Sexual harassment training: A need to consider cultural differences

Sexual harassment: In the eye of the beholder?

“…This finding may indicate that training has a stronger effect on the attitudes of minority participants, as compared to White participants. This supports the conclusions ofMishra and Davison (2020), who suggest that people of different cultures are likely to respond differently to sexual harassment training.…”

“…While not specifically examining race/ethnicity, there has been research examining differences in perceptions of harassment based on Hofstede's (1980) cultural dimensions. This research has found that the dimensions of power distance, collectivism, and masculinity are the most likely to result in differences in perceptions of sexual harassment (Mishra & Davison, 2020). Cultural values and religious views associated with race/ethnicity can influence whether someone views a situation as sexual harassment or not (Schwartz & Hunt, 2011).…”

“…This finding has important implications for the development and implementation of sexual harassment interventions-these interventions may be more helpful for some people than others. Additionally, this finding suggests that it may be wise for interventions to include targeted information toward their audiences, in order to have the greatest benefit (Icekson et al, 2020;Mishra & Davison, 2020). In particular, organizational leaders may benefit from learning more about these perceptual issues, because they, themselves, may need to increase their sensitivity to detecting sexual harassment, so that they can address and prevent such behaviors in their work groups.…”

National Antarctic Program responses to fieldwork sexual harassment

“…less often published in highly cited journals or indexed in the main citation indexes). Thus, an important consideration is that definitions of sexual harassment can vary widely by national culture (see Mishra & Davison 2020), but there is much less available research focusing on these differences. For example, Pryor et al (1997) found that North American, Australian and German students perceived hostile work environment situations more in terms of power abuse and gender discrimination, whereas Brazilian students perceived the same scenarios as innocuous sexual behaviour but not sexual harassment.…”

“…Similarly, research suggests collectivist cultures that stress the importance of belonging and the needs of the group (Kennedy & Gonzalka 2002) and cultures premised on traditional masculine ideals may be more tolerant of workplace sexual harassment (Merkin 2012). These types of national cultural differences have implications for how organizations approach the issue (Mishra & Davison 2020).…”