Coping strategies and perceived barriers of women hospitality workplace employees to sexual harassment in Bahir Dar city, Ethiopia: a grounded theory approach

Background Coping depicts how people detect, appraise, deal with, and learn from stressful encounters. Applying preferred coping strategies in various situations makes the issue a persistent agenda in hospitality workplaces, where women are unduly victims of sexual harassment. Thus, this study aimed to develop a context specific and data-driven coping strategy framework and barriers to coping strategy mechanisms for sexual harassment victimisation against women working in hospitality workplaces. Methods A qualitative, grounded theory approach was used. Data were collected from female employees, managers, cashiers, and customers. Semi-structured focus-group discussions and in-depth interview guides were employed. A constant comparative approach was used to describe the meanings and summarise the data. Data were coded, categorised, and networks were visualised using the ATLAS ti version 8.4.24 software package. Results In this study, six focus group discussions, ten in-depth interviews, and thirteen key informant interviews were conducted. The provided context specific coping strategic framework consists of four strictly interconnected dimensions with corresponding barriers practised by female hospitality employees. These were normalisation, engagement, help-seeking, and detachment. The normalisation dimension encompasses silence, acceptance, denial, refusal, grief, and tolerance. Confrontation, negotiation, retaliation/threatening, and discrimination of the perpetrators were included in the engagement dimension. Elements such as discussing with friends, complaining with supervisors, consulting professionals, and accusing perpetrators were in the help-seeking dimension. Lastly, job-hopping, job withdrawal, work withdrawal, and distancing were in the detachment dimension. Some barriers deterred all dimensions, some factors facilitated normalisation, and some adverse outcomes ended the engagement dimension. Conclusion Our study demonstrated that the coping capacities of sexual harassment among female hospitality employees have been apparent, providing space for stakeholders to intervene. Our new coping strategy framework can serve as a valuable guide for designing context-specific interventions. These interventions could help women and stakeholders prevent sexual harassment, decrease barriers, and alleviate these effects.