Developing serving culture: focus on workplace empowerment
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-01-2018-0011 |
| Published date | 07 October 2019 |
| Date | 07 October 2019 |
| Pages | 1312-1329 |
| Author | Radoslaw Nowak |
| Subject Matter | Hr & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
Developing serving culture: focus
on workplace empowerment
Radoslaw Nowak
Department of Management, New York Institute of Technology,
Old Westbury, New York, USA
Abstract
Purpose –Based on the data gathered from healthcare organizations, the purpose of this paper is to identify
new antecedents of service quality. The proposed model posits that workplace empowerment should increase
a level of employee helping behaviors, thus supporting the development of a firm’s serving culture.
Consequently, while focusing on two forms of workplace empowerment, the study empirically tests mediating
paths that link structural empowerment and psychological empowerment with service quality via serving
culture. The findings expand the understanding of how companies could better manage evolving demands of
their customers. Furthermore, the project provides clear guidelines to practitioners by suggesting how firms
should allocate their organizational resources to boost service quality.
Design/methodology/approach –The study uses the original survey data collected from healthcare
organizations to empirically test the mediating paths linking structural empowerment, psychological
empowermentand service quality viaserving culture. The datawere tested using structuralequation modeling.
Findings –Althoughthe initial modelassumed that bothtypes of workplaceempowermentshould play equally
important roles in the development of serving culture, the data reveal the statistical significance of structural
empowerment. Thereby,findings emphasizethat in health care, employeesmust be provided with accessto key
organizational resources (e.g., vertical and horizontal information flow) to drive up quality of service.
Originality/value –This research is one of a few empirical studies examining antecedents of serving
culture. An overall implication of the study should be a reinforced call for more empirical studies that could
identify how companies could develop serving culture. Furthermore, the paper proposes that managers must
remove structural barriers that may exist in their organizations to empower employees to better manage
changing customer needs.
Keywords Service quality, Employee participation, Serving culture, Workplace empowerment
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
While drawing on literatures on organizational culture and workplace empowerment, this
paper puts forward and empirically tests a new model that aims to answer the following
research question:
RQ1. How could organizations increase levels of serving culture, and thus improve the
quality of customer service?
Consequently, the objective of this study is to identify new antecedents of serving culture.
Service industries entail a broad variety of organizations operating in such areas as
hospitality and travel, entertainment, education or health care. In recent years, these
industries have become a key driver of global economy, contributing as much as
80 percent in such markets as Great Britain or USA (Worldbank, 2017). Not surprisingly,
in the light of this development, the quality of customer experience has been identified by
research as one of key strategic considerations for service-oriented organizations
(e.g. Vogus and McClelland, 2016). To illustrate, in the healthcare industry, the necessity to
better recognize and address changing needs of customers has been widely recognized as
a critical metric of organizational success (e.g. Institute of Medicine, 2004). Subsequent
empirical research has also confirmed that healthcare organizations must rely on
providing high quality of customer service, which has incentivized many organizations
to introduce customized practices aiming to better address changing expectations of
customers (e.g. Gittell et al., 2010).
Employee Relations: The
International Journal
Vol. 41 No. 6, 2019
pp. 1312-1329
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-01-2018-0011
Received 13 January 2018
Revised 3 May 2018
5 November 2018
29 January 2019
Accepted 30 January 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0142-5455.htm
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ER
41,6
In the context of customer service, some studies focused on the key role of frontline
employees who interact with customers on a daily basis (e.g. Mechinda and Patterson, 2011),
while other scholarsstressed the critical functionplayed by organizational culture.Therefore,
introducing the concept of serving culture or collective assumptions mandating employee
engagement in serving behaviors (Liden et al., 2014). While expanding on prior findings,
the objective of this paper is to explore the antecedents of quality of customer service.
Consequently,the study investigates therole of workplace empowerment,which is defined by
research in termsof providing employees with accessto necessary resources and authority to
control and successfully complete any assigned task (e.g. Spreitzer, 1995; Kanter, 1993).
In their recent study, Liden et al. (2014) point out that to increase quality of service
provided to customers, service-oriented organizations should develop serving culture, or
collectively accepted norms that mandate serving behaviors among employees. The authors
explain that “when multiple people in the work unit are engaged in serving behaviors, the
culture is perceived by participants as one defined by putting the needs of others first”
(Liden et al., 2014; p. 1437). Furthermore, the authors also demonstrate that the development
of a culture that “puts the needs of other first”is strongly related to a manager’s leadership
style, because it will shape behavioral norms accepted by his or her employees. To expand
on this finding, the present paper analyzes on the role of workplace empowerment, thereby
proposing that workplace empowerment could also contribute to the development of
serving culture. The paper explains that when service-oriented organizations provide their
lower level employees with access to necessary resources and the authority to successfully
complete job-related task, such empowered employees will become instrumental in
developing organizational culture that will put the needs of customer first. This will lead to
better quality of customer service.
Workplace empowerment have gained significant attention in research due to its positive
effects on a broad variety of work-related outcomes (e.g. Laschinger et al., 2009; Mathieu
et al., 2007; Avolio et al., 2004; Quinn and Spreitzer, 1997; Spreitzer, 1995). Although
managers still perceive workplace empowerment as a single concept, scholars have clearly
recognized its two key dimensions, structural empowerment and psychological
empowerment (Spreitzer, 1995). While structural empowerment refers to contextual
factors (e.g. access to information necessary to complete a task) enabling successful
completion of a given task, psychological empowerment refers to an employee’s perception
of his or her authority or control over a task, or psychological freedom to complete a job in a
satisfying way (Spreitzer, 1995).
Prior studies suggest that the two types of workplace empowerment may influence work-
related outcomes in different ways (e.g. Ferrante and Rousseau, 2001; Bandura, 1982).
Drawing from this assumption, the objective of this study is to examine how structural and
psychological empowerment may be related to serving culture in the context of service
quality. In doingso, this paper aims to contributeboth to theory development and practice in
the following ways: it aims to expand our understanding of key organizational mechanisms
that could be responsible for improving quality of service provided to customers; and in the
context of service management, it aims to provide managers with a set of clear guidelines
pertaining to how service-oriented organizations could better utilize their scarce resources to
increaseperformance. To empirically testsurvey data collected in the healthcareindustry, this
study uses structural equation modeling (SEM), following the procedure recommended for
assessing multilevel mediation models (e.g. Preacher et al., 2010). Theory developme nt,
recommendations for practitioners, and future research are discussed.
Literature review and hypotheses
In the following sections, this paper reviews prior literature pertaining to serving culture
and workplace empowerment. Then, it examines the theorized relationships among
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serving culture
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