Young Love at Work: Perceived Effects of Workplace Romance among Millennial Generation Organizational Members

Abstract

This study examined workplace romance perceptions among Millennial employees who had participated in a workplace romance and those who had observed one. Two samples (workplace romance partners and coworkers) of 18- to 29-year-old employees completed questionnaires in which they reported their perceptions of workplace romance’s positive and negative effects. The relationships between the effects and respondent role (partner/coworker), sex (male/female), and the romance’s status dynamic (peer-peer/hierarchical) were also examined. Results indicate Millennial workplace romance partners focused on personal benefits and difficulties, whereas coworkers tended to identify organizational impacts. Women were more likely than men to identify drawbacks of workplace romance, and employees reporting on hierarchical versus peer-peer romances were more likely to identify the partners gaining workplace advantages. Implications for work–life blending and workplace romance policies geared toward Millennial organizational members are discussed.

Keywords:

• Workplace romance
• Millennial generation
• sexual behavior
• work–life blending
• sexual harassment

Notes

1 Given the number of comparisons, the Bonferroni correction was applied to this and all subsequent analyses. Complete results are available from the first author.

2 Prior research on sex differences in WR research indicated effect sizes ranging from small to large, with most effect sizes approaching medium (Berdahl & Aquino, 2009; Pierce, 1998; Pierce & Aguinis, 2003; Pierce et al., 2012). Assuming a medium effect size for sex differences in our study, desired power of 80%, and a p value of .05, Cohen and Cohen (1983) recommend N = 84 as the sample size. In addition, we computed the recommended sample sizes for situations in which there is an imbalance in samples using G*Power Version 3.1.9.2 (Faul, Erdfelder, Lang, & Buchner, 2007). With a sample ratio of 2.64, the recommended sample was 29 men and 77 women. Given our sample size, we had 95% power to detect sex differences of a medium size.

3 For the post hoc analyses involving sex, we had 74% and 67% power to detect medium effect sizes in the coworker and the WR partner samples, respectively.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rebecca M. Chory

Rebecca M. Chory (PhD, Michigan State University) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Management at Frostburg State University. Her research interests include workplace relationships, fairness and ethics in organizational and instructional contexts, and antisocial organizational behavior.

Hailey Grace Gillen Hoke

Hailey Grace Gillen Hoke (PhD, West Virginia University) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at Weber State University. Her research focuses on interpersonal relationships in the organizational context, including workplace friendships and workplace romances.