Sexual harassment training effectiveness: An interdisciplinary review and call for research

• Published date: 01 February 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2257
• Author: Mark V. Roehling,Jason Huang
• Date: 01 February 2018

THE JOB ANNUAL REVIEW

Sexual harassment training effectiveness: An interdisciplinary

review and call for research

Mark V. Roehling |Jason Huang

School of Human Resources and Labor

Relations, Michigan State University, East

Lansing, Michigan, U.S.A.

Correspondence

Mark V. Roehling, School of Human Resources

and Labor Relations, Michigan State

University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824,

U.S.A.

Email: roehling@msu.edu

Summary

Although sexual harassment (SH) training is widespread, has many important consequences for

individuals and organizations, and is of demonstrated interest to researchers across a wide range

of disciplines, there has never been a comprehensive, interdisciplinary attempt to identify and

systematically evaluate relevant research findings. This article addresses that need in the litera-

ture. It discusses the legal context of SH training and its relevance to research issues, provides

an organizing framework for understanding the primary factors influencing SH training effective-

ness, critically reviews empirical research providing evidence of the effectiveness of SH training,

and sets forth a research agenda.

KEYWORDS

hostile environment, quid pro quo, sexual harassment training, training effectiveness, transfer of

training

1|INTRODUCTION

Employer‐provided sexual harassment (SH) training is ubiquitous in the

American workplace (Perry, Kulik, Bustamante, & Golom, 2010) and is

becoming increasing common in many other countries as a result of

international regulatory developments (e.g., Ali & Kramer, 2015). It is

estimated that U.S. employers alone spend over 10 billion dollars annu-

ally on SH training (Goldberg, 2011). If effective, that money is well

spent, helping to avoid the significant costs to individuals (e.g., stress

and other health concerns, and negative career consequences) and

organizations (e.g., lost productivity, absenteeism, turnover, and litiga-

tion costs) that are associated with SH (O'Leary‐Kelly, Bowes‐Sperry,

Bates, & Leans, 2009). Although SH training is widespread and has

many important consequences, significant questions remain regarding

its effectiveness. Some researchers and legal scholars characterize

SH training as largely a symbolic effort by employers to insulate them-

selves from legal liability, arguing that there is little or no evidence of

its effectiveness, and often warning of a potential “backlash”among

employees (e.g., Bisom‐Rapp, 2001; Tinkler, 2012). Others unques-

tioningly accept that such training is effective, advocating regular SH

training for all employees (e.g., Ilies, Hauserman, Schwochau, & Stibal,

2003; Monroe, Choi, Howell, Lampros‐Monroe, & Trejo, 2014).

To what extent is there evidence of the effectiveness of SH train-

ing? Does the answer to this question depend on specific design fea-

tures of the training, characteristics of the trainees, the environment

in which they work, or the criteria for effectiveness being applied?

What is the relationship between effectiveness from a legal perspec-

tive and effectiveness assessed by more traditional training evaluation

criteria (e.g., knowledge acquisition, skill development, and behavior

change)? There is a growing body of research across diverse literatures

addressing these questions. Yet to date, no in‐depth review of relevant

research has been published.

Several articles and book chapters provide valuable summaries or

discussions of SH training research (e.g., Buckner, Hindman, Huelsman,

& Bergman, 2014; Goldberg, 2011; Kath & Magley, 2014; Perry, Kulik,

& Bustamante, 2012). However, existing summaries or discussions

have at least three significant limitations. First, they focus on relatively

few disciplines, primarily those published in management or psychol-

ogy journals. As a result, relatively few of the available relevant studies

are identified and discussed. Second, extant work does not attempt an

in‐depth analysis of a wide range of issues that have important rele-

vance to researchers and practitioners. Third, only limited attempts

are made to integrate legal and behavioral science perspectives to

explicate the impact of legal considerations on the effectiveness of

SH training and to identify research needs that have important practi-

cal relevance for individuals, employers, and policy makers.

This article examines the extent to which the existing literature

provides answers to the questions posed above. Our broad goals are

to advance the literature by increasing awareness of the need for addi-

tional research investigating the effectiveness of SH training, and to

Received: 14 October 2015 Revised: 19 September 2017 Accepted: 22 November 2017

DOI: 10.1002/job.2257

134 Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J Organ Behav. 2018;39:134–150.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/job

facilitate both new and more rigorous research investigating the many

important questions that have received little or no attention to date.

After a discussion of definitional issues, the remainder of the paper is

organized into four main sections. The first section provides readers

with foundational knowledge of the legal context of SH training. The

second section introduces an organizing framework for understanding

the primary factors that may interact to influence the effectiveness of

SH training, providing a structure for our review of the literature. The

third section provides a critical review of research investigating the

effectiveness of SH training, and the final section summarizes research

findings and identifies future research needs.

2|DEFINITIONS: SH AND SH TRAINING

EFFECTIVENESS

2.1 |Definitions of sexual harassment: Primary

categories

Any review of research related to SH is complicated by the fact there

are many definitions of SH, and researchers often either fail to identify

the definition they have adopted or provide relatively vague defini-

tions that leave important issues unaddressed. There are four general

categories of SH definitions that researchers should be aware of

because each has potential relevance to SH training objectives, design,

or the evaluation of training effectiveness: legal, social science, organi-

zational, and individual or personal definitions.

In general, legal definitions include a description of SH as involving

unwanted or unwelcome conduct that has the purpose or effect of

intimidating, degrading, humiliating, offending, or violating individuals'

dignity (McDonald, 2012). However, across countries, legal definitions

of SH vary in the range of conduct covered (e.g., whether conduct

must be “sexual”in nature), the degree of objectivity implied, and the

conditions necessary to establish employer liability (Markert, 2005).

The legal definition of SH in the United States, the country whose

law first recognized SH and has influenced the law of many other

countries (Markert, 2005), will be discussed in greater detail, below.

O'Leary‐Kelly et al.'s (2009) review of the SH literature identifies

three types of social science definitions of SH: psychological, sex based,

and behavioral. Psychological definitions focus on the individual's

appraisal of the situation and whether he or she feels harassed (Fitz-

gerald, Swan, & Magley, 1997). Sex‐based definitions describe SH as

“behavior that derogates, demeans, or humiliates an individual based

on that individual's sex,”and includes behaviors that are seemingly

“sex‐neutral acts”in the sense that the behaviors do not appear to

be driven by sexual desire (Berdahl, 2007, p. 644). Behavioral defini-

tions focus on taxonomies of behaviors that, depending on the specific

behavioral definition that is adopted, are considered either SH behav-

ior per se (e.g., Newman, Jackson, & Baker, 2003) or offensive sex‐

related behaviors that could be construed as SH (e.g., Stockdale,

Gandolfo, Schneider, & Cao, 2004). Previous research has found that

SH behaviors generally fit a three‐factor model of the data (Fitzgerald,

Drasgow, Hulin, Gelfand, & Magley, 1997; see Nye, Brummel, &

Drasgow, 2014, for a notable exception to this general finding). These

factors include (a) gender harassment (e.g., sexist behavior, crude jokes

or comments of a sexual nature, and other behaviors that disparage the

sex of the target or convey hostility toward his or her sex), (b)

unwanted sexual attention (e.g., unwanted touching, hugging, repeated

unwanted requests or pressure for dates, or other verbal and nonver-

bal sexual behavior intended to attract sexual attention, and (c) sexual

coercion (e.g., implicit or explicit demands for sexual favors through

the threat of negative job‐related consequences or the promise of

job‐related rewards). In general, social science definitions are consider-

ably broader in scope than are legal definitions of SH.

Organizations are encouraged by the Equal Employment Opportu-

nity Commission Guidance (EEOC, 1999) and SH researchers to clearly

communicate to their employees what behavior is considered SH in

their organization (e.g., Bell, Quick, & Cycyota, 2002; McDonald,

Charlesworth, & Graham, 2015), and with very few exceptions, organi-

zational policies addressing SH include organizational definitions of SH

(Reese & Lindenberg, 2002). Because of the ambiguity associated with

legal definitions of SH and concerns about liability, the definitions

adopted in organizational policies are often broader than the legal def-

inition of SH, defining some behaviors as involving SH that do not

meet legal definitions (Schultz, 2003).

Individual or personal definitions may be influenced by legal or

organizational definitions but are also influenced by a range of per-

sonal characteristics (e.g., sex, race, and citizenship; Tinkler, 2008).

Due to the multiple factors influencing personal definitions of SH, an

individual's personal definition may or may not correspond with legal,

organizational, or social science definitions of SH (Gutek, Murphy, &

Douma, 2004; Marshall, 2005).

2.2 |Training effectiveness

Sitzmann and Weinhardt (2015, p. 2) define training effectiveness as

“the extent to which training produced the intended results.”They

elaborate on that general definition by identifying a wide range of

training outcomes that have been used to assess effectiveness, includ-

ing trainee reactions, increased motivation, learning outcomes, the

transfer of knowledge and skills to the workplace, return on the invest-

ment (ROI) in training, and its impact on organizational performance.

We adopt this general definition of training effectiveness. However,

because for many employers the intended results include desired legal

outcomes, in a later section (“The Legal Context of SH”), we further

elaborate on Sitzmann and Weinhardt's (2015) definition by identifying

specific criteria for evaluating SH training effectiveness from a legal

perspective.

2.3 |The importance of attention to definitions in

objectives, design, and evaluation

A goal of all employer‐provided SH training is to promote a shared

understanding of what conduct is considered SH by bringing

employees' personal definitions of SH in line with the organization's

definition, which may be based on the legal definition of SH but often

is a broader definition of SH (Schultz, 2003). In some circumstances,

trainees may be expected to know and be able to apply both a broader

organizational definition of SH and the legal definition (e.g., training for

human resource [HR] professionals or managers). The definition(s) of

ROEHLING AND HUANG 135