The effect of empowerment on the services recovery performance of front office agents in five star hotels in Jordan

Abstract Even though the concept of empowerment has received considerable attention in previous research, the role that empowerment, or the lack of it, plays in particular situations is still under-researched. How employee empowerment may influence the service recovery performance of employees is a relatively new research area. Therefore, this study investigates the relationship between employees' empowerment (structural empowerment and psychological empowerment) and service recovery performance in front office department in five star hotels in Jordan. The research model for this study suggests direct relationships which are structural empowerment and psychological empowerment influence employees' service recovery performance and this in turn will affect customer satisfaction on the one hand, and indirect relationships through experience, managerial support and training on the other hand. A self-developed questionnaire was used to test the study's model. A total of 525 questionnaires were distributed to front office department employees in all five star hotels in Jordan. 310 questionnaires were returned and of these 298 usable questionnaires were used in the analysis. A series of Exploratory Factor Analyses were used to check the dimensionality and validity of the scales used while Cronbach's Alphas were calculated to assess the internal consistency of the scales used and hence their reliability. In addition, convergent and discriminant validity were used to make sure that the results afterwards are valid. The results indicated that all the scales used in the study are valid and reliable. The results of this study show that empowering front office department employees in five star hotels in Jordan is an effective strategy that influences positively on service recovery performance and ultimately on customer satisfaction (CS). More specifically, the results indicate that structural empowerment (SE) positively influences employees' psychological empowerment (PE). It also shows that psychological empowerment partially mediates the relationship between structural empowerment and service recovery performance (SRP). The results also show that experience (EX), managerial support (MS) and training (TR) partially mediate the relationship between empowerment (both SE & PE) and service recovery performance (SRP). Finally, the results show that employees' service recovery performance positively influences employees' perception of customer satisfaction. Thus, it becomes evident that management need to understand the need to create an environment where employees feel that they have the autonomy and authority to act independently so that in response they are more able to deliver high levels of service recovery performance and achieve high levels of customer satisfaction. The results of this research provide insights that can inform the direction of future that can be research into this important topic built upon by other researchers and practitioners, and take into consideration the important aspects that are related to employees' empowerment and service recovery performance in the hospitality industry.