Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Although the last few years have seen an increasing awareness of sexual harassment as a significant social problem, extant studies predominantly focus on the attitudinal and behavioral implications of experiencing sexual harassment, while taking little into account the factors that affect the decision to confront or report sexual harassment in the first place. Using Fischer’s cognitive-behavioral stress and coping framework, the present study examines the effects of severity of sexual harassment on perceived effective action strategies (internal and external) among employees in the U.S. Federal government. More importantly, taking into account the context of modern cognitive approaches to understanding stressful life situations, the authors examine whether employees’ decision to think that filing a formal complaint is an effective strategy is altered by organizational context. The analysis demonstrates that the relationship between the frequency of sexual harassment and the likelihood of thinking that filing a formal complaint is an effective strategy is nonlinear. The likelihood of thinking that filing a formal complaint is an effective strategy increased only when the frequency of sexual harassment occurrences was high. It also revealed that three situational factors interact with experiencing sexual harassment. The likelihood of thinking that filing a formal complaint is an effective strategy further increased when frequency of sexual harassment was high among those believing that their agency takes sufficient steps in prevention efforts and among those with high confidence in fair discriminant complaint process, whereas the likelihood of reporting decreased among those with high support from coworkers and those with relatively high career aspirations. The implications of the results for theory and managerial strategies in the public sector are discussed.