The mediating role of psychological distress between ostracism, work engagement, and turnover intentions: An analysis in the Cypriot hospitality context

•The indirect effect of workplace ostracism on work engagement and turnover intention was investigated.•Psychological distress mediates the relationship between workplace ostracism and turnover intention.•Resilience moderated the relation of workplace ostracism and work engagement.•Workplace ostracism mitigated less resilient employees’ engagement, it stimulated more resilient employees’ engagement.•The conservation of resources and job demands-resources provided the theoretical underpinnings. Drawing on the conservation of resources and job-demands resource theories, this study proposes and tests psychological distress as an underlying mechanism mediating the relationships between workplace ostracism, work engagement, and turnover intentions. Furthermore, it investigates how resilience and perceived external employability condition the aforementioned relationships. Four- and five-star full-time hotel employees provided the data for this study. The findings suggest that psychological distress mediated the relationship between workplace ostracism and turnover intention, but did not mediate the workplace ostracism-work engagement linkage. Also, workplace ostracism plummeted the work engagement of less resilient employees, and surprisingly aroused that of more resilient employees. Finally, the result did not support the argument that employees with perceived high external employability would have stronger turnover intentions compared to those with lower external employability. This study offered new insights into the interface between workplace ostracism, engagement, and turnover intention, and relevant theoretical implications and address to managers are further discussed.