Sexual Harassment at Workplace: A Systematic Review of Literature

Abstract

Purpose: Globally, sexual harassment is a burgeoning issue, which has been witnessed everywhere. Gripping the gravity of its significance, the present study sets forth to explore the reasons of sexual harassment in organizational settings. Methods: Following the three-stage approach, a systematic review of the available literature was done extensively. A list of 3380 articles published from 2010 to 2019 were derived from widely explored databases, such as Taylor and Francis Online, Science Direct, JSTOR and Emerald Insight. 67 studies were selected from the list based on their relevance and suitability. Results: From the extensive literature review, it is revealed that there are five dominant reasons for the widespread sexual harassment, namely ‘inadequate governmental laws and organizational policies,’ ‘perceptions and attitudes,’ ‘male dominance’, ‘power differentials and organization structure’ and ‘cultural influence’.  Implications: To abate its further disastrous consequences, the present research proposes some intervention by linking the current observation with the previous empirical and theoretical studies. Directions for the future research are also provided.