Conger and Kanungo have defined empowerment as:
...a process of enhancing feelings of self-efficacy among organizational
members through the identification of conditions that foster
powerlessness and through their removal by both formal
organizational practices and informal techniques of providing efficacy
information
(Conger and Kanungo 1988b: 474)In a services context, Hartline and Ferrell (1996) have described the positive
benefits of empowerment as coming from:
Allowing contact employees to use their discretion in serving
customers has many positive influences on their responses and the
service encounter.
(Hartline and Ferrell 1996: 56)Empowerment has been also related to transformational leadership theory in Bass
and Riggio (2006: e.g. 151) and has been modelled alongside leadership in
several hospitality leadership studies: Sparrowe (1994) found a correlation
between positive LMX (Leader-Member-Exchange) scores and levels of employee
perceptions of empowerment; Chiang and Jang (2008) found that empowerment
predicted job satisfaction and organisational commitment; Clark et al. (2009) also
found a causal link between empowerment and job satisfaction; and Gill et al. al
(2010) found that transformational leadership predicted higher levels of employee
desire for empowerment.
Empirical hospitality articles focusing on empowerment issues in hospitality have
used a variety of measures for empowerment:
Sparrowe (1994) used a 21 items scale developed by Thomas and Tymon
(1993);
Zohar measured unpredictability and uncontrollability as the inverse of
empowerment using Cohen et al.’s (1983) Perceived Stress Scale;
Hancer and George (2003) used an 11 item version of the 12 item scale
originally constructed by Spreitzer (1992, 1995) and subsequently modified by
Fulford and Enz (1995);
Kim and George used Spreitzer’s (1992, 1995) 12 item scale
Hau-Siu Chow et al. (2006) used an adapted version of Hancer and George’s
11 item scale;
Chiang and Jang (2008) used Spreitzer’s 12 item scale;