Sexual harassment and customer-oriented boundary-spanning behaviors: The role of burnout and psychological safety of deluxe hotel employees

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the recognition of sexual harassment (SH); to describe the relationships among SH, employees’ burnout, customer-oriented boundary-spanning behaviors (COBSB); and to verify the moderating effect of employees’ psychological safety (PS), all within deluxe hotels in South Korea. Design/methodology/approach: Prior to verifying the hypotheses, reliability and confirmatory factor analysis were managed, and correlation analysis was used to confirm the directionality between the hypotheses. The hypotheses were analyzed using a structural equation model and multi-group analysis was used to analyze the moderating effect. Findings: Perceived SH was significantly related to employees’ burnout and COBSB. Also, the employees’ burnout was significantly related to COBSB. The moderating effect was significant; low PS greatly increased relative to the effects of SH on COBSB. Originality/value: All types of companies consider unethical behaviors, such as SH in the workplace, as crucial problems that degrade the individual quality of life, and some firms have devised active measures to prevent and relieve damages. Companies should implement employee-centered policies that enable employees, the victims, to formally report and testify to what they have suffered from without revenge from their assailants. All the factors that contribute to the institutional control of SH within the working environment should be taken into consideration, and strict standards should be applied on a company level by criminalizing such behaviors. Employees should be trained on how to effectively cope with diverse types of SH.