We present a model of the followers’ subjective evaluation of supervisor support in the face of sexual harassment. Integrating conservation of resources theory and role congruity theory, we argue that the subjective value of a supervisor’s intervention behavior is contingent upon the behavior’s congruence with leader and gender stereotypes. We classify Liang’s (2022) five types of sexual harassment bystander intervention into agentic and communal actions and argue that men supervisors’ ratings of perceived supervisor support will not differ based on the type of bystander intervention they provide. Conversely, we believe that women will receive lower ratings of supervisor support when they engage in agentic bystander interventions than when they engage in communal bystander interventions. We then discuss the theoretical and practical contributions to the sexual harassment bystander intervention literature and conservation of resource theory while suggesting avenues for future research.
