Worst case scenario: sexual harassment of clients as a joint function of economic dependence and emotional labor.

Kundro, TG, Burke, V., Grandey, AA, and Sayre, GM (2021). The worst of all worlds: Customer sexual harassment as a joint function of economic dependence and emotional labor. Journal of Applied Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000895

Commentary

This study investigated the predictors of sexual harassment received from customers. Assuming that sexual harassment from customers can occur as long as employees and organizations are served, little is known about when customers sexually harass and why they harass.

Based on a theoretical model of power within organizations, I propose that sexual harassment is a function of employees' economic dependence on customers and their respect for customers with emotional labor jointly activating customer power. In other words, the company needs customers to make sales, but if the company provides services to customers with a smile, the customers who support the company economically will misunderstand their position and sexually harass the company.

A field study of fallen employees with different economic dependence and emotional display requirements, as well as an online experiment manipulating economic dependence and emotional display from the customer's perspective, jointly confirmed these contextual factors.

Results show that increasing customer power and sexual harassment, and this study has important practical implications, suggesting that organizations can reduce customer sexual harassment by changing reward models or emotional labor expectations in the service context.