Managing employee empowerment in luxury hotels in Europe

Purpose – This paper aims to test four potential predictors of the behavior of empowered employees during the delivery of service to customers.Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire measuring employees' perceptions of training, performance‐related rewards, customer‐oriented culture, empowering management style, and empowered behavior was filled out by 356 frontline employees of 16 luxury hotels in seven European countries. These statistical analyses removed common‐method bias.Findings – Results of regression analyses at the department level showed that two means of control – customer‐oriented culture and empowering management style – correlated significantly with empowered behavior.Research limitations/implications – The survey tool would benefit from further refinement. Creative replications of the survey in different service or hotel settings may benefit service managers, consultants as well as consumers, ultimately.Practical implications – A direct implication of this study's findings is that in...