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Effects of sexual harassment on employees’ family undermining: Social cognitive and behavioral plasticity perspectives

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Abstract

This study examined the effects of workplace sexual harassment on family undermining. The investigation focused on the mediating role of moral identity and the moderating role of organization-based self-esteem (OBSE). The results, which were based on employee-spouse dyadic data collected in China, indicated that employees’ perceptions of sexual harassment were negatively related to their sense of moral identity and positively related to family undermining behavior. Moreover, reduced moral identity mediated the relationship between sexual harassment and family undermining. Furthermore, OBSE attenuated the main effect of sexual harassment on moral identity and the indirect effect of sexual harassment on family undermining via reduced moral identity. Our findings offer insightful theoretical contributions and managerial implications that indicate new directions for research on sexual harassment and work-family relations.

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Acknowledgments

An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the 2014 First HR Division International Conference, Beijing, China. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 71302187, 71331004, 71372005), the Program for Young Excellent Talents, UIBE (grant number 2013YQ04), the Beijing Higher Education Young Elite Teacher Project (YETP0893), and Program for Innovative Research Team of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Business Administration, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu, 611130, China

    Yi Liao

  2. Business School, University of International Business and Economics, Beijing, 100029, China

    Xiao-Yu Liu

  3. School of International Business Administration, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, 777 Guoding Road, Shanghai, 200433, China

    Ho Kwong Kwan & Qi-tao Tian

  4. School of Business Administration, Henan University of Economics and Law, Zhengzhou, 450001, China

    Qi-tao Tian

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  1. Yi Liao
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Correspondence to Ho Kwong Kwan.

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Liao, Y., Liu, XY., Kwan, H.K. et al. Effects of sexual harassment on employees’ family undermining: Social cognitive and behavioral plasticity perspectives. Asia Pac J Manag 33, 959–979 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10490-016-9467-y

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