The effects of personal and situational factors on university administrators' responses to sexual harassment

The present study was designed to assess how managerial personnel respond to various sexual harassment scenarios. Much of the sexual harassment research has utilized samples other than managerial personnel. Therefore, this study attempts to determine whether the findings in the literature generalize to a managerial sample. University administrators' responses to sexual harassment scenarios were assessed, with type of harassment (economic injury, hostile environment, or no harassment) and offender's status (supervisor or co-worker) being varied. Analyses revealed a lack of predicted sex differences in perceptions and definitions of sexual harassment and unanticipated sex differences in complaint handling and belief in sexual harassment myths. There were no offender status effects. The significant type of harassment effects was present for complaint handling, familiarity, and situation perceptions. In all cases, the respondents who received the “no harassment” scenario differed in their responses from the participants who had received one of the two harassment scenarios.