Unpacking the dimensions of organizational tension: the case of sexual violence response and prevention among college students

ABSTRACT

How universities address sexual violence is increasingly scrutinized because of the devastating consequences to students who experience violence and mandates that tie federal funding to response and prevention efforts. However, university departments that have a vested interest in sexual violence response and prevention differ in how they frame the problem. This study employs a tension-centered approach to investigate how a multi-disciplinary team addresses the tensions of sexual violence response and prevention. Findings highlight two new dimensions of organizational dilemmas: (1) an occupational orientation dimension and (2) an action orientation dimension. These new dimensions articulate an explanatory framework that underscores how the tension is understood and then posits a repertoire of viable response strategies. These strategies drive particular logics that (re)frame future responses to dilemmas and constrain or transform how team members approach complex organizational dilemmas. This study offers practical guidance to assist universities in addressing sexual violence among college students.

KEYWORDS:

• Organizational communication
• tension
• sexual violence
• multi-disciplinary team
• qualitative methods

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Sexual assault is defined broadly to include noncontact sexual abuse, unwanted sexual contact, attempted rape, or completed rape (Fisher et al., 2010).

2. Sexual violence includes sexual assault, stalking, and dating violence (Basile, Smith, Breiding, Black, & Mahendra, 2014).

3. For an exception, Carlson et al. (2016) articulate two dimensions of situational tension that link organizational responses to tension to the degree of press, or sense of urgency they invoke, and balance, or the degree to which each side of the tension is given equal weight.

4. This university is an 8-campus system with approximately 41,000 students. Over the past few years, the university had seen a steady rise of notices of sexual violence and formal reports to the university. This increase in notices was a result of several initiatives, including the development of a centralized data-tracking system, the launch of an awareness of services campaign, and the creation of a student advocate position dedicated to sexual violence.

5. This is a subset of the dataset; data collection with the team focused exclusively on awareness and prevention is ongoing as this subgroup was still being formalized at the time of this study.

6. At first, it might seem that a constant comparative approach is not compatible with a study about organizational tension. However, according to Clarke (2003), this approach does align with the situated focus of Strauss’s (1987) original work. To this end, a constant comparative approach allows for “situational analyses” at the meso-level that elucidate complexities – “the key elements and conditions that characterize the situation of concern in the research project” and the attendant fragmentation, contradiction, and tension that emerge in such analyses (Clarke, 2003, p. 554).

7. To maintain anonymity, participants are identified by labels in the findings. Because the CCRT only included one or two members from each university area, and because the majority of participants were women, identifying participants by occupation or pseudonym could compromise anonymity.

Additional information

Funding

This project was supported by the Central States Communication Association Federation Prize [grant no. 414212].