Organisational Characteristics That Facilitate Gender-Based Violence and Harassment in Higher Education?

Pat O’Connor, Margaret Hodgins, Dorian R. Woods, Elisa Wallwaey, Rachel Palmen, Marieke Van Den Brink and Evanthia Kalpazidou Schmidt
Additional contact information
Pat O’Connor: Department of Sociology, University of Limerick, V94 T9PX Limerick, Ireland
Margaret Hodgins: Department of Health Promotion, National University of Ireland, H91 TX33 Galway, Ireland
Dorian R. Woods: School of Management, Radoud University, 6525 XZ Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Elisa Wallwaey: Business Unit Societal Change and Innovation, Frauhofer ISI, 76139 Karlsruhe, Germany
Rachel Palmen: Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3-UOC), 08860 Barcelona, Spain
Marieke Van Den Brink: Gender and Diversity Studies, Radoud University, 6525 XZ Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Evanthia Kalpazidou Schmidt: Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark

Administrative Sciences, 2021, vol. 11, issue 4, 1-13

Abstract: Gender-based violence and sexual harassment (GBVH) by and towards academics and students has been under-theorised at an organisational level in higher education institutions (HEIs). The methodology involves a critical review of the literature on GBVH and organizational responses to it, locating it in the context of an analysis of organizational power. The theoretical perspective involves a focus on power and workplace bullying. It identifies three power-related characteristics of academic environments which it is suggested facilitate GBVH: their male-dominant hierarchical character; their neoliberal managerialist ethos and gender/intersectional incompetent leadership which perpetuates male entitlement and toxic masculinities. These characteristics also inhibit tackling GBVH by depicting it as an individual problem, encouraging informal coping and militating against the prosecution of perpetrators. Initiating a discussion and action at organizational and state levels about GBVH as a power-related phenomenon, challenging the dominant neo-liberal ethos and the hierarchical character of HEIs, as well as reducing their male dominance and increasing the gender competence of those in positions of power are seen as initial steps in tackling the problem.

Keywords: gender-based violence and harassment; organisational approach; higher education; power; intersectionality; male dominated hierarchical structures; gender incompetent leadership; neoliberal managerialism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L M M0 M1 M10 M11 M12 M14 M15 M16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3387/11/4/138/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3387/11/4/138/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jadmsc:v:11:y:2021:i:4:p:138-:d:684636

Access Statistics for this article

Administrative Sciences is currently edited by Ms. Nancy Ma

More articles in Administrative Sciences from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().