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Economic, social and demographic changes in the American workplace have created an environment conducive to workplace romance. There are several perspectives on such occurrences as well as their causes and consequences. Many laws are involved, although most were written to address other matters. The laws offer few guidelines since they differ for private and public sector employees, vary by state and are applied on a case by case basis. Court rulings show trends worth noting. Employees are admonished to note what message their dress, remarks and body language send. Employers are encouraged to get involved in employees' privacy matters only when job performance is affected and to educate employees on the risks involved in workplace romance.
Introduction
Social, legal and labor force composition changes have created new forms of interaction between men and women in the workplace. Higher expectations and increased assertiveness of women workers enhance these changes and interactions [17]. New workplace rules, i.e., taboos on sexual behavior at work and policies against intra-organizational dating and sexual harassment, have been designed to cope with the negative consequences of these interactions [12]. Sexualized relationships at work have been explained in terms of social exchange theory [10].
Social exchange theory is based on the assumption that career choices can be distinguished from personal choices, but in fact, distinguishing private from workplace life is difficult [16]. Advantage is gained and lost as reciprocal influences occur between those involved over time. Unfortunately, there are few guidelines for understanding the conditions under which outside-of-job interaction between men and women coworkers is classified as personal or job-related [12]. This article is an attempt to analyze these conditions and offer some guidelines for managing workplace romance.
Nature of Workplace
Workplace romances are relationships between people working together which are characterized by sexual attraction whether or not they are made known to others through the participants' behavior [18]. Workplace romance has been transformed by technology such as computer networks that allow exchange of personal information [2]. There are differing views of the cause, motivations and consequences of workplace romances for the organization and the people involved [2].
Antecedent conditions include (1) proximity (working closely with others to foster interpersonal attractions), (2) intensity of the working relationship (the pursuit of similar...