Introduction

Workplace harassment has been defined in terms of the intention to harm another work employee through maladaptive interpersonal behaviour (Bowling and Beehr 2006; Woodrow and Guest 2014). Accordingly, there are legal ramifications associated with engaging in harassment behaviour, and the need to establish safe and secure working environments. Employers are obliged to implement strategies that will minimise the likelihood of maladaptive workplace behaviours through effective human resource management (Woodrow and Guest 2014). Even though there are legal implications when breaches of these strategies are witnessed or experienced, many cases such as sexual harassment, do not surface in the public arena or reach a formal complaints process (McDonald 2012).

We found no systematic reviews in the area of harassment as it applies to the higher education context. In addition, there is a growing concern that harassment is being reported as pertinent to higher education contexts. For example, workplace harassment in the educational context in the Asia Pacific region is a topical subject and recent concerning examples have appeared in newspaper headlines in New Zealand, Bangladesh, and Singapore (Bhagani 2015; Bilby 2015; Clarke 2015). Furthermore, there are distinct cases being described in the online literature regarding harassment amongst employees in higher education (Education Law Association 2005). We, therefore, identified a clear gap in the literature that needed to be explored and, more specifically, our intention was to further investigate the prevalence and shape of harassment as it applies to the higher education context.

This is an important area of research, given the number of deleterious health effects strongly linked to workplace harassment. In the private workplace, harassment has been linked to the risk of losing good employees, increased anxiety, depression, absenteeism, and staff turnover (Lee et al. 2013; McDonald 2012). Aside from the association with poorer work attitudes, reduced performance and productivity (Ekici and Beder 2014), there is also a reduction in self-confidence and self-esteem (Spratlen 1995), denoting that an individual’s work environment contributes greatly to their overall health. Placed under emotional stress, employees may also exhibit alcohol abuse, with many studies reporting a correlation with drinking frequency and quantity (Rospenda 2002).

There is substantial potential for discovery in the area of employee harassment in higher education. In this context, employee harassment is often overlooked, with the focus being on student experiences of harassment in the learning environment. Keashly and Neuman (2013) suggest that the evidence of harassment within higher education settings is not well formed, even though there is anecdotal evidence of hostility and ‘egotistical’ personalities within this learning environment (Bilby 2015; Clarke 2015).

By shedding light on this area, it is hoped that educators, employers, supervisors and policy makers within higher education become more aware, if not vigilant, of workplace harassment, and act cohesively to reduce its occurrence. The current study is an exploratory study employing an inductive approach and incorporating a systematic review of existing literature in relation to workplace harassment in higher education.

Method

This systematic literature search began in December 2013 and was completed in January 2014. Refereed journal publications in the 20 year period from 1994 to 2013 inclusive were identified. The year 1994 was chosen as it was the year of a landmark study by Bjorkqvist et al. (1994) on harassment in tertiary education. A search methodology was developed using the PICo framework, which is more relevant to the analysis of social phenomena than a clinically focussed one (Curtin University Library 2017; Stern et al. 2014). PICo focusses on Population or the characteristics of the population under investigation, Interest or a defined phenomenon, and Context which refers to the setting under investigation (Curtin University Library 2017; Stern et al. 2014).

Our systematic review used the following criteria.

  1. (1)

    Population educational faculty (fixed term and tenured, employed both full-time and part-time), administrators, or other teaching employees.

  2. (2)

    Interest harassment, bullying and similar non-criminal acts.

  3. (3)

    Context university or an equivalent tertiary education institution (such as a polytechnic), and is not within a hospital setting.

The search terms were then widely-scoped and grouped accordingly: harassment included the terms sexual harassment, bullying, and hostility. Population included the terms staff, lecturer and tutor. Workplace included the terms higher education, college and faculty. Word variants, truncations and subject headings (including MeSH terms) were all included in the search.

This structure was adapted to search seven major databases: CINAHL Plus (EBSCO), Embase (Ovid), ERIC (Ovid), Google Scholar, MEDLINE (Ovid), PsycINFO (Ovid) and Scopus. The following general education databases were excluded as results from these databases were covered by ERIC and Google Scholar: Academic Search Premier (EBSCO), A + Education (Informit), Education Resource Complete (EBSCO), HEDBIB (International Bibliographic Database on Higher Education) and Proquest Education Journals. An example of one search strategy is shown in the Appendix.

Following the search, several exclusion criteria were applied to the pool of identified articles as shown in Fig. 1, successively reducing their number. Articles were excluded if they focused on areas outside the scope of our research, such as adolescents, children, crises and high school education. In all cases, words with British and American spellings were both used in separate searches.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Search methodology flow diagram

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Data collection

All references were collated into a reference management programme (EndNote: version X7). Cross-referencing and removal of duplicate articles were applied as were non-English language articles. This yielded a sample of references whose full texts were retrieved and independently reviewed by the research team. Following this, five researchers (MH, CZ, CW, PA, FM) from the author list met at various times to discuss and review all chosen articles. Any disagreements were resolved through discussions within the whole research group until a consensus was reached. Figure 1 outlines the review process of selecting the articles in detail.

Data analysis

Table 1 shows the final collated list of articles included in our evidence review, showing key study features such as study region, design, methods, and sample sizes.

Table 1 Summary of complete sample of retrieved articles
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According to a preliminary search of the literature, we found no published systematic review; therefore, we considered an inductive process more reasonable than a deductive approach. Consequently, a thematic analysis was applied to this list of articles. We followed the guidelines specified by Thomas and Harden (2008) and as such our analysis and interpretation of the data followed a series of stages. First, the text was coded and descriptive themes were identified. Codes were aligned with the main findings emanating from each article and we proposed a series of codes that had conceptual links between reported findings in the articles. The main focus of this analysis was the screening of the main findings and the methods used to derive the study findings. In this manner, we developed lists of descriptive or semantic codes. We checked each list for consistency of coding through research team discussions. Initially, 86 descriptive codes were identified, such as organisational culture, mobbing, job outcomes and so forth. We then looked for similarities and differences between the codes to create a tighter structure.

In developing the emerging themes, we were aware of researcher bias and the need to ensure the ideas from the articles were adequately represented. The thematic analysis was subjected to a rigorous system that employs a consensus driven approach. We were influenced by the consensual qualitative research process described by Hill et al. (1997). According to this process, eight components are required, which can be summarised as follows: (1) obtaining data using an unconstrained approach; (2) describing the emerging ideas using words; (3) a defined group (in this case research articles) is studied intensively; (4) the overriding context is used to understand the specific parts; (5) the process is clearly inductive with conclusions emerging from the literature; (6) all judgement are made by a primary team so that a variety of options are available; (7) one or two auditors are employed to check consensus judgements; and (8) the primary team continually returns to the raw data to check that the process is robust and that the ensuing conclusions are valid.

To maintain trustworthiness of the process, discussions were routinely conducted between all authors and certain strategies were used to establish trustworthiness in our data analysis process (Krefting 1991). First, credibility of the analytical procedure was established by five authors (MH, CZ, CW, PA, FM), who were considered the primary group. A secondary group of three authors (CZ, MH, CH) refined the initial codes and these were reviewed by the primary group to ensure a consensual research process was applied. A constant comparison technique was used during coding with continuous peer verification to reduce bias. The use of peer examination to check the research data and subsequent analyses was implemented to develop the ‘dependability’ of the process.

The primary group were defined as the panel of judges to ensure that the secondary groups’ codes could be confirmed and adequately audited. A continual auditing and ‘confirmatory’ process was conducted that consisted of several key steps: (1) consistently revisiting the raw article data; (2) condensing initial codes; (3) developing summaries and trialling thematic connections; (4) revisiting notes that were aligned with the article findings that were chronicled in an Excel spreadsheet; and (5) checking the resultant material and themes against study propositions within the two analytical groups. Final decisions were made by the primary group following a diverse panel discussion that utilised a consensual decision making process. The aim of this method was to minimise researcher bias, to ensure that the dataset was adequately represented, and to safeguard that no relevant information was missed following an inspection of the articles.

Results

Initial observations

Figure 1 is a flow diagram that represents our search strategy and has several tiers beginning with a wide search and resulting in the final list of articles being reviewed. In the first tier, the number of hits using each of the databases is stated. Given our initial wide search parameters, the systematic search yielded a total of 3278 results between the seven databases. The Cochrane Library did not yield any relevant reviews. In the second tier of the flow diagram, duplicates were removed, resulting in 2865 articles that underwent a review of the title and abstract based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, which is depicted in the third tier of the flow diagram. The inclusion and exclusion criteria are explicitly described in two boxes in the next tier. The following tier states the number of articles (n = 349) that were identified as potentially relevant. All 349 articles were then inspected in terms of their relevance to the core research idea and, following discussion with the full research team, resulting in 66 full text articles being reviewed. In the following tier, further decisions were made regarding the removal of dissertations, books and foreign language exclusions, and hence the list was further reduced to 51 refereed journal articles as described in the final tier of the diagram.

Study characteristics

Of the 51 articles (as shown in Table 1), the majority were conducted in the USA (n = 37, 73%) followed by the UK (n = 4, 8%), Canada (n = 4, 8%) and then Turkey (n = 3, 6%). One article was found to be published from Australia, Italy and Finland (n = 3, 6%). Most articles used a survey design to collect quantitative information about their participants (n = 34, 67%) followed by the use of qualitative interviews (n = 5, 10%) and opinion pieces or literature reviews (n = 5, 10%). One article employed an exclusively qualitative survey format. The highest reported response rate was 95% and the lowest was 12% (Mean = 48%, SD = 23). Sample sizes for survey studies were wide ranging from 42 to 9402 (Mean sample size = 1055, SD = 1686) with lower sample sizes apparent for qualitative studies (sample size range 4–20).

Synthesis of identified themes

The six themes identified from our review of the evidence in Table 1 were as follows.

Causes of harassment

Numerous articles addressed the aetiology of harassment which is often intertwined with the culture and values represented within higher education contexts. The most common cause for harassment identified by this systematic review, mainly through surveys, was the prevalence of discrimination based on gender differences (Aguirre Jr 2000; Benson 1998; Bjorkqvist et al. 1994; Dekker and Barling 1998; Freels et al. 2005; Hu et al. 1996; Lewis 1999; McKinney 1994; Miner-Rubino and Cortina 2007; O’Connell and Korabik 2000; Schneider et al. 1997; Simpson and Cohen 2004; Whatley and Wasieleski 2001). For example, Aguirre Jr (2000) proposed that women and in particular minority women are being exposed to unfair treatment in higher education settings, often being burdened with large teaching workloads. In addition, Miner-Rubino and Cortina (2007) reported that if women observed hostility towards other women they were unlikely to report it due to fear of being the next victim or target.

An additional causative factor was the idea of fitting in (or not) with organisational cultures (Lewis 1999; O’Hare and O’Donohue 1998). One subset is the advent of non-ethical conduct towards employees who have different disclosed sexual identities (Irwin 2002; Nawyn et al. 2000). For instance, Nawyn and colleagues (2000) found that when gay/bisexual men were compared with heterosexual men, gay/bisexual men were twice as likely to experience aspects of sexual harassment and unwanted behaviour. Similarly, Yaman (2010) reported some explicit ‘naming behaviours’ existing within the workplace, such as managers disrespecting administrators.

Types of harassment

Both specific and non-specific types were identified in our review. The most commonly cited specific type (n = 25) found in our review was sexual harassment (Bryden and Fletcher 2007; Dekker and Barling 1998; Dey et al. 1996; Fendrich et al. 2002; Freels et al. 2005; Gerrity 2000; Hu et al. 1996; Kelley and Parsons 2000; Krener 1996; Lewis 1999; McKinney 1994; Miner-Rubino and Cortina 2007; Munson et al. 2000; O’Connell and Korabik 2000; Richman et al. 1999; Rospenda 2002; Rospenda et al. 2005, 1998, 2006; Scarduzio and Geist-Martin 2008; Schneider 1997; Sundt 1996; Wall 2001; Whatley and Wasieleski 2001; Wislar et al. 2002). Sexual harassment is a theme that includes numerous behaviours such as unwanted sexual advances and requests for sexual favours which can be of a verbal, psychological, or physical nature (Richman et al. 1999). Sexual harassment was found to be confounded by alcohol and drug use and has been positively correlated with general workplace abuse (GWA; Fendrich et al. 2002; Richman et al. 1999).

A further specific behaviour quoted (n = 4) is mobbing (Keim and McDermott 2010; Ozturk et al. 2008; Yaman 2010; Yildirim et al. 2007). Yildirim et al. (2007) state that mobbing occurs when one person is systematically targeted by others and subjected to inappropriate or unethical communication practices that have the intention to cause psychological intimidation. Racial harassment was similarly cited in the reviewed literature (Aguirre Jr 2000; Lewis 1999; Rospenda et al. 1998), although in one study this was ranked lower than workplace bullying, sexual discrimination and gender discrimination (Lewis 1999).

Furthermore, workplace bullying (n = 11) was addressed by numerous studies in our review (Fogg 2008a, b; Giorgi 2012; Keim and McDermott 2010; Lewis 1999, 2004; McKay et al. 2008; Simpson and Cohen 2004; Spratlen 1995; Taylor 2012; Thomas 2005; Wislar et al. 2002). Workplace bullying can be defined in terms of repeated engagement in activities such as harassment, offensive, and/or social or workplace exclusion (Giorgi 2012). Other less commonly identified types of harassment encompassed notions of workplace violence and workplace abuse (Howard 2009; Hunt et al. 2012; Rospenda et al. 2005; Spratlen 1995).

Employee roles and relationships associated with harassment

Faculty, managers and administrative staff have prescribed roles and responsibilities that impact on the way they form relationships and interact with each other. Harassment can be linked to the way different employees handle difficult situations and the way employees communicate with each other. Our findings indicated that managers, administrative and professional personnel are more involved in workplace harassment than academic faculty (Bjorkqvist et al. 1994; Howard 2009; Richman et al. 1999) and that this finding was also associated with gender harassment (Bjorkqvist et al. 1994; Munson et al. 2000; O’Hare and O’Donohue 1998; Richman et al. 1999; Whatley and Wasieleski 2001). For example, Whatley and Wasieleski (2001) reported that of those who had been harassed, 63% had been harassed more than once or twice, and that of those who experienced harassment 90% were women. On the other hand, male clerical and service workers received more threats and bribes than female workers. In addition, physical aggression was experienced more by service workers.

Other authors found that harassment in academic faculty was often instigated by long term (tenured) faculty (Giorgi 2012) while other authors showed that faculty and student harassment have within group (between faculty or between students) and between-group sub-types (between staff and students) (Clark 2008). Lastly, Thomas (2005) reported that 46% of the support staff in a higher education institution, who had administrative, clerical and secretarial roles, experienced some form of harassment behaviour (with 95% of cases being bullied by a person in authority, e.g., line manager) and 43% witnessed harassment.

Measurement of harassment

The review findings indicated that different measurement tools were employed in quantifying the extent of harassment within the workplace. The most commonly applied survey instrument was the sexual experience questionnaire (SEQ, n = 16) (Freels et al. 2005; Gerrity 2000; Hu et al. 1996; Jacobs et al. 2000; Kelley and Parsons 2000; Miner-Rubino 2004; Munson et al. 2000; O’Connell and Korabik 2000; O’Hare and O’Donohue 1998; Richman et al. 1999; Rospenda 2002; Rospenda et al. 2005, 2006; Schneider 1997; Whatley and Wasieleski 2001; Wislar et al. 2002).

The next most cited instrument was the Generalised Workplace Abuse questionnaire (GWA, n = 3) survey (Fendrich et al. 2002; Richman et al. 1999; Wislar et al. 2002), followed by the generalized workplace harassment survey (Rospenda 2002; Rospenda and Richman 2004; Rospenda et al. 2005, 2006). Other instruments that have been developed to measure specific aspects of harassment or distress include the: adversarial sexual beliefs survey (Dekker and Barling 1998); attitudes towards women scale (Gerrity 2000); brief symptom inventory (Miner-Rubino and Cortina 2007); faculty-to-faculty incivility survey (Clark 2013); impact of event scale (Gerrity 2000); incivility in nursing education survey (Clark 2008); mobbing scale for academic nurses (Ozturk et al. 2008); sexual harassment beliefs acceptance scale (Dekker and Barling 1998); workplace incivility scale (Miner-Rubino and Cortina 2007); workplace bullying survey (Giorgi 2012); and the work harassment scale (Bjorkqvist et al. 1994).

Other cited instruments measured comorbid factors, such as alcohol use (Freels et al. 2005; Wislar et al. 2002); burnout (Miner-Rubino and Cortina 2007); personal attributes (Gerrity 2000); and self-belief issues (Dekker and Barling 1998; Gerrity 2000). Some studies also included instruments that measure organisational functionality (Miner-Rubino and Cortina 2007; Schneider et al. 1997). Lastly, some authors in earlier studies attempted to collate information via a staff network (Grauerholz et al. 1999) and to model the occurrence (the how and why) of sexual harassment in workplace settings (O’Hare and O’Donohue 1998; Rospenda et al. 1998; Stockdale and Hope 1997; Stockdale et al. 1995).

Consequences and comorbidities of harassment

The findings indicated that there are numerous consequences and comorbidities related to harassment. One of the most commonly cited comorbidity activity was alcohol use and abuse (Freels et al. 2005; Richman et al. 1999; Rospenda 2002; Wislar et al. 2002). For example, Richman et al. (1999) found links between harassment and problem drinking for both men and women, such as engagement in disrespectful behaviour. Rospenda (2002) indicated that there were subtle links suggesting that men who were harassed used alcohol as an escape mechanism.

The association of psychopathology and its link with harassment was also discussed (Bjorkqvist et al. 1994; Munson et al. 2000; Richman et al. 1999; Rospenda et al. 2005; Schneider et al. 1997; Simpson and Cohen 2004; Thomas 2005). For example, Bjorkqvist et al. (1994) found the victims of harassment were more likely to exhibit problems associated with depression, anxiety and aggression when compared to their non-harassed peers. In a further reviewed article, Richman et al. (1999) also found links between harassment and abuse with depression, anxiety, and hostility. They also found that women tended to exhibit higher probabilities of experiencing these adverse consequences compared to men. Other consequences were reported by Thomas (2005) such as headaches, loss of confidence, loss of self-esteem, fatigue/listlessness, and stress. Schneider et al. (1997) also found that psychological variables—mental health status, life satisfaction and post-traumatic stress—were able to discriminate between those female employees who had experienced harassment versus those who had not.

Interventions employed to address harassment

Several studies in our review considered ways of dealing with harassment within higher education settings (Clark 2008, 2013; Grauerholz et al. 1999; Hunt et al. 2012; Irwin 2002; McKinney 1994; O’Hare and O’Donohue 1998; Sakurai and Jex 2012). For example, O’Hare and O’Donohue (1998) proposed a four factor model for explaining sexual harassment behaviour and ways for dealing with this behaviour. In addition, Sakurai and Jex (2012) and Clark (2013) suggested that incivility can be remediable through skill based programmes aimed to increase communication strategies. Other methods reviewed included the implementations of staff support networks (Grauerholz et al. 1999), challenging the presence of homophobic practices and behaviours (Irwin 2002), and ensuring management has the mandate to discourage the occurrence of maladaptive behaviours (McKinney 1994).

Discussion

The initial findings were able to situate the articles according to locality of the research, the predominant research methods being employed and the range of participants being sampled. Furthermore, in our systematic review we identified six themes: (1) causes of harassment; (2) types of harassment; (3) employee roles and relationships associated with harassment; (4) measurement of harassment; (5) consequences and comorbidities of harassment; and (6) interventions employed to address harassment.

Causes of harassment

Gender is clearly a major contributing factor to the incidence of harassment in higher education settings (e.g., Aguirre Jr 2000; Whatley and Wasieleski 2001). This contemporary finding is perhaps initially surprising given the equality movements which have been active in Western countries amongst higher education students since at least the 1960s, although the development of raising consciousness regarding gender inequality and the practicality of changing attitudes and implementing successful interventions is complex (Davis and Robinson 1991). Furthermore, this finding seems likely to be linked to aspects of power such that power inequity contributes to gender discrimination as women are often in less powerful workplace positions than men (Miner-Rubino and Cortina 2007; Rospenda et al. 1998). To explain this disparity, Hyde (2014) poses one view in the form of cognitive social learning theory which explains gender differences based on different reward and punishment structures for men and women, such that men often gain greater rewards than women thus creating an imbalance in power. Furthermore, Hyde proposes that socio-cultural theory argues that many of these power differences have an evolutionary basis linked to traditional and societal notions of division of labour and presupposed role allocations. For example, the findings of our review suggest that women may be allocated larger teaching loads in universities, thus creating barriers to engagement in research and publication on which most universities base their promotion decisions—thus making gender and power inequalities self-perpetuating.

Most Australasian higher education organisations have human resources mechanisms and legal requirements for dealing with difficult harassment situations (Griffiths 2016; The University of Auckland 2015). Nevertheless, the organisational climate may be such that it permits or encourages harassment behaviour (O’Hare and O’Donohue 1998). For example, if a unit director who harasses their staff is perceived by the university as being successful (e.g., getting grants, finishing projects, etc.), then personnel in high positions could be prompted to turn a blind eye on how these successes have been achieved. Consequently, if victims feel they are not supported by the organisational culture, they could feel isolated and disempowered by human resources systems and made to feel unsafe about seeking support whilst being harassed (Lewis 1999). A systematic review from the workplace literature strongly asserted that the key variables predicting workplace bullying are likely linked to role conflict and uncertainty, high workload, job insecurity and cognitive demands (Van den Brande et al. 2016). Further research in this area will need to identify factors that have contextual significance especially for higher education settings in the Asia Pacific region.

Types of harassment

The most commonly cited type of harassment identified was sexual harassment (e.g., Bryden and Fletcher 2007; Dekker and Barling 1998; Rospenda 2002). Sexual harassment has been linked to other maladaptive behaviours such as, threats, bribery, workplace hostility, or employment enticements (Richman et al. 1999). Sexual harassment has further been linked to increased alcohol use (e.g., Rospenda 2002; Rospenda et al. 2006).

More general types of harassment were sometimes defined in terms of workplace bullying. Giorgi (2012) found strong links between workplace bullying (professional and personal) and organisational climate and health although she found that workplace harassment had a more adverse effect on workplace function than on health. One study (McKay et al. 2008) found that work colleagues were well informed about the nature and definition of bullying in the workplace and identified that it often occurs in weak, toxic and poorly defined organisational structures. Organisational cultures that tend to be toxic herald inconsistent messages about ethical conduct and the lines of reporting are often weakly defined (McKay et al. 2008).

Employee roles and relationships associated with harassment

The relatively high levels of workplace harassment reported by managerial, administrative and professional personnel in higher education compared with faculty harassment can be linked with gender issues (Howard 2009). For example, and similar to the findings of the Whatley and Wasieleski (2001) study, Bjorkqvist et al. (1994) found that harassment was more widespread amongst administrators because many administrative staff are women. In their study, Richman et al. (1999) found gender disparities and links with the female worker experience of harassment at two time points. They noted a strong longitudinal effect whereby, women harassed at both time points generated the lowest levels of work satisfaction. Those not harassed at the first time point but subsequently harassed showed a succeeding drop in work satisfaction. Furthermore, those harassed at the first time point but not the second time point showed an increase in work satisfaction. Those not harassed at either time point showed the highest levels of work satisfaction. Finally, sexual harassment at the first time point was a stronger predictor of engagement than at the second time point. This study highlights the sequential or compounding effect of repeated harassment offences.

A further issue related to hierarchical positioning was presented by Bjorkqvist et al. (1994) who reported that the reasons for harassment were often related to status attainment. Management personnel are cited as being bullied due to experiencing financial restrictions and a backlash from putting unrealistic demands on staff (Lewis 2004). In their study, Giorgi (2012) found that harassment was committed more often by longer term faculty employees who had established tenure and she felt that this was due to the strong sense of hierarchies being present in Italian public organisations. Clark (2008) investigated incivility or disrespectful behaviour in faculty and students. She found that faculty engagement in incivility could be linked with high workloads, a sense of superiority, faculty turnover, and external demands. In her later study, Clark (2013) found that incivility most commonly encompassed aspects of “making rude, insulting, demeaning remarks or gestures and interrupting colleagues often in front of others” (p. 99). Other behaviours were also reported, such as undermining, gossiping, taking undue credit, and sabotaging. Clark further suggested that these behaviours often resulted in personnel “feeling angry, demoralized, and frustrated that incivility was often tolerated, ignored, and allowed to occur” (Clark 2013, p. 101). These findings resonate with the generic workplace literature suggesting that workplace, bullying, mobbing and racial and sex harassment are often driven by hierarchical power relations (McDonald 2012). Macdonald suggests that the major challenge with this dynamic is effecting and measuring real change especially if persons in power are implicitly resistant to change.

Measurement tools used to quantify harassment conditions

The most common research method applied was the self-report survey. The choice of this method of research is understandable given the sensitive nature of the study topic and, as shown in this study, responding to surveys of this nature will likely have an adverse impact on response rate. This is more likely when areas other than prevalence are being investigated such as the emotional consequences of harassment (Henning and Adams 2013; Lanza et al. 2006). Disclosure of details regarding harassment could create an ethical dilemma for researchers especially if the source of the delicate information becomes known (Sieber and Stanley 1988). The ramifications can extend to the need to pass on potentially damaging information to authorities that can create managerial or societal-level repercussions such as media intervention (Bilby 2015; Clarke 2015; Sieber and Stanley 1988). There are, however, limitations when relying on self-report questionnaire measures (Hoskin 2012; Richter and Johnson 2001), which can include reliance on the honesty of the participants, the ability of the participants to be introspective, objective and aware, the ability of the participant to understand the complexity of the issues being addressed, response bias, social desirability, the ordinal nature of the response measures, and control of the sample response.

In this review, the SEQ was the most cited instrument. It is a self-report tool that can be used to measure the prevalence of sexual harassment within higher educational settings (O’Hare and O’Donohue 1998). It is comprised of three main scales: gender harassment, unwanted sexual attention and sexual coercion which have been psychometrically validated (O’Hare and O’Donohue 1998). However, one commentator suggested that the operational definition of sexual harassment within the SEQ is questionable (Gutek et al. 2004). Gutek and colleagues have argued that the measure of sexual harassment in terms of psychological harassment is problematic, given the numerous definitions of psychological sexual harassment. They also assert that the SEQ measures behaviour that is ‘perceived’ as unwelcome and thus inappropriate. It may also not be appropriate for certain cultural contexts (Amin and Darrag 2011).

The second most cited instrument was the GWA (Fendrich et al. 2002; Richman et al. 1999; Wislar et al. 2002), which is a 29-item tool which assesses five dimensions of abuse, namely verbal aggression, disrespectful behaviour, isolation/exclusion, threats/bribes, and physical aggression. Fendrich et al. (2002) conducted a psychometric evaluation of this instrument by comparing it with the SEQ. Their confirmatory analyses showed that the GWA loaded onto four of the five factors with physical aggression excluded. A further similar questionnaire, cited by one group of researchers, is the generalized workplace harassment survey (e.g., Rospenda et al. 2005, 2006), which has 29 items with five conceptual dimensions, more specifically verbal aggression, disrespectful behaviour, isolation/exclusion, threats/bribes, and physical aggression. The instrument also has good internal consistency (α coefficients >.9). Furthermore, this instrument has separate but related constructs to the GWA instrument (Fendrich et al. 2002; Rospenda et al. 2006). As shown in the findings above, numerous other measures are being developed indicating the complexity of measuring workplace harassment as it often occurs concurrently with other phenomena such as burnout, job satisfaction, workplace stress, and addictive behaviours (Bowling and Beehr 2006). This has important implications for informing workplace interventions aimed at reducing harassment through cultivating supportive social interactions, reducing conflicted time pressures, and improving more inclusive workplace practices (Bowling and Beehr 2006).

Consequences and comorbidities of harassment

The consequences of harassment are linked to comorbidities making it often difficult to ascertain the direct cause–effect relationship. Thomas (2005) reported numerous consequences associated with harassment behaviours in higher education including deleterious health effects, such as “headaches, loss of confidence, loss of self-esteem, fatigue/listlessness, and stress” (p. 273). In addition, Thomas affirms that workplace harassment issues can be associated with decreased productivity due to “increased sickness absence, high turnover of staff, low morale, and poor performance” (p. 286). The findings of this review also suggest that alcohol is often associated with harassment. Alcohol can be the associated with instigation as evidenced by the strong association between sexual aggression and substance use (in particular alcohol abuse) (Calafat et al. 2013) and also as a coping mechanism for dealing with harassment (McGinley et al. 2015). These findings may have strong connections with issues related to maintaining a sense of positive affect, drinking to be social, escapism, intoxication, binge drinking, and/or addiction (Van Wersch and Walker 2009). The findings also provide evidence of the physical and psychological problems that occur due to the experience of harassment (e.g., Bjorkqvist et al. 1994; Rospenda et al. 2005; Schneider et al. 1997).

Nolfe et al. (2007) proposed that psychopathologies often occur as a consequence of ‘predatory bullying’ or ‘bossing’, which are some of the behaviours that can impact on male as well as female workers. Adverse consequences relating to discrimination for women tends to occur due to reduced opportunities for career advancement, adversely impacted work and family life balance, and the issues associated with sexual harassment. These findings have strong implications for the workforce as there are clear associations between harassment and reduced job satisfaction, lowered work productivity, increased absenteeism, job withdrawal, and more work force migration (Willness et al. 2007). Hence the cost of harassment harmfully impacts the individual in terms of wellness factors, but also has major implications for the organisations and the communities that they serve.

In a meta-analysis within the generic workplace literature, Nielsen and Einarsen (2012) confirmed a theoretical model depicting the impact that workplace bullying has on the workforce in terms of: (1) affective/attitudinal outcome—job satisfaction, commitment, and intention to leave; (2) health and well-being outcomes—mental and physical health, somatization, post-traumatic stress, burnout, sleep, strain and core self-evaluation; and (3) behavioural outcomes—performance and absenteeism. The moderating factors in this model include coping and personality. This model is useful in depicting the likely sequential and deterministic factors involved when workplace bullying is evident. A similar framework could be applied to the higher education bullying and harassment literature along with the extension to evaluation of countermeasures.

Interventions employed to address harassment

Interventions to prevent harassment within higher education settings are well cited in this review (Clark 2008, 2013; Grauerholz et al. 1999; Hunt et al. 2012; Irwin 2002; McKinney 1994; O’Hare and O’Donohue 1998; Sakurai and Jex 2012). For example, O’Hare and O’Donohue (1998) developed a detailed strategy for addressing the problem of sexual harassment by responding to organisational power issues. First, they suggested a diagnostic phase, whereby perpetrators’ motivation to commit the action is documented. Second, strategies are implemented to address sexual harassment by connecting harassing behaviours to those considered illegal, offensive, or immoral; this can be achieved through the inculcation of victim empathy and focussing on outcome expectancies. Third, external mechanisms are sanctioned through ensuring organisations have explicit grievance procedures and harassers are seen to be dealt with. Fourth, victims can address some of the issues by recognising the early warning signs, being more assertive, and empowered by management.

The two articles identified in the findings proposed addressing the problem of incivility through developing more respectful engagement in the workforce (Clark 2013; Sakurai and Jex 2012). Sakurai and Jex (2012) focussed on communication and the development of organisational awareness, such as making supervisors aware of their power relationships within the organisation and the opportunity for supportive rather than abusive action. As well as supportive action, supervisors need to learn how to be ‘assertive’ rather than abusive. An assertive statement can teach a point, but it has an attitude of ‘respectful request’ as opposed to employing acts of aggression and humiliation. Clark (2013) also focusses on organisational changes rather than targeting individuals, through cultivating more respectful engagement, meaningful collaborations and effective leadership. These strategies appear to resonate with the wider literature (e.g., Felblinger 2008) from healthcare organisations proposing strategies that encourage skilled communication, value all employees, promote authentic collaborations, evaluate decision making processes, and ensure staffing needs are met. There is a need for management concordance in the form of authentic leadership so that polices and strategies can be endorsed to optimise respectful engagement at all levels of the organisation.

Interventions also need to consider the constantly changing face of the workplace and the complexities associated with the global workforce. In this systematic review, the articles were focussed on issues occurring within learning institutions and no discernible research was identified that considered the internationalisation of education and the ramifications for the global workforce. In addition, although some articles addressed toxic communication strategies (e.g., Ozturk et al. 2008), only a few authors (e.g., Spratlen 1995) addressed the issue of improper use of electronic communication although this research tended to be confined to the institution under inspection. We feel that a lens on the higher education global workforce is an important issue if interventions are to extend beyond local boundaries and meet the challenge of the globally mobile workforce awash with the burgeoning increased use of online learning platforms. The globalisation factor has been address by researchers (e.g., Harvey et al. 2009) reflecting on how bullying can be exacerbated in the business environment. Harvey et al. state that with globalisation, comes the advent of greater diversity with the potential for more marginalisation of minority groups, and reduced levels of direct management control and legal culpability. They further propose an intervention for addressing potential bullying and harassment issues, which could be easily applied to the higher education context. Their intervention addresses issues linked to: (1) creating more formalised ways of assessing bullying within the present global organisational culture; (2) evaluating the advent of bullying and harassment behaviours relative to their occurrence and type by region; (3) appraising management structures by region in reference to how they deal with harassment; (4) appraising the implementation of regional policies; (5) developing globally applicable reporting mechanisms and complaints procedures; and (6) ensuring that a process of due diligence is in place so that mistreatment can be investigated in a reasonable and systematic manner.

Implications for harassment research in higher education in the Asia Pacific region

The Asia Pacific region encompasses regions from North and South America, Asia, Oceania, and Australasia (Inouye 2017). In this review, the North American countries of USA and Canada are well represented in the harassment literature pertaining to the higher education context. Only one article was located in reference to Australasia and this article explored the workplace experiences of gay men, lesbians, and transgender teachers, academics, and educators in reference to harassment in higher education (Irwin 2002). No journal articles were located in reference to studies being conducted in South America, Oceania, and Asia. However, it is noted that studies have been conducted on bullying in secondary schools in the wider Asia Pacific region. For example, Lai et al. (2008) conducted a comparative study on ‘middle’ or eighth grade students and researched the various forms of bullying prevalent in Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, and Taiwan. The most common type of bullying cited was being ridiculed with small occurrences of ostracism and/or being compelled to engage in unwanted activities. Such studies indicate potential research paradigms and processes that could be applied to the higher education setting.

There is no obvious reason in the literature to explain this bias in publication. However, there is a strong legal lobby that likely presents a good rationale for the more intense research in this area in the USA, especially in the area of sexual harassment (American Association of University Professors 2015). Nevertheless, this disparity highlights the relative dearth of research being cited in English language journals from South America, Asia, Oceania, and Australasia, reinforcing our initial impression that more widespread published research is required from these regions. It is possible that having selected and analysed articles published only in English may have influenced this finding. Nevertheless, this is unlikely to be a major limitation given that, for example, Albarillo (2014) reported that “English is the preferred language of international social science publishing in Scopus and JSTOR between the years of 1996 and 2012. Non-English languages in Scopus and JSTOR represent 13 percent and 10 percent of the total research articles published, respectively” (p. 87).

Nevertheless, the stark absence of research from South America, Oceania, and Asia may in part be due to language differences and socio-cultural factors. Some research from the harassment literature suggested that there are unique harassment factors occurring in similar regions that are not being explicitly investigated. For example, some useful research on workplace harassment being applied in Latin America (Merkin 2012) suggests that strong socio-cultural factors linked with power are at play within organisations in this region. One of the direct implications of cross-cultural comparative research is not only the reporting of instances of harassment but also to consider entrenched cultural values and legislative differences and the impact that legislative changes may have on ameliorating toxic workplace behaviours (Shaffer et al. 2000). Therefore, examination of cultural perspectives on harassment within the higher education workplace would be useful. These important local factors accentuate the need for further research in higher education environments worldwide, and principally outside of North America.

In addition, there is clear evidence in the grey literature, written in English, to suggest that harassment is prevalent in the non-represented regions. In a document from Thailand on gender issues in higher education (Ramachandran 2010), it is stated that the reporting of sexual harassment and gender-related violence in higher education has been increasing over the last 20 years. Ramachandran asserts that increased publicity may discourage women’s participation, although she proposes that evidence-based research is required in reference to how types of harassment influence the way students learn and employees work in higher education settings, with particular reference to the Asia Pacific context.

The way in which hierarchies can influence harassment is a further area of research that would likely be valuable for the Asia Pacific region. Lau (2016) proposes that engagement can engender changes in the way hierarchies operate, although this is difficult in traditional hierarchical approaches to management. In reference to Korean hierarchical approaches to management, Lau proposes that changes need to be endorsed by upper management. In one case, Lau found that one Korean company was able to collect multisource feedback resulting in addressing concerns related to work pressure and educating managers to respect employees’ workloads. This was achieved through enhancing channels of communication with employees considered lower in the hierarchy structure. Clearly more evidence-based research is required.

One way to encourage research in harassment in higher education, in non-represented countries, is to develop cross-cultural research projects involving different regions. For example, there have been some useful comparisons made between different Asia Pacific cultural and regional settings in the general workforce. For example, Shaffer et al. (2000) compared US and Chinese cohorts on the impact of gender evaluation, or making managerial judgments based on gender, within the workplace. They found that the organisations surveyed in the US, Beijing and Hong Kong were all culpable of gender evaluation practices resulting in increased adverse job-related outcomes, such as job dissatisfaction, disaffected commitment and increased turnover intentions. Shaffer et al. (2000) also found that there were differences between the US, Beijing and Hong Kong organisations, such that higher levels of gender harassment were noted in the US, compared to higher levels of unwanted attention in Beijing and more gender evaluation in Hong Kong. They were unable to demonstrate causal links due to the correlational nature of the research but they posed that the differences are likely due to cultural and legislative interactions. In addition, they mooted that litigation, arbitration, and other legal avenues to address harassment are more accessible in the US legislative systems than in Beijing and Hong Kong.

One area of caution in conducting research across regions is ensuring there are appropriate measurement protocols in place. For example, Watkins and Cheung surveyed children, using the self-description questionnaire, from various regions including Australia, China, Philippines, Nepal and Nigeria. The findings indicated cultural variations in terms of response bias, with some of the issues highlighted by the authors indicating linguistic and comprehension variances, collectivist versus individualistic perspectives, and differences related to cognitive styles and methods of self-disclosure. These problems are often highlighted even with questionnaires that are translated from one language to another. Nonetheless, response bias issues may also be problematic with qualitative research interviews and therefore the qualitative research process needs to implement strong protocols for ensuring trustworthiness and rigour.

Furthermore, one of the problems with comparative research in the area of sexual harassment across studies and geographic regions is consistency of legislation and definition (Paludi et al. 2006). In their article, Paludi et al. (2006) state that most countries do not use or have the term ‘sexual harassment’ or legislation protecting students from sexual harassment, which implies a consequential dearth of reporting, thus, making comparative research very difficult. Nonetheless, it is clear that further research is required, particularly in non-represented countries, so that a more complete picture of the dynamics of harassment within higher education can be brought to light.

Conclusions

In this systematic review, we included only articles published in refereed journals. However, we presuppose that most quality research, including that conducted via doctoral study, will likely be published in a refereed journal in due course. We also did not include books or book chapters, because these often do not contain de novo research. In addition, it is acknowledged that further definitions and terms could be considered and explored in further searches (e.g., Citizens Advice Bureaux New Zealand, Inc. 2016). Nonetheless, we believe our results are representative of harassment research findings in higher education.

The major highlights of this review indicate that workplace harassment is prevalent in higher education at all levels and among all disciplines. The evidence indicates that harassment appears to be present at all staffing levels—academics, general staff and administrators. The evidence cited in this review suggests that most of the research is being conducted in North America with relatively very little being conducted elsewhere suggesting the need for more global representation in the literature and, in particular, we note the need for more research to be conducted in South America, Asia, Oceania, and Australasia. The review also presents compelling evidence of the continual problem associated with gender harassment and the need for more contextualised interventions to address this aspect of harassment.

This review highlighted issues associated with: (1) confirming direct causation of harassment due to the high prevalence of correlational research in this area; (2) establishing and standardising measures of harassment that would have cross-cultural applicability and validity; (3) the demand for more comparative research to cater for the globally mobile workforce; (4) the requirement for greater monitoring and evaluation of the efficacy of policies and programmes purporting to be effective in dealing with harassment in the higher education workplace; and (5) the need for more contextually laden research to examine the unique nuances operating in countries, such as those in South America, Asia, Oceania, and Australasia, not well represented in the literature.

It is worrisome that newspaper articles related to harassment are becoming more prevalent (Bhagani 2015; Bilby 2015; Clarke 2015), but that very little published research on this is being generated in the Asia Pacific region. The good news is that the structure and methods for research have been well-articulated by the research being conducted in North America and to some extent Europe, and these methods are likely applicable, if developed with cultural responsiveness, to the regions of South America, Asia, Oceania, and Australasia. In addition, specific research in the area of generic workplace harassment will assist in developing ways to refine identification and deliver more effective interventions for the higher education context (O’Driscoll et al. 2011).