Sexism and workplace interpersonal mistreatment in hospitality and tourism industry: A critical systematic literature review

Abstract

Given the extensive body of literature reporting gendered workplace interpersonal mistreatment (GWIM) in hospitality and tourism (H&T) research, there is a surprising lack of critical literature reviews exploring this issue. To address this absence, and contribute to existing debates, this paper critically explores gendered epistemological gaps in literature informing GWIM scholarship in H&T. Employing 47 eligible articles extracted from the Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar databases, this study finds that women are usually the target of sexual harassment. Yet, more importantly, this study also finds that men and non-binary lived experiences of GWIM in H&T industry have not drawn adequate attention in academic research. Among the qualitative papers, the commonly used interpretivist approach exploring GWIM reveals scope for alternative epistemologies such as critical realism. Hence, informed by the need for more diverse methodologies, based on a critical realist standpoint, this paper advances an integrative framework to guide future GWIM research enabling the theorisation of all genders.