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IJSIM
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Managing employee
empowerment in luxury
hotels in Europe
70
Received 16 July 2004
Revised 26 July 2006
Accepted 25 September 2006
Antonis Klidas
Department of Social and Cultural Sciences, Tilburg University,
Tilburg, The Netherlands
The study was supported by a grant from the European Commission in the context of the
Training and Mobility of Researchers program, part of the Marie Curie Fellowships. The authors
would like to thank especially the current Editor-in-Chief and the anonymous reviewers for this
journal as well as Professor Bob Ford (University of Central Florida) for their very detailed
comments on earlier versions of this paper.
Introduction
Since, 1980s, industry and academia have shown a growing interest in the concept of
employee empowerment. Empowerment is generally seen in the management literature
as the process of delegating or the decentralization of decision-making power (Conger
and Kanungo, 1988). Empowerment has been widely seen as the missing piece in the
puzzle formed by growing global competition, organizational restructuring, and the
increasing importance of service quality and customer satisfaction (Wilkinson, 2001).
From a societal perspective, the concept of empowerment is also said to be aligned with
the progressive democratization of both society and organizations, as it allows workers
some degree of self-determination (Goldsmith et al., 1997). Empowerment has become
especially important for services and hospitality, where frontline employees need the
authority to respond promptly to the individual needs of the increasingly demanding
consumer in increasingly unpredictable service situations (Hartline and Ferrell, 1999).
Such situations typically occur in the upscale sector of the hotel industry, where a
highly demanding clientele and high standards of service quality require empowered
(frontline) employees. It is by no coincidence that much of the research on
empowerment has had the hotel industry as its focus (Brymer, 1991; Parsons, 1995;
Jones et al., 1997; Hales and Klidas, 1998).
In the empowerment debate a question of principal importance to service
management concerns the identification of specific interventions or behaviors that are
needed to effectively implement the concept of empowerment in practice (Bowen and
Lawler, 1992). In this paper, we offer a model for implementing employee
empowerment. We integrate into one conceptual framework the piecemeal theories
of the antecedents of empowered behavior during service delivery. In particular, we
examine the importance of:
.
training;
.
reward practices;
.
organizational culture perceptions; and
.
management style.
Our model is then tested through empirical research carried out among the frontline
employees of 16 upscale properties of an international hotel chain spread across seven
European countries. The cornerstone of our integrated model is that empowerment
does not require management to refrain from controlling employee behavior, but rather
it requires a change in the form of management control that is exercised.
In this paper, we will first define employee empowerment in the context of the
service and hospitality management literatures and delineate the behaviors which
empowered employees are expected to demonstrate. Then we present our
theoretically-grounded model of employee empowerment, which we test empirically
within the 16 luxury European hotels, and discuss it implications for practice.
Empowerment in service and hospitality management
Although the empowerment construct has some conceptual ambiguities (Menon, 2001),
in the service management literature there is mostly unanimity regarding its definition.
Most accounts view empowerment as delegation of decision-making authority and
responsibility (Maxwell, 1997). Empowerment studies typically focus on
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(4) Meta control. Operating above the event and focusing on values in the form of
notions of what is important and desirable to be held by those carrying out the
work.
Proponents of employee empowerment tend to argue for the withdrawal of concurrent
control through direct supervision and rigorous rules and procedures, and at the same
time the reinforcement of the alternative forms of control described above (Hales and
Klidas, 1998; Klidas, 2001). Such reinforcement can occur through:
.
Careful employee selection, recruitment and training, as a means of exercising
ex-ante control. The aim is to have empowerable employees and to inculcate in
the work process the skills, knowledge and attitudes conducive to the
development of employee behavior that is acceptable and responsible during
service delivery.
.
Performance-related rewards, as a means of exercising ex-post control. Here, the
aim is to promote and encourage employee responsibility, creativity and
initiative during service delivery.
.
Promote a customer-oriented organizational culture, as a means of exercising
meta control.
.
An empowering management style, which is also a form of meta control, so as to
instill in employees the company values, to shape their attitudes, and to stimulate
the development of desired behaviors during the performance of tasks.
By reinforcing ex-ante, ex-post, and meta control, the locus of control over employee
behavior may progressively shift from external control to self-control. This will occur
as employees apply internalized values, rules and norms of behavior relating to
processes and outputs (Hales, 1993, p. 57), which corresponds to the often-quoted
ownership of the job felt by the empowered employees (Bowen and Lawler, 1992).
A clear recognition that empowerment demands the ceding of concurrent control
through the reinforcing of alternative forms of control comes from Sewel and
Wilkinson (1992, p. 102), who contend that the procedures associated with selection,
socialization and appraisal militate against employees pursuing alternative interests.
Following the same line of thought, Simons (1995) proposes that control in the
empowerment era should occur through a combination of belief systems,
boundary systems, and diagnostic and interactive control, in order to reap the
benefits of employee creativity without jeopardizing organizational interests. The
increasing emphasis in the management literature on the processes of
selection-recruitment, training, performance-related rewards, and the development of
a customer-oriented culture, although not always explicitly linked to empowerment,
does in our own view reflect attempts to secure employee compliance with
organizational goals in the absence of direct or close supervision (see, for an interesting
case study within the field of education, Causon, 2004).
Predictors of employee empowerment
It is argued here that the key to effective employee empowerment lies in the
reinforcement of the alternative forms of control over employee behavior during
service delivery. Therefore, we examine in this research the role in the empowerment
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delivery process, since management can rely on the fact that employees will be
working diligently to meet those goals on which their rewards are based (Simons,
1995). An absence of performance-related rewards may lead to employees reluctance
to accept empowerment because of cynicism about their jobs being enlarged in
assuming a degree of managerial responsibility for the same remuneration (Maxwell,
1997, p. 58). The provision of performance-related rewards is vital in the context of
empowerment, since empowerment increases risk and responsibility for employees,
and places increasing demands on them to demonstrate additional skills and discretion
(Goldsmith et al., 1997). It is therefore, possible to argue that in departments where the
available rewards reflect individual performance, employees will demonstrate a higher
degree of empowered behavior. Based on the above we propose our H2:
H2. During service delivery, employees of departments where rewards are
focused on employees individual performance will exercise a higher degree of
empowered behavior.
Customer-oriented culture. An organizations commitment to service quality and
customer satisfaction is reflected in the shared system of beliefs, values, attitudes, and
norms of behavior: a system which has been described as a customer-oriented
culture (Hales, 1994, p. 57) or a service culture (Gronroos, 1990, p. 244). Gronroos
(1990, p. 244) defines such a culture as one:
. . . where an appreciation for good service exists, and where giving good service to internal,
as well as ultimately external, customers is considered a natural way of life and one of the
most important norms by everyone.
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give the employees information about the research objectives, and guidelines for
completing the questionnaire. The rest of the data (i.e. the other 30 percent) were
collected by the personnel or training managers of the hotels, and returned to us by
post. In Italy, the research took place simultaneously with the company employee
survey, which inevitably resulted in a large number of participants, who were not
targeted by this research. We have excluded these employees from the analyses. A total
of 533 questionnaires were returned, which represents an approximate 50 percent
response rate. About 74 managers and management trainees who had completed the
questionnaire were excluded from the analyses. Further, 103 respondents with missing
data (48 did not report their job title) were excluded from the sample. The respondents
with missing data did not significantly differ from the remaining sample on sex,
education, and tenure. The number of hotels and frontline employees surveyed per
country are listed in Table I.
The remaining 356 responses cover 14 different job titles, the most common being
waiter (143), receptionist (124), luggage porter (31), and concierge (25). The large
majority of the employees, namely 85 percent, reported having a permanent, full time
contract. The rest had temporary or part-time contracts, or were casual staff. The
average age of respondents was 35.4 years, and the average period with their current
employer was 7.7 years, 72 percent were men, 11 percent had a university degree, 17
percent had non-university higher education, 44 percent had completed further
education or vocational training, and 28 percent had completed only secondary school
or lower stages of school education.
A potentially important issue is the composition of the sample in terms of the
nationalities of the respondents; the sample was quite multicultural with employees
originating from 40 different countries. By far the most multicultural hotels in the
present study were the ones in London, where 63 percent of the respondents were
non-British, followed by the hotels in Brussels, where 29 percent of the respondents
were non-Belgian. In contrast, the hotels in the more southern countries (i.e. Greece,
Italy, and Portugal) appear to lack this multicultural element in their workforce.
Managing
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Measurement
The main variables in this study were conceived at the departmental level. Hence, we
tested the relationships at that level. After excluding the departments with less than
six participants, the number of cases in our analysis was 25. The mean hotel size was
375 rooms ranging from 216 to 645 rooms.
Country
Italy
England
Belgium
Netherlands
Portugal
Sweden
Greece
n hotels
n respondents
4
5
2
2
1
1
1
143
75
46
37
25
20
10
Table I.
Number of hotels and
respondents per country
involved in the study
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departmental level was allowed. The Cronbach a of the aggregated scores on this scale
was 0.72.
Training was operationally defined, using three items, as the extent to which
employees within a department have been trained to independently master their job
tasks. Because the training policy can vary among departments this variable was
measured at the aggregated level. The items were also derived from the literature and
refer to general competence (I have been trained in this hotel to carry out my job
efficiently and I have been sufficiently trained in this hotel to perform to the level that
is required of me) and training in communication skills (I have been trained in this
hotel to communicate effectively with customers). The ICC was 0.12. At the aggregated
level, the scale had a Cronbach a of 0.79.
The performance-related rewards variable was operationally defined as the extent
to which rewards within a department depend on individual performance and
consisted of three items. The items The rewards I receive are determined according to
my own performance and The raises I receive depend on my performance
were derived from Spreitzers (1995, p. 1451) equivalent individual pay for performance
scale. The item In this hotel, the employees who reach high levels of performance
are systematically rewarded refers to the extent that top performers in a hotel are
rewarded in a systematic manner. The focus of the items is on performance in general
as opposed to specific empowered behavior which in hotels includes obviously soft
goals, such as customer orientation, customer service, and so on. Implied here is the
view that empowerment is a means to the end of delivering service quality and
customer satisfaction and not an end in itself. It is therefore, individual performance in
general which needs to be rewarded, which may but not necessarily or exclusively
include empowered behaviors. Again, because the reward practices can vary among
departments this variable was measured at the aggregated level. The ICC of this scale
was 0.13 and the Cronbach a was 0.88.
Customer-oriented culture was operationally defined as the shared perception that
the organizational unit is oriented towards service quality and customer satisfaction.
By focusing on shared perceptions within organizational units the definition is in
accordance with the conceptualization of organizational culture by van den Berg and
Wilderom (2004). This implies that organizational culture should be measured at the
level of organizations or departments. The five items used in this scale represent
important elements of a customer-oriented culture according to the literature, namely,
commitment to service quality (All the staff of this hotel is committed to the provision
of high quality service to customers), effort for customer satisfaction (All staff of this
hotel tries hard to keep every customer satisfied), importance of each customer (The
management of this hotel tells the employees how important the satisfaction of very
single customer is), responsibility for customer satisfaction (The satisfaction of
customers is the responsibility of every employee of this hotel), and the customer
orientation of rules and procedures (The rules and procedures of this hotel facilitate the
provision of high quality service to customers). The ICC was 0.13 and the Cronbach a
of this customer-oriented culture scale was 0.75.
Empowering management style was defined as the extent to which management
style is conducive to employee-empowered behavior. Because employees within the
same department have the same managers we used aggregated management style
scores. The eight items used in this scale represent several leadership elements drawn
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Variable
Controls
Hotel size
F&B/front office
Independents
Training
Performance-related rewards
Customer-oriented culture
Empowering management style
R2
Model 1
Model 2
Model 3
Model 4
20.21
20.14
2 0.22
2 0.17
20.15
20.28
2 0.08
2 0.19
81
0.18
0.12
0.46 *
0.11
0.10
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0.37 *
0.20
Discussion
In our study we examined four antecedents of empowered employee behavior. The
results provide support for the contribution of a customer-oriented culture and an
empowering management style on empowered behavior. Both have been conceived in
the theory as forms of meta control. No support has been offered for the effect of
training and performance-related rewards, which were conceived, respectively, as
forms of ex-ante and ex-post control.
The results of the regression in Model 3 provided support for the contribution of a
customer-oriented culture on empowered behavior. This result is not surprising
considering the overwhelming emphasis of the empowerment literature on the
importance of a customer-oriented culture in stimulating employee empowered
behaviors (Peccei and Rosenthal, 2001). This finding suggests that in stimulating
empowerment, cultural change, in addition to structural change, is likely to lead to the
targeted outcomes. Moreover, interpreting a customer-oriented culture as a form of
meta control, our result suggests that indirect and subtle forms of control may be more
appropriate when empowering employees than traditional, direct control on
employee behavior. In short, employees are more likely to make independent decisions
for the benefit of the customer, when their environment congruent with values
supporting service quality and customer satisfaction.
In the regression analysis of Model 4 the results show a strong relationship between
empowered behavior and an empowering management style. This result is consistent
with the strong emphasis that the empowerment literature places on leadership
attributes in the process of empowerment (Carlzon, 1987; Jones et al., 1997). Indeed, our
study confirms the idea that frontline employees are more likely to exercise empowered
behavior, when they have the encouragement, support, trust and confidence of their
superiors. Such empowering behaviors also provide (directly or indirectly) signals to
employees about what is valued in the organization (meta control) and what
management expects from them, therefore, reducing role ambiguity and role conflict.
Indeed, previous research has demonstrated that role ambiguity and role conflict are
preventing customer-contact employees from undertaking initiatives during the
delivery of service to customers (Hartline and Ferrell, 1999). Viewing empowering
management style as a form of meta control, this result casts doubt on the importance
of concurrent control through direct supervision for effective employee empowerment.
Employees are more likely to engage in empowered behaviors, when managers allow
Table II.
Results of regression
analyses on empowered
behavior
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them the latitude for and are supportive of such behaviors. This outcome fits the
important lesson uncovered recently by Silver et al. (2006, p. 57): Consider making
empowerment a part of a broader strategy, such as leadership, quality, or customer
service focus . . .
Contrary to expectations, the regression analysis of Model 1 has not established a
significant relationship between empowered behavior and training. This result
indicates that the training of employees to effectively master the demands of their job
tasks is not decisive as to whether the employees will eventually exercise empowered
behavior. This outcome contradicts the large majority of authors on employee
empowerment who stress the pivotal role of training in the empowerment process
(Hope and Muhlemann, 1997). It may be that training is important in enabling
employees to engage effectively in independent decisions and actions during service
delivery, but whether employees will actually do so depends on other factors. Put
another way, when it comes to empowerment, our results suggest, it is not the
well-trained employees who demonstrate empowered behaviors, but the ones that have
the backing of their managers and a customer-oriented culture. This result may further
imply that training may be an effective ex-ante form of control for introducing ability
to make good decisions in the service delivery process, but not for ensuring willingness
to engage in independent thinking and acting during the service delivery process.
In the regression analysis of Model 2 the variable of performance-related rewards
was not found to be a significant predictor of empowered behavior. This means that
relating rewards to individual performance is not related to the exercise of empowered
behavior. This result does not offer support to those authors who argue against
traditional remuneration systems and support a shift in their orientation toward
individual performance. In addition, the result seems to be contrary to our expectation
that performance-related rewards offer an effective alternative to concurrent control,
by directing employee effort and behaviors toward desirable outcomes, in this case,
empowered behaviors.
An explanation for this unexpected result may be that what constitutes good
employee performance i.e. what is rewarded by management in a systematic
manner is not necessarily restricted to empowered behavior. According to
qualitative information obtained in the context of this particular study (Klidas, 2001);
most hotels had no systematic procedure of rewarding empowered behavior.
An exception is the employee-of-the-month reward schemes, which have, however, a
more symbolic value. Moreover, such rewards are not necessarily restricted to the
exercise of empowered behavior, as they apply equally for the back-office personnel
and they tend to reward exceptional behavior and usually only one occurrence of best
performance. Therefore, in strict terms they cannot be regarded as
performance-related rewards, as employees do not receive them in the context of
their monthly remuneration. Even where managers did report the availability of
incentive rewards, these related almost entirely to up-selling, for example, room-nights
and enrolments in the guest loyalty program (reception) or wine and liquor (F&B
outlets). The expected outcome of the availability of such rewards would, therefore, be
up-selling and not necessarily empowered behavior.
A second explanation for the outcome we obtained from testing H2 relates to the
control paradox (Clegg et al., 2002; Gittell, 2000) associated with empowered behavior.
In particular, the accuracy with which supervisors observe empowered employees at
work is not very high since by definition, empowered employees do not operate under
close supervision or surveillance. In operational service settings, such as the service
situations in our hotels, important individual contributions are often both interpersonal
and fleeting and, therefore, hard for the manager involved to notice and evaluate.
Therefore, the accuracy with which the precise empowerment or performance level of
frontline employees can be established, and on the basis of which they get rewarded,
cannot be high. In other words, in frontline operational settings ex-post managerial
controls may be rather weak control mechanisms on which to rely for ensuring that
employees behave in an effectively autonomous way.
Theoretical and practical implications
One of the most important issues in the empowerment debate concerns the way in
which management can implement empowerment in practice (Bowen and Lawler,
1992; Hardy and Leiba-OSullivan, 1998; Hemp, 2002). This study contributes to the
empowerment theory an integrated model for the implementation of empowerment in
practice, which synthesizes the currently piecemeal theory of antecedents of
employee-empowered behavior. Our findings on what is conducive to empowered
behavior point to key interventions in the empowerment process. The results of our
regression analyses indicate that for predicting empowered behavior the factors of
customer-oriented culture and empowering management style are such key
interventions. Conversely, training and performance-related rewards were not found
to be valid predictors of empowered behavior, despite strong theoretical arguments
pointing to the opposite. Especially for the former, our results contradict the
overwhelming and undisputed importance attributed to training in employee
empowerment (Jones et al., 1997).
An important conceptual contribution of our study to the empowerment debate in
service settings is that empowerment is not incompatible with control of employee
behavior, as advocates of empowerment often suggest (Goldsmith et al., 1997;
Sternberg, 1992). On the contrary, on the basis of the earlier presented distinction of
four forms of managerial control, we argue that empowerment merely requires a shift
in the manner by which control of the empowered employees is exercised. The key to
effective empowerment of employees lies in replacing concurrent control by
alternative forms of control of employee behavior. According to our results the most
effective alternative form of control of the empowered employee is meta control,
occurring through reinforcement of a customer-oriented culture and an empowering
management style. Ex-ante control through training and ex-post control through the
establishment of performance-related rewards appear to be less effective alternatives.
These findings have evidently important implications for the management that strives
to empower its workforce. Regarding specifically the processes studied in this research
we recommend the following.
Customer-oriented culture. This study provides evidence for the importance of
a customer-oriented culture in the empowerment process. Management should
consistently strive to institute a culture strongly oriented to service quality
and customer satisfaction. Such reinforcement requires not only the rhetoric of the
companys commitment to the goal of service quality and customer satisfaction, but
also a more specific organizational alignment towards this goal. This should include
organizational policies and practices, systems and procedures and explicit guidelines
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Another limitation of the low N is that we could not test our hypotheses by
simultaneously controlling for the effects of all interventions studied. We cannot know
whether our significant results would also be uncovered had we controlled for the
effect of the other interventions. However, one cannot dismiss the value of our findings,
when entering each intervention separately in the regression analysis.
Future research should also examine the influence of factors that have not been
considered in this paper. Various authors have stressed the need for a flatter
organizational structure (Maxwell, 1997), an open internal communication climate
(Jones et al., 1997), and the devolution of organization-related information throughout
the organization and especially to the people at the frontline (Bowen and Lawler, 1992).
The contribution of such factors in the empowerment process is amenable to empirical
(preferably longitudinal) study.
A final point of caution is required in relation to the generalizability of our research
findings. Although the study drew broadly from the service, hospitality, and general
management literatures, the concepts employed and their operationalization have been
entirely oriented to the specific work context of the departments under study in the
upscale sector of the hotel industry. For example, the various empowered employee
behaviors were specific to the nature of the service encounter in the departments of
front office and F&B in luxury hotels. They may also be relevant for smaller
establishments in the lower sector of the industry or even for other service industries,
such as airlines, banks and so forth. The various management variables examined in
the context of the empowerment process might be specific to the resources available in
chain hotels, which are not necessarily available in other organizations (e.g. smaller,
independent establishments). Thus, there are intriguing opportunities for
cross-industry comparisons.
Yet, some of our findings and insights are of wider relevance for other service
industries. For example, the need for an integrated approach in implementing
empowerment is not necessarily exclusive to the specific organizations studied here.
Moreover, we posit a general applicability of our fundamental conceptual notion that
the key to successfully empowering employees is the reinforcement of alternative
forms of control of employee behavior, especially meta control. Of course, public
policy, industry and work contexts will have influence on which alternative forms of
control are more appropriate and effective (Beirne, 2006). In terms of front-line
employee behaviors of upscale hotels located in Europe, this study shows that two
types of meta control customer-oriented culture and management style are quite
crucial. Thus, if managers of luxury hotels want to attract high-paying customers,
they need to ensure employee empowerment in their local enabling contexts or
esprit-des-corps.
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