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Like “second hand smoke,” the harmful repercussions of racial harassment may extend well beyond the target to impact others at work. This study seeks to examine the “second hand smoke effect”, or ambient racial harassment, which involves exposure to racial harassment aimed at others. The paper examines race differences in awareness of racial harassment and explored work and health‐related outcomes associated with exposure to racial harassment. It also examines organizational tolerance for harassment as a moderator of these relationships.

A diverse sample of 245 employees from three data sources were surveyed. One data source involved White and Black employees in the same organization; the others worked in a variety of organizations across the USA.

Whites were less likely than Blacks to be aware of racial harassment, even when employed in the same workplace. However, awareness of racial harassment predicted negative job attitudes and psychological strain for both Whites and Blacks. These relationships were amplified by perceptions of organizational tolerance for racial harassment.

The study documents ramifications of ambient racial harassment and illuminates a racial divide in awareness of harassment at work that may exacerbate racial conflict and prevent needed organizational change.

The paper extends the construct of ambient racial harassment by measuring a range of overt and subtle forms that vary in type and intensity, and by examining the role of organizational tolerance for racial harassment as a moderator of the relationship between ambient racial harassment and work and health‐related outcomes.

Defines racial harassment and the duties of employers; uses case studies as examples. Gives advice on how to avoid matters reaching a trial and the resulting problems this can bring. Provides recommended guidelines for employers including suggestions such as no tolerance, communication, complaints policy, speed of investigation and remedial action.

Research on racial inequality in organizations typically (1) assumes constraining effects of bureaucratic structure on the capacity of powerful actors to discriminate or (2) reverts to individualistic interpretations emphasizing implicit biases or self-expressed motivations of gatekeepers. Such orientations are theoretically problematic because they ignore how bureaucratic structures and practices are immersed within and permeated by culturally normative racial meanings and hierarchies. This decoupling ultimately provides a protective, legitimating umbrella for organizational practices and gatekeeping actors – an umbrella under which differential treatment is enabled and discursively portrayed as meritocratic or even organizationally good. In this chapter, we develop a race-centered conception of organizational practices by drawing from a sample of over 100 content-coded workplace discrimination cases and analyzing both discriminatory encounters and employer justifications for inequality-generating conduct. Results show three non-mutually exclusive patterns that highlight the fundamentally racial character of organizations: (1) the racialization of bureaucracies themselves via the organizational valuation and pursuit of “ideal workers,” (2) the ostensibly bureaucratic and neutral, yet inequitable, policing of minority worker performance, and; (3) the everyday enforcement of racial status boundaries through harassment on the job, protection afforded to perpetrators, and bureaucratically enforced retaliation aimed at victims. The permeation of race-laden presumptions into organizations, their activation relative to oversight and bureaucratic policing, and the invoking of colorblind bureaucratic discourses and policies to legitimate discriminatory conduct are crucial to understanding the organizational dimensions of racial inequality production. We end by discussing the implications of our argument and results for future theory and research.

Despite organizational policies aimed at harassment prevention, harassment based on gender and ethnicity remains pervasive in places of work. Although previous research has identified other antecedents such as harassment climate, the purpose of this paper is to consider whether a climate of respect leads to reductions in identity-based harassment.

In a military sample of active duty men and women (Study 1) and a sample of working adults (Study 2), the authors use survey methods to test whether a climate of respect predicts the occurrence of two forms of identity-based abuse: sexual harassment (Study 1) and ethnic harassment (Study 2).

The authors find that a climate of respect uniquely predicts harassment based on sex and ethnicity, above and beyond effects of climate for harassment.

These results suggest that, while traditional harassment prevention efforts remain important for deterring identity-based harassment, promotion of a respectful work environment is also an effective tool.

Surveys have demonstrated that men and women are the victims and perpetrators of workplace bullying. Consequently, most researchers have failed to explore the gender dynamics of this phenomenon. Draws upon qualitative interviews, which highlight the ways in which workplace bullying has developed in the context of new organisational arrangements and management techniques in the UK Civil Service, to show how the workplace bullying of women and men is informed by judgements of “appropriate” gender conduct and pressure to conform with such norms. As such, seeks to claim workplace bullying as a subject worthy of sustained feminist research.

Outlines the reasons for the California Fair Employment and Housing Act. Considers recent developments in relation to religious organizations, sexual harassment, pregnancy discrimination, racial harassment, disability discrimination and employment discrimination with regard to bank officers. Concludes that there is a need for clearer legislation and only through case law will employers gain further interpretation.

The purpose of this paper is to identify promising themes of the papers in the special issues of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion dedicated to advancing scholarship on sex-based harassment.

A conceptual overview of the research pertaining to these themes and an analysis of the special issues papers' contributions to these themes.

Four themes that represent important but relatively neglected lines of inquiry into sex-based harassment are identified. These are (1) the psychology of harassment, (2) organizational culture and networks, (3) the invisible majority and (4) the importance of collective action.

The paper offers an expert perspective on the state of research related to sex-based harassment and four themes that are important to moving it forward.

This paper reports on an exploratory study on workplace bullying in further education and higher educational institutions in Wales. Coverage of the study compared perceptions and experiences across six areas: workplace bullying, sexual harassment, racial harassment, sex discrimination, unfair promotional opportunities, and reduced promotion opportunities. The study methodology incorporated structured interviews with 20 key informants, a postal survey of higher/further education trade union members (NATFHE) in Wales, and in depth interviews with a small number of victims of bullying. Respondents hear of workplace bullying primarily from the broadcast media and not through internal communications. Respondents to the survey had experienced higher levels of workplace bullying than they experienced sex discrimination, sexual harassment or racial harassment. As a source of hearing about bullying, colleagues appear to provide a link that enables victims to admit to their own suffering. The perceived reasons for the bullying are linked to poor managerial training.

More than six years have elapsed since the much‐heralded Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 (hereafter also referred to as the “Act”) came into force. The Act had been prompted by concern at the lack of progress made in the sphere of racial equality despite the existence of the 1976 Race Relations Act. There were accusations that the 1976 Act was outdated and lacked the political teeth to be effective. The new Act imposed for the first time specific requirements on public sector institutions to be more proactive in promoting race equality. The duties would apply to public bodies that were previously exempt such as the Police and the National Health Service. This paper aims to focus on Scottish local councils and to examine the progress made by these public sector organisations in the field of race equality since the new Act came into force.

The researchers carried out a postal survey of Scotland's 32 local authorities in order to assess the progress made in the area of race equality. Questions focused on examining the scale of progress in relation to both employment and service delivery.

The results revealed a mixed picture. On the positive side, most councils had initiated race awareness training programmes. The majority had also incorporated aspects of race equality into their equal opportunities policies and most had instituted measures to engage with ethnic minority communities. However, there are still areas where performance is unsatisfactory, including inadequacies in the ethnic monitoring of staff, failure to reflect the size of the ethnic minority community in the workforce, and the absence of a clear and distinctive policy on racial harassment in the workplace.

This research will be of great value to anyone who is interested in assessing whether the legislative duties imposed by the Act have been satisfied by Scotland's local authorities. It is the first study of its kind in Scotland and is likely to appeal to both practitioners in the public sector and to academics.

The research compared the predictors of work‐related stress for policemen and policewomen. Stressors included workplace problems, token status in the organization, low family and coworker support, and community and organizational conditions.

In 11 police departments, racial and ethnic minorities were oversampled. Of 2,051 officers sampled, 46.2 percent responded. Questions and scales were adapted from prior research on both males and females. Regression analysis revealed the strength of individual predictors of stress, the variance explained by workplace problems, and the additional variance explained by social support, token status, and community and organizational context.

Workplace problems explained more male's than female's stress. Regardless of gender, the strongest predictor of stress was bias of coworkers, and a weaker predictor was language harassment. Just for males, lack of influence over work and appearance‐related stigmatization were additional predictors. Workplace problems explained gender differences in stress that were related to token status as a female.

The sample was not representative of all police in the USA. Measures of community and organizational characteristics were highly intercorrelated, so they could not be examined separately. Especially, for women, there is a need to identify additional sorts of influence on stress.

Although individual interventions and coping strategies are important for reducing police officer stress, changes in the organizational context also deserve attention. There is a need to develop and test interventions to reduce bias among coworkers, to contain language harassment, and to provide police with an increased sense of control over their work.

The paper focuses on stress within the policing environment.