Discussion and Implications
Thank you Muriel, let us discuss the implications of this research paper
Assessing the effectiveness of empowerment on service quality: A multi-level study of
Chinese tourism firms
Theoretical Implications
1. This study is first to integrate three-level empowerment in the literature empirically.
This study develops empowerment climate as an organizational-level conceptualization,
implicit in the literature, and suggests that it is a critical aspect of an organization's
effort to foster department members' shared experiences of psychological
empowerment and employees' individual experiences of psychological empowerment.
Results suggest that organizational empowerment climate not only influences employee
psychological empowerment directly, but also has indirect effects through department
psychological empowerment, in which department psychological empowerment
mediates organizational- and individual-level empowerment.
2. In comparison to a small number of studies that focus only on the relationship of two
levels of empowerment (i.e., team/work unit and individual) and their effects, this study
enriches empowerment literature by offering a more detailed and precise account of the
relationship between three-level empowerment (i.e., organizational, departmental, and
individual) and job performance. A dynamic transmitting mechanism of empowerment
not only supports the notion that empowerment should be considered from both
structural and psychological perspectives, but also constructs a multiple-level cascading
process of empowerment.
Results highlight the importance of empowerment at each level, and that each
perspective cannot be neglected to achieve a combined greater effect concerning
frontline employees' work performance
3. This study is first to explore moderation of organizational empowerment climate
regarding the effectiveness of individual psychological empowerment.
Findings extend those of extant studies by showing that organizational empowerment
climate not only fosters empowered employees, but also moderates the relationship
between individual psychological empowerment and service quality such that the
influence of employee psychological empowerment is positive when organizational
empowerment climate is high. Without positive organizational empowerment climate,
individual psychological empowerment might fail to promote service quality. Results
also confirm researchers’ arguments by demonstrating that empowerment programs fail
if company decision-makers empower employees by using either the structural or
psychological approach.
4. Testing cross-level interactions of organizational SBE and employee psychological
empowerment enriches empowerment and performance evaluation system literature.
Scholars place importance on the effect of SBE when promoting employees' service
behaviors in service organizations (Hartline & Ferrell, 1996). This study reveals that
SBE is also an important contextual factor that strengthens the effect of psychological
empowerment, and this moderation is rarely tested empirically, or identified.
Managerial implication
1. To develop truly empowering programs, managers must draw on elements from both
structural and psychological empowerment perspectives, and execute them across
distinct organizational levels and to do so they should:
o Design organizational empowerment practices and procedures, and
systematically implemented activities at the departmental level.
o create and share a common vision for employees at all levels in the
organization, and translate the vision into specific, important goals
such as service, cost-saving goals, and timelines for every member in
the organization
o Empower departments with the authority to make decisions for
themselves (e.g., designing work processes) and create cost effective
and quality operations within the department.
o ensure that department managers execute empowerment policies and
practices successfully
o encourage department employees to set their own goals and self-
manage their tasks, and encourage employees to take initiative with
improving work performance
2. Build an SBE system is important to guaranteeing the effectiveness of employee
psychological empowerment on service quality which includes establishment of
behavior criteria, selection of evaluators, design of rewards, and feedback on
assessment results.
A longitudinal analysis of an accelerating effect of empowerment on job satisfaction:
Customer-contact vs. non-customer-contact workers
1. As anticipated, although empowerment has a positive impact on job satisfaction for
both groups, it is for customer-contact employee groups that this impact was stronger.
Even though anecdotal discussions in the literature posit that this relationship will be
more salient for customer-contact employees, few efforts have been made to
empirically test this proposition.
2. The current study shows an alternative methodological approach for future researchers
by taking the nature of job (e.g. customer-contact vs. non-customer-contact) into
consideration to test a conceptual model. It is more informative to examine
organizational phenomena by comparing/contrasting different work settings rather than
using a particular type of work setting (e.g., customer-contact service workers) which is
the focus of the majority of previous studies. The findings of such studies would be
useful for hospitality firms in the design of appropriate induction and training programs
which consider the nature of the job.
3. With the longitudinal analysis design, this study found that the impact of empowerment
accelerates over time. Although empowerment has a motivational effect on job
satisfaction, the effect becomes stronger as time passes. This finding is novel in that
most previous studies examined the empowerment-job satisfaction relationship using
cross-sectional As recent organizational studies suggest longitudinal research is needed
to examine how organizational phenomena change across time and the implications of
those changes. The findings, therefore, complement previous empowerment studies that
predominantly use only cross-sectional data.
4. Although a study with cross-sectional data using a sample of production workers found
that organizational tenure moderates the relationship between job autonomy and job
satisfaction, little empirical research has been conducted to understand the time-related
constructs, such as job tenure, as a moderator in the hospitality context. To this end, this
study expands the existing research by suggesting that experienced workers are likely
to expect more decision latitudes and accountability than their junior counterparts.
5. The time varying effects of empowerment on job satisfaction did not differ based on the
nature of work has practical implications. This implies that regardless of the type of
work, the time varying effects of empowerment on job satisfaction exist. Consequently,
managers need to keep a long-term empowerment strategy in mind for their workforce
for both front-of-the-house and back-of-the-house personnel.
