Antecedents of Sexualized Work Environment and Their Relationship with Emotional Exhaustion.

Our research builds on the "dark side" of social-sexual behavior at work and more specifically, sexualized work environment (e.g., high incidence of sexual jokes, comments, flirtatious behavior, dressing seductively). We tested the hypotheses using structural equation modeling with survey data collected from 1101 employees in India in various organizations. As hypothesized, we found gender contact and flexible work arrangements to be positively associated with sexualization of the work environment. On the other hand, self-respect was negatively associated with sexualization. Also, as predicted, sexualization of the work environment was positively associated with emotional exhaustion. Further, sexualization of the work environment mediated the relationship between the antecedent variables (gender contact, flexible work arrangement, and self-respect) and emotional exhaustion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]