nsin—Green

Bay, WH 460, 2420 Nicole t Drive, Green

Bay, WI, 54311-7001, USA.

Email: clarkeh@uwgb.edu

Abstract

The recent deluge of sexu al harassment allegations in the me dia serves as a reminder

that sexual harassment remains a pervasive, destructive occurrence in the work-

place. Organizati ons in the United States have taken a legal-ce ntric approach to man-

aging workplace sexual harassment, resulting in impotent anti-harassment policies,

ineffective se xual harassment training, and un derused reporting mechanis ms. In this

conceptual paper, I argue that men's differential perceptions of sociosexual behaviors

have propagated this leg al-centric approach , which fails to meet orga nizations’ ethi-

cal obligation to prov ide a safe and healthy work environment . Specifically, men have

a different psycho logical experien ce of sexual harassment , which may inhibit their

ability to take the p erspective of tar gets. This lack of per spective-taking h as influ-

enced the jurispru dence on workplace sexual har assment, which has in turn informe d

organizations’ app roach to managing the ph enomenon. I contrib ute to research on

both business ethic s and workplace sexual harassment by integr ating two bodies of

scholarship that have developed largely independent of one another: organizational

psychology and l egal. In so doing, I offer an explanat ion for the continued pervasive-

ness of workplace sexu al harassment despit e decades of legal sa nction, organiz a-

tional interventions, and research.