Understanding critical behavioral factors of SASH bystander responses

Sexual Assault Sexual Harassment (SASH) constitutes an alarming global problem that can occur in all nearly all consumption contexts. However, the prevalence of and extent of harm caused by SASH is notoriously underreported to managers or through formal institutional processes. Rather, victim-survivors are likely to confide in bystanders (other consumers), who have witnessed the incident or are trusted by the victim-survivor. Although bystanders play such an important role before, during and after a SASH incident, managers, policy makers and researchers often focus solely on increasing their propensity to successfully intervene. We propose a multi-stage critical incident technique study to map the journey of a SASH bystander to address this oversight in understanding with the aim to inform managers, policy makers and future research about the role of bystanders following an incident of SASH for the wellbeing of all consumers.