CHAPTER 20
How Masculinity Contests Undermine Organizations
by Jennifer L. Berdahl, Peter Glick, and Marianne Cooper
From Uber to Nike to CBS, corporate exposés have revealed seemingly dysfunctional workplaces rife with misconduct, bullying, and sexual harassment. For example, Susan Fowler’s 2017 blog post about Uber detailed not only her recollections of being repeatedly harassed, but also what she described as a Game of Thrones environment in which managers sought to one-up and sabotage colleagues to get ahead.1 A New York Times investigation described Uber as a “Hobbesian environment . . . in which workers are pitted against one another and where a blind eye is turned to infractions from top performers.”2
Why do companies get caught up in ...
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