ORGANIZATIONAL EMPOWERMENT AND SERVICE CLIMATE IN HOTEL CUSTOMER CONTACT EMPLOYEES

Abstract

A service climate focused on service employee effort and competency delivering quality service yields positive experiences for customers as well as positive employees perceptions of service quality (Schneider, White, & Paul, 1998). However, how employees react to these organizational practices is important for an understanding of how climate is built and shared between employees. The hypotheses of this study were: 1) Service Climate will mediate the relationship between organizational empowerment and perceived functional service quality; 2) Service Climate will mediate the relationship between organizational empowerment and perceived relational service quality.

The sample consisted of 428 employees, (reception and catering staff) from 46 beach and city hotels in Andalusia (Spain). The instruments used were the Spanish Organizational Empowerment scale by Mendoza, León, Orgambídez, & Borrego (2009), a reduced Spanish version of the Service Climate global questionnaire (Schneider, et al., 1998) by Salanova, et al. (2005), and the Spanish Service Quality questionnaire by Sánchez-Hernández, Martínez-Tur, Peiró, & Ramos (2009).

Sobel z-values were calculated to test the interaction between organizational empowerment and service climate on functional and relational service quality. H1 was not supported. H2 was supported: results showed a total mediation (Sobel z-value = 8.42; Sobel z-value = 8.40, Sobel z-value = 8.28, p < .001) between organizational empowerment and service climate on relational service quality. Higher levels of organizational empowerment and service climate are related with higher levels of relational service quality perceived by employees: as they develop better work skills, have clear job guidance and information, they can manage better work situations.