“The organization seems to be only worried about the organization”: The role of sensegiving and sensebreaking in reporting sexual harassment

Despite decades of research and policy, sexual harassment continues to be routinely underreported. This study qualitatively examined sexual harassment targets’ experiences with reporting workplace sexual harassment to their organizations. Targets’ narratives illustrate how organizational members facilitated sensegiving and sensebreaking throughout the reporting process, and the findings showed how sensegiving and sensebreaking were constitutive of the organization’s culture regarding sexual harassment. A key contribution of this article is that it extends previous research on sensegiving by exploring a new type of sensegiving called implicit sensegiving. In addition, this study extends literature on sensebreaking by exploring two types of sensebreaking, which we term positive and negative sensebreaking. Practical implications for organizations include accurately enacting their sexual harassment policies and being careful to discipline the harasser and not further isolate or marginalize the target when they formally report to the organization.