Fifteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

Workplace sexual harassment (hereinafter: WSH) is a central and volatile issue in contemporary labour markets. Despite increased awareness, however, organisations do not seem to have made enough progress in the reduction or prevention of WSH. While the internal role of sexual harassment commissioners has recently become more significant in organisations, there is, however, a gap in the scholarly literature regarding the organisational learning provided by SHCs, as well as their impact. This exploratory qualitative study addresses the impact of organisational learning programs in the reduction of WSH. We have conducted semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 40 SHCs, who are female practitioners in varied business organisations, in terms of size, location and industry type. These SHCs have all initiated and conducted large-scale organisational learning programs within their organisations and have also measured their impact. Our findings demonstrate that while learning programs provide SHCs with the ability to exclusively affect learners’ attitudes in regards WSH, counter practices have emerged in business organisations to erode the impact of learning programs at both the micro and macro levels, also negatively affecting the prevalence of WSH. Therefore, SHCs have to increasingly invest significant resources in the development of complex methods in order to enhance the impact of organisational learning programs aimed at the reduction of WSH.