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Racial discrimination against Asian American employees: impact of employee coping strategies on employee competence and work quality of life

Kawon Kim (School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, USA)
Bongki Woo (College of Social Work, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, USA)

International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management

ISSN: 0959-6119

Article publication date: 17 July 2024

Issue publication date: 18 October 2024

165

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to investigate the effects of workplace racial discrimination among Asian American (AA) employees in the restaurant industry and examines what kinds of employee coping responses can mitigate its detrimental effects on their work behaviors.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper uses an exploratory sequential mixed-methods approach, starting with a qualitative study using the critical incident technique followed by a quantitative between-subjects experiment to examine the impact of employee coping responses to racial discrimination on employee competence and work quality of life (WQOL).

Findings

The study reveals that customer-perpetrated racial discrimination is the most common form of racial discrimination that AA employees face in the restaurant industry. In addition, confrontation is the most effective coping strategy to increase employee’s self-competence. Also, the severity of discrimination moderates the effect of coping strategies on employee’s self-competence. Employees’ self-competence mediates the relationship between their response strategy against discrimination and their WQOL.

Research limitations/implications

The findings of this study suggest that confrontation is an effective coping strategy for targeted employees, compared to support-seeking or avoidance. Confrontation was perceived as competent, compared to other coping strategies, and in turn, enhanced WQOL.

Originality/value

This study expands the scope of racial discrimination research in the hospitality literature for the growing diversified hospitality workforce. In addition, this study provides practical insights into competent ways of coping with racial discrimination.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This project was funded by the University of South Carolina, Office of the Vice President for Research.

Declaration of interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests.

Citation

Kim, K. and Woo, B. (2024), "Racial discrimination against Asian American employees: impact of employee coping strategies on employee competence and work quality of life", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 36 No. 12, pp. 4278-4295. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-12-2023-1884

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2024, Emerald Publishing Limited

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