Anti-harassment policy, manager integrity and intention to report customer sexual harassment

Abstract

Purpose – Prior research showed that sexual harassment by customers is a widespread and serious problem for service workers. However, some of the service workers may be unwilling to report this problem to their managers because customers are important for them and for the interests of the organization. Moreover, reporting customer sexual harassment could be embarrassing and may prompt retaliation against those service workers. The purpose of this paper is to focus on salespeople’s intention to report customer sexual harassment to their immediate managers, and how the whistle-blowing intention is affected by the salespeople’s perception of anti-harassment policy, manager integrity and risks of blowing the whistle. Design/methodology/approach – To test the relationships among the variables, the data acquisition procedure yielded the responses of 251 full-time life insurance salespeople in Taiwan. Findings – The findings showed that salesperson perception of anti-harassment policy and manager integrity were positively associated with the salespeople’s whistle-blowing intention. Gender, age and personal experience of being sexually harassed by customers also related to the whistle-blowing intention. Originality/value – Customer sexual harassment has seldom been discussed in the relevant literature. The potential impacts of manager integrity on the prevention of customer sexual harassment in service work have also been less mentioned.