How coworker responses to identity-based sexual harassment complicate current bystander intervention models: Coworkers as complex champions, contradictory confidants, and complicit conspirators

Sexual harassment (SH) is a ubiquitous problem that causes material, physical, and psychological challenges for employees. When SH occurs, there are also myriad workplace relationships and organizational roles to consider - including the survivor, the harasser, the bystander (i.e., third-party witness), and other coworkers who do not neatly fit into one of these three categories. This study examines survivor relationships and communication with organizational members who they perceive impacted their experiences and decisions surrounding reporting SH. We collected 30 in-depth qualitative interviews with a diverse pool of participants from a variety of occupations. Theoretically, this study offers new employee roles to the literature that complement and extend identity-based research on SH bystanders–including complex champions, contradictory confidants, and complicit conspirators.