Confronting sexual harassment in hospitality: How Supervisor Support Behaviors in Sexual Harassment (SSB-SH) safeguard employees at work

Sexual harassment remains pervasive in the hospitality industry, yet little is known about the specific supervisory behaviors that effectively protect employees from its adverse consequences. This research introduces and validates Supervisor Support Behaviors in Sexual Harassment (SSB-SH), defined as employees' perceptions of the emotional and instrumental behaviors supervisors enact in response to sexual harassment incidents, and examines how SSB-SH fosters a positive diversity climate that, in turn, improves important employee outcomes, including higher engagement, lower stress, and decreased turnover intentions. In Study 1, we draw on prior work on sexual harassment and social support to conceptualize SSB-SH and provide evidence of its reliability and validity using a multi-phase and multi-method design. In Study 2, drawing on conservation of resources theory, we examine whether SSB-SH operates as a domain-specific social resource that shapes employees' diversity climate perceptions and, through this climate, predicts higher engagement, lower stress, and reduced turnover intentions. Data from a three-wave survey show that SSB-SH is positively related to diversity climate and indirectly related to all three outcomes, highlighting sexual harassment specific supervisor support as an important antecedent, through which organizations can preserve employees’ resources and reduce the harmful impact of sexual harassment. Practically, this work offers a theoretically grounded basis for designing supervisor training and accountability systems that emphasize emotional and instrumental responses to harassment in high-pressure service environments.