AKO ORGANIZAČNÁ KULTÚRA POSILŇUJE TOLERANCIU VOČI SEXUÁLNEMU OBŤAŽOVANIU

• Authors: Valkovičová Veronika , Karkošková Slávka

Title variants

EN

How organizational culture reinforces tolerance of sexual harassment

• Languages of publication: SK

Abstracts

EN

Current literature on the prevention of sexual harassment in the workplace identifies “organizational culture” as a key factor influencing the presence and persistence of harassment in specific workplaces. This literature is often based on scholarly studies that disagree in their approaches to examining organizational culture, as both the meaning boundaries of the term and the observable manifestations of culture tend to vary. Using a reflective thematic analysis of 15 research interviews, the aim of this study is to look at the so-called “organizational tolerance of sexual harassment” in the everyday communication practices of workplaces. We view the experiences that emerge in the interviews as a practice of reinforcing meanings in organizations that lead to the normalization (or tolerance) of sexual harassment and thus to the shaping of workplace structure and the enactment of symbolic power. Themes such as the exercise of formal and informal authority; the presence of sexuality in organizational practices of humour and familiarity; the public nature of harassment; and the unavailability of those charged with addressing sexual harassment emerge in the interviews. These dominant themes lead us to conclude that simply stating that an organization is tolerant of sexual harassment because its male and female members hold such value is not sufficient for our understanding of the issue. Rather than the static values of individuals, the themes examined help us to view organizational culture as a communicative practice in which tolerance of sexual harassment is continually reinforced through what is said and what is not. This approach also creates a space for organizational change that can focus on this everyday communication practice.

Keywords

EN

SEXUAL HARASSMENT; ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE; WORKPLACE; ORGANIZATIONAL TOLERANCE

• Publisher: Institute of Ethnology, Slovak Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Slovenský národopis (Slovak Ethnology)
• Year: 2025
• Volume: 73
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 93 – 113

Contributors

author

Valkovičová Veronika

• Pedagogická fakulta Univerzity Komenského v Bratislave, Šoltésovej 4, 811 08 Bratislava, Slovak Republic

• https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1299-9988

author

Karkošková Slávka

• https://orcid.org/0009-0001-3786-1301

Identifiers

DOI

https://doi.org/10.31577/SN.2025.1.07