Delivering Customer-Oriented Behaviour through Empowerment: An Empirical Test of HRM Assumptions

Organizational initiatives to strengthen customer orientation among front-line service workers abound, and have led many commentators to speak of the reconstitution of service work. These interventions rest on managers' assumptions about what engenders the desired customer-oriented behaviours among employees. We evaluate those assumptions in the context of a major change initiative in a supermarket firm. The logic of the programme mirrors key precepts in the contemporary management literature. These are that management behaviour, job design and values-based training can produce a sense of empowerment among employees, and that empowerment will generate prosocial customer-oriented behaviour. Using data from a large scale employee survey, we test the validity of those assumptions. Employees who perceived management behaviour in a positive light and who had participated in values-based training were more likely to feel empowered (i.e. to have internalized prosocial service values and to feel a sense of competence and autonomy on the job). Psychological empowerment was, in turn, positively related to the customer-oriented behaviour of workers. This study, therefore, provides support for key assumptions underlying HRM theory and practice in services.     

Implementation of empowerment in Chinese high power-distance organizations

The importance of empowerment in service industries is recognized by practitioners and scholars in the West but there has been limited investigation of its impact on the willingness of service personnel in a high power-distance culture. This study examines how empowerment can be facilitated in the high power-distance context of China. Regression and path model analysis using a sample of 290 service employees from six 4-star to 5-star hotels in the Macau SAR China indicate that empowerment positively leads to higher service willingness and this relationship is mediated by performance-based rewards, and organizational and supervisor support. These findings have implications for HR managers considering or using empowerment.     

Beyond bureaucracy? Work organization in call centres

Call centres are a rapidly growing, IT-based channel for service and sales delivery, particularly in the financial services and telecom industries. Although little research has been undertaken on the human resource aspects of call centres, two contrasting images are emerging. The first emphasizes the bureaucratic, constraining nature of these work settings, while the second image points towards worker empowerment characteristic of knowledge-intensive settings. Which of these two images more faithfully portrays the nature of work organization in call centres is the subject of our paper. Drawing on qualitative research undertaken in six call centres and a survey of front-line workers, we show that elements of both models coexist and that a hybrid model predominates. The theoretical basis for this contention, and its institutionalization as mass customized bureaucracy, lies in management's on-going attempts to reconcile two conflicting principles: standardization of processes and customization of products. The paper also explores, as key consequences of mass customized bureaucracy, front-line workers' satisfaction with various facets of their job and their overall job satisfaction, in addition to discretionary work effort. Only in relation to job security and co-worker relations could front-line workers be considered satisfied. Overall, these employees were ambivalent in their responses. They were however more likely to give more discretionary work effort than indicated by their extent of satisfaction. We conclude that, although the existing pattern of work organization may be superior to more bureaucratic forms, it is by no means ideal from the standpoint of either front-line workers or management.     

Pacts for employment and competitiveness in Germany

Pacts for employment and competitiveness (PECs) in Germany reflect a process of organised decentralisation, delegating additional rights and responsibilities for industrial relations agreements to the plant level. PECs are now used by both struggling and prosperous firms. An analysis of the content of recent agreements shows that the economic situation of the firm has a significant impact on changes agreed at the firm level. Changes in working time are associated with the demand for the products and services of a firm while financial concessions by employees are more common in firms with weak profits.     

The effect of extrinsic rewards on public and private sector employees' psychological empowerment: a comparative approach

This paper examines the impact of five extrinsic rewards (financial incentives, promotion opportunities, organisational prestige, relations with supervisor and relations with peers) on employees' psychological empowerment. Further, the present study compares these effects and the level of psychological empowerment between public and private employees. The results demonstrated that extrinsic rewards differentially affected both samples. Financial incentives, promotion opportunities and organisational prestige had a stronger effect on private employees' psychological empowerment, whereas relations with supervisor and peers were significant predictors of public employees' psychological empowerment. The results also indicated that private employees experience greater psychological empowerment, meaning and impact than public counterparts.     

Antecedents and outcomes of employee empowerment practices: A theoretical extension with empirical evidence

Despite being often touted as a best practice to enhance organisational performance, in reality, employee empowerment practices have not been widely adopted. This paper combines transaction cost economics with organisational behaviour and resource‐based views to examine antecedents and outcomes of empowerment practices, from both cost‐efficiency and value‐creation perspectives. On the basis of a study of 99 multinational subsidiaries in China, we found that human asset specificity, a key characteristic of employee–employer exchange, related significantly to organisations' adoption of empowerment practices. We also found that empowerment practices had a positive impact on organisational performance, and they mediated the relationship between human asset specificity and performance. In addition, results showed that task interdependence strengthened the impact of empowerment practices on performance outcome. The paper contributes to research on empowerment practices by offering a theoretically more comprehensive and balanced analysis of why and when empowerment is good for performance, with the support of empirical evidence.     

我国金融行业的特点及金融国际化产生的不利影响

我国金融服务的质量竞争力还较为低下,金融国际化必然会带来更大的金融风险和不可避免的负面影响,这对我国金融服务业提出了巨大的挑战,所以国际化对中国金融体系来讲也是一个代价颇大的变革过程。本文在回顾了金融服务质量竞争力的主要评价指标的基础上,描述了目前我国金融服务质量竞争力的基本现状,详细分析了金融国际化对金融服务质量竞争力的产生的不利影响,以期对金融国际化趋势下如何深化我国金融体制改革有所启示。     

数字技术赋能服务业生产率：理论机制与经验证据

本文基于理论模型阐释数字技术对服务业生产率的影响,分析高技能劳动力与市场化水平对二者关系的调节效应,并从数字产业的发展与数字技术的应用等维度构建指标体系,测算2011—2019年中国30个省份的数字技术水平,实证检验数字技术对服务业生产率的影响与异质性冲击。结果表明：（1）数字技术对服务业生产率有显著的赋能效应;（2）数字技术对服务业生产率的赋能效应在中西部地区更加凸显,在东部地区暂未显现;（3）数字技术对服务业生产率的影响更加偏向于批发和零售业,交通运输、仓储和邮政业,金融业,房地产业等数据要素投入较多的行业;（4）高技能劳动力更易适应数字技术带来的变化,能够强化数字技术对服务业生产率的赋能;（5）市场化水平的提高能够进一步释放数字技术红利,从而显著增强数字技术对服务业生产率的积极影响。     

The effect of participative management on organizational performance: the case of Taiwan

The aim of this study is to investigate the impact of participative management on the behaviour of employees and the financial effectiveness of the enterprise. The analytical data are based on the survey of 308 Taiwan enterprises. Multiple regression results show that both suggestion system and labour-management committee have a positive impact on employees' behaviour in terms of turnover and absenteeism rates. Likewise, the quality control circle (QCC) and profit sharing have a positive impact on organizational effectiveness as seen in profit and revenue growth rates. However, employee stock-ownership plans and grievance-handling systems have negative effects on both performance indicators - employee behaviour and organizational effectiveness. The practical implications are also discussed.     

High-involvement practices and performance of French firms

This article deals with the relationship between human resource practices (HRPs) and firm performances in France. It focuses on four specific HRPs that are able to involve employees: empowerment, compensation, communication and training. Each HRP taken in isolation is supposed to be positively related to performances because it is a source of motivation and commitment for employees. But there also exists a synergy between these practices: when they are combined into a bundle and are implemented all together, they should lead to better firm performances. A survey carried out among 180 human resource managers of large French companies leads to validation of most of our hypotheses. Contrary to previous research, we do not find a significant link between compensation and firm performance. The other HRPs are all indirectly related to financial performances, with social performance playing a mediating role. When they are combined into a bundle, HRPs have a stronger impact on performance than when they are studied individually. The article concludes with the importance of developing a strategic human resource policy and of implementing coherent and complementary high-involvement practices to increase firm performance.     

Creating entrepreneurial employees in traditional service sectors

Increasingly companies seek to enhance employee entrepreneurial behaviour. In this study we explore how coaching first reduces role conflicts associated with acting entrepreneurial and at the same time improving efficiency and reducing failure and secondly increases the entrepreneurial self-efficacy of employees. Building on previous conceptual and empirical studies on intrapreneurship, social psychology and human resource management we formulate several hypotheses concerning the relationship between self-efficacy, coaching and entrepreneurial behaviour of account managers that are tested in the context of a large service organization operating in the financial sector. In doing so we confirm and extend our insights on entrepreneurial behaviour in existing companies.     

The power of goal internalization: studying psychological empowerment in a Venezuelan plant

This study, based in a manufacturing plant in Venezuela, examines the relationship between perceived task characteristics, psychological empowerment and commitment, using a questionnaire survey of 313 employees. The objective of the study was to assess the effects of an organizational intervention at the plant aimed at increasing productivity by providing performance feedback on key aspects of its daily operations. It was hypothesized that perceived characteristics of the task environment, such as task meaningfulness and task feedback, will enhance psychological empowerment, which in turn will have a positive impact on employee commitment. Test of a structural model revealed that the relationship of task meaningfulness and task feedback with affective commitment was partially mediated by the empowerment dimensions of perceived control and goal internalization. The results highlight the role of goal internalization as a key mediating mechanism between job characteristics and affective commitment. The study also validates a Spanish-language version of the psychological empowerment scale by Menon (2001).     

Exploring a possible route through which training affects organizational performance: the case of a Greek bank

Despite the dithyramb on training found throughout the literature, its impact on organizational performance still remains a ‘black box’ yet to be unlocked. Indeed, neither the intervening process nor the factors that mediate training effectiveness have been substantively explored or linked together in a framework. In this paper, gaining insights from the concept of the balanced scorecard and using the service profit chain as a strategy map, an attempt is made to formulate a casual linkage value chain that highlights one possible route through which training can impact organizational performance. Using a predictive design, data were collected from multiple sources (employees, customers, and the bank's financial records) and raters from a sample of 30 branches of a Greek bank. The findings confirmed a framework illuminating a value exchange process ignited by training. More precisely, the results suggested that a formal, structured, and long-term approach to training, as well as certain pre- and post-training conditions and activities, improve training effectiveness by creating positive perceptions about the training's value. The generated for employees value results to higher levels of job satisfaction which boosts employee loyalty, creating in this sense value for the organization. This value is reflected to customers, in terms of better service quality, and reciprocated to the organization through higher customer satisfaction and branch loyalty leading to improved profitability at the branch level.     

The power of coworkers in service innovation: the moderating role of social interaction

Service innovation is central to firms when explaining business success and competitiveness. However, little is known about how useful feedback and help/support from coworkers affect desirable innovation outcomes. This study draws on a conceptual model and theorizes that firms’ support of useful feedback from coworkers and coworkers’ help and support along with social interaction would achieve service innovation. In a sample of 382 employees from a large multinational firm, as hypothesized, employees with highly useful feedback and help/support from coworkers exhibited the highest level of firm service innovation. Moreover, managers can enhance this positive relationship by relying more on increased social interaction among employees for innovation performance.     

Workforce diversity and firm performance: Relational coordination as a mediator and structural empowerment and multisource feedback as moderators

Workforce composition in organizations has become increasingly diverse. As an important step in determining how workforce diversity leads to firm performance, we proposed relational coordination as a mediator through which diversity in age and education indirectly affects firm performance. We also highlighted two human resource management practices (structural empowerment and multisource feedback) as critical contingencies that moderate the effects of workforce diversity on relational coordination and firm performance. We conducted hierarchical multiple regression on multisource data (including responses from senior directors, department directors, managers, and employees, as well as financial performance) from 189 Korean firms in the manufacturing sector, which yielded support for our hypotheses. These findings offer novel theoretical and practical insights into the effective management of workforce diversity.     

Performance feedback interviews as affective events: An exploration of the impact of emotion regulation of negative performance feedback on supervisor–employee dyads

Emotion has been treated as merely an underlying and implicit phenomenon in organizational performance feedback scholarship and has yet to be examined in its own right. This paper conceptualizes negative performance feedback interviews as affective events that elicit negative emotions in both employees (as feedback receivers) and supervisors (as feedback givers). We argue that both employees and supervisors cope with these emotions, utilizing emotion regulation strategies, which differently impact employees' engagement in learning behaviour through psychological safety, and supervisors' satisfaction with giving negative performance feedback. Drawing on affective events theory (AET), appraisal theory of emotion, emotion regulation and performance feedback literature, we offer theoretical insights that may encourage empirical studies to explore the role emotion regulation plays in performance feedback interviews. Theoretical and human resource management implications are discussed.     

People management: developing and testing a measurement scale

Abstract

The central concept in this study is people management, referring to line managers’ implementation of HR practices and their leadership behaviour oriented at supporting the employees they supervise at work. In this study we conceptualize people management and develop a multidimensional scale to measure it from the perspectives of both employees and line managers. Using a Study 1/Study 2 design, including two-wave multilevel data from employees and line managers of a financial service provider, and cross-sectional data from teachers, educational support staff, and supervisors, we demonstrate the scale’s reliability and multidimensionality across samples and over time. We provide evidence of the convergent validity by showing that employees’ and line managers’ perceptions of people management are significantly related, and that people management is significantly related to transformational and transactional leadership. Also, we demonstrate that people management adds explained variance above and beyond transformational and transactional leadership in predicting team performance. We demonstrate criterion-related validity through people management’s relationship with job satisfaction, commitment, and work engagement. We discuss the implications of our measure for theory and research on people management, its antecedents, and its effects.     

The role of strategic HR practices in organisational effectiveness: an empirical investigation in the country of Jordan

This study responds to the call of researchers, and is conducted in a non-western context in the country of Jordan. The study contributes to our understanding of human resource (HR) practices' impact on organisational effectiveness. The empirical analysis is based on theoretical prepositions that motivated employees through good HR practices stay longer and contribute positively to the overall financial performance of organisations. Rigorous statistical testing of the data on the population of financial firms shows that careful recruitment and selection, training and internal career opportunities have a positive impact on reducing employee turnover. Training, in particular, is found to have a strong positive impact on financial performance measured by return on assets and return on equity. Furthermore, the findings provide strong support for the direct approach in strategic HR management–performance research that a group of best HR practices will continuously and directly generate superior performance. Despite such compelling arguments, however, we did not find evidence to support the notion that a bundle of HR practices impact better on financial performance than individual HR practices. It is possible that the optimal configuration may not only be contingent on national context, but could be due to the sector and the specific characteristics of the firm.     

企业竞争力的影响因素——企业并购的文化整合

企业的优势在于竞争力的强弱,每个企业都在追求更大的相对竞争力,并购是一个很好的方式。但是并购后,许多企业只重视财务和经营的整合,而忽略了文化的整合,使得并购失败,进而企业损失了竞争力。实际上,在并购的背后隐藏着巨大的企业文化冲击,使得并购不能如愿达到预定的目标,实践证明文化整合影响着并购的绩效,是整合成功的关键。同时在文化整合过程中存在着文化风险,它阻碍着整合的成功,这就需要各方面的协调才能削弱风险,提高整合的成果。     

企业一线销售人员授权成熟度评价研究

随着市场竞争加剧,顾客需求多样化,越来越多的企业授权给自己的一线销售人员,企业管理人员愈发关注哪些一线销售人员适于授权以及如何评价企业一线销售人员的授权成熟度等问题。本文建立了企业一线销售人员授权成熟度的指标体系;采用层次分析法确定了各级指标的权重;构建了企业一线销售人员授权成熟度模糊综合评价的数学模型;最后通过实例验证了层次分析法与模糊综合评价相结合的企业一线销售人员授权成熟度评价方法的合理性与可靠性。