Abstract
Nearly half of all women in corporate America will experience sexual harassment at work at some point during their career, and yet limited progress has been made to mitigate these occurrences of sexual harassment. Gender inequalities (i.e. the male dominated workforce, lack of female leadership, and large power differentials between men and women) have been regarded as the key factors that lead to sexual harassment and sexual misconduct in the workplace. This study adds to this area of research by considering how elements of organizational configuration -- an organization's cultural values, office layout, human resources practices, and organizational structure -- contribute to the occurrence of sexual harassment or sexual misconduct. The study leverages a mixed method design by surveying 164 participants with a variety of quantitative and qualitative questions that provide an understanding of their workplace configuration and experiences with sexual harassment. The quantitative data found significant correlations between eight organizational variables and incidence rates of sexual harassment, some of these variables act as prevention factors for sexual harassment whereas others increase the risk of harassment. The prevention factors are employees’ emotional and physical safety, an organization's sexual harassment policies, positive organizational responses to reports of harassment, gender equality, and access to privacy at work. The risk factors are gender inequality, excessive social stimulation, and reporting relationships with high power differentials between managers and their subordinates. These findings are further explained and supported by the qualitative data, which provides insights into what elements of organizational configuration can be altered in order to reduce the risk of sexual harassment.