Abstract
Purpose – This study aims to explore the relationship between job standardization and employee innovative behavior, as well as the mediating and moderating effects of employee psychological empowerment. Little research has been focused on the conlicting concepts of job standardization and employee innovative behavior.
Design/methodology/approach – Respondents chosen from frontline services in tourist hotels in Taiwan were used to examine the mediating and moderating roles of psychological empowerment on the established relationships between job standardization and employee innovative behavior. The results were analyzed using hierarchical regression models.
Findings – The results show that job standardization had a negative effect on employee innovative behavior. In addition, employee psychological empowermentmediated the effect of job standardization on innovative behavior. Subsequently, employee psychological empowerment played a buffering role and moderated the job standardization–innovative behavior relationship.
Practical implications – Hotel management needs to use both training and work process review to help employees innovate while still understanding the meaning of their work, enhancing self-eficacy, self-determination and the impact of decision-making.
Originality/value – This study gives both theoretical and empirical evidence to clarify the effect of psychological empowerment on the importance of job standardization and innovative behavior in organizations. This is the only study that has investigated this topic in the hospitality ield and therefore makes signiicant strides in understanding the impact of psychological empowerment on hotel employees’ innovative behavior.
Keywords : Tourism, Hotels, Taiwan, Psychological empowerment, Frontline employee, Innovative behavior, Job standardization
Paper type : Research paper
Introduction
The nature of service heterogeneity and inseparability has caused numerous problems within service delivery (Zeithaml et al., 2006). Speciically, human factors lead to inconsistencies in service quality. Job standardization may reduce the deviation in employee service delivery (Jones et al., 1994), simplify the complexity of thework (Cohen et al., 1996) and enhance organizational citizenship behavior (Chen et al., 2009), aswell as improving customers’ perceptions of service quality (Hsieh and Hsieh, 2001; Hsieh et al., 2002; Karatepe et al., 2004).
To ensure consistent service delivery quality, hotel managers generally execute job standardization to regulate the behaviors of frontline service employees. However, heterogeneity also relects that no customer is exactly alike, with each having their own unique needs and demands (Parasuraman et al., 1985). Restaurant customers typically demand personalized, innovative and yet affordable service delivery (Zeng et al., 2012).
Maintaining and delivering products and services at the same standard makes long-term survival dificult for irms that also need innovation to maintain their competitive advantage. Therefore, various hotels (e.g. the Four Seasons) sought to gain insight into their services, enabling them to tailor both services and amenities to meet their guests’ high expectations, thereby constantly differentiating themselves from other hotels (Sengupta and Dev, 2011). Developing this insight is an integral part of innovation (Sengupta and Dev, 2011). Kanter (1988) pointed out that innovation is a highly complex and challenging task, including numerous cognitive abilities (i.e. generating, promoting, discussing, modifying and, ultimately, implementing creative ideas). Previous studies have indicated that frontline service employees play an important role in organization innovation (Coelho et al., 2011). Speciically, the diverse needs of customers require frontline service employees to respond in a lexible and innovative manner to deliver superior services (Chebat and Kollias, 2000; Wang and Netemeyer, 2004).
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