IT'S ALL FUN AND GAMES UNTIL SOMEONE GETS HURT: AN INTERACTIONAL FRAMING THEORY OF WORK SOCIAL SEXUAL BEHAVIOR

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Rawski, Shannon L.; O'Leary-Kelly, Anne M.; Breaux-Soignet, Denise
• 署名单位: Western University (University of Western Ontario); University of Arkansas System; University of Arkansas Fayetteville; University of Arkansas System; University of Arkansas Fayetteville
• 刊物名称: ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0363-7425
• DOI: 10.5465/amr.2019.0316
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 617-636
• 关键词: gender-differences; WORKPLACE ROMANCE; Harassment; masculinity; ORGANIZATIONS; perceptions; SENSEMAKING; responses; CHOICE; MODEL

摘要

The #MeToo movement has brought increased interest and urgency to research on workplace sexual harassment (SH). Although previous SH research is rich, there remain unanswered questions about how SH is defined, how it develops, and how it can be mitigated. Further, recent research on social sexual behavior (SSB), which establishes potential workplace benefits of SSB, has posed the challenge of distinguishing between positive SSB and SH. In this paper, using an interactional framing approach, we present a theory examining the interactional process that determines the meaning of work SSB as either play or SH. Our proposed model is dynamic and helical, suggesting that social participants cycle through nonlinear phases of engrossment and sensemaking as they set, sustain, limit-test, and break frames around work SSB. This model is influenced by organizational culture (e.g., masculinity contest culture, organizational tolerance for SH) and individual motivations related to goal interconnections and interdependence. This model can be applied to explain how potentially serious SSB conduct comes to be interpreted as playful, how this interpretation is sustained and expanded, and how the meaning of the conduct may come to be reinterpreted as SH. The framework includes propositions to guide future research, and managerial implications to guide practice.