Empowerment in hospitality organizations: Customer orientation and organizational support

Although empowering employees has often been prescribed as an efficient strategy for hospitality organizations, the strategy alone cannot ensure success. Individual and organizational factors should be considered to increase employees’ perception of empowerment. This study examines the impact of employees’ customer orientation and organizational factors on the employee empowerment perceptions. Our findings, based on a survey of 203 guest contact employees, suggest that organizations should hire customer oriented people, guide them with service training, provide a reward system, and facilitate service standards communication in order to increase perceived empowerment. Implications of these findings for hospitality service managers are discussed.

Research highlights▶ Customer orientation positively influences employees’ perceived empowerment. ▶ Service training increases employees’ perception of contribution to the organization. ▶ Service rewards increase job meaningfulness and impact on the organization. ▶ Service standards communication increases meaning and impact of empowerment.