Unraveling Hotel Employee Depression and Depersonalization Mysteries: Moderation Function of Alexithymia

This paper integrates affective events, social exchange, and conservation of resources theories to examine how organizational injustice affects the psychological well-being of hotel housekeeping employees through knowledge hiding, considering the moderating role of alexithymia. Data were obtained from 420 housekeeping employees at three-star hotels in Alexandria and Marsa Matrouh and analyzed using ADANCO-PLS v.2.4. Results showed that organizational injustice positively affects employees’ depression and depersonalization by increasing knowledge-hiding. Alexithymia also moderates the effect of knowledge hiding on employee depression and depersonalization. This paper advances understanding of workplace well-being by revealing the triple function of knowledge hiding as an emotional coping mechanism, a resource-conservation mechanism, and a means of self-preservation. Further, this paper identifies emotional processing capability as a critical meta-resource that determines psychological outcomes in hospitality settings.