Antecedents of Empowerment and Commitment to Service Quality in the Chinese Hotel Industry

It is generally believed that empowering front-line service employees increases service quality and staff effectiveness. However, the factors that engender empowerment among employees, and its relationship with managerial commitment to service quality, are poorly understood. The present study investigates the antecedents of empowerment in the context of the hotel industry in China. The study also analyses the relationship of employee empowerment to managerial commitment to service quality among a large sample of prominent Chinese hotel managers. Four main organisational factors are identified as potential predictors of employee empowerment; (i) organisational trust; (ii) employee training; (iii) knowledge sharing; and (iv) leadership style. The study finds that all of these, except knowledge sharing, are significant antecedents of employee empowerment in this setting. The study also finds that a high level of employee empowerment is associated with a high level of managerial commitment to service quality, e.g. enabling the hotel frontline staff using big customer data to enhance the service quality.