how will empowered and customer-oriented employees...
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How will empowered and customer-oriented employees
respond to customers’ special requests
under different relationship contexts
in the hotel industry in China
BY
ZHAI YANG
09051643
Marketing Concentration
An Honours Degree Project Submitted to
the School of Business in Partial Fulfilment
of the Graduation Requirement for the Degree of
Bachelor of Business Administration (Honours)
Hong Kong Baptist University
Hong Kong
April 2013
Acknowledgement
First and foremost, I want to say that, I can hardly express my hearty gratitude
and sincere appreciation to my supervisor, Dr. Henry Fock, for his edification,
inspiration and invaluable advices. With his expertise in marketing, Henry inspired
me to strive for the best in this study and generously gave me assistance throughout the
whole research process.
Also, I would like to express my thankfulness to all the staffs in Hong Kong
Baptist University who taught me a lot. Together with these experienced teachers, I
have enjoyed an unforgettable university life here.
In addition, I would also like to thank my respondents who contributed a lot in
my data collection process. Without their cooperation, I would not be able to complete
this study smoothly.
Last but not least, I must sincerely thank my dearest parents who support and
encourage me all the time!
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Executive Summary
Although it is explained by the western literature that empowerment practices
and customer-orientation tend to positively influence employee’s intention to satisfy
customers’ special requests, the issue of how these two factors will influence Chinese
service employees under different business and personal relationship contexts still
remains under-researched.
This study probes into the joint effects of relationship nature, perception of
customer profit potential, employee empowerment and customer-orientation, on
service employees’ intention to comply with special requests from customers.
To achieve my research objective, a field study was conducted with participation
of 151 frontline employees from three Chinese hotels. Findings indicate that
empowerment has positive effect on employees’ intention to comply with special
requests from customers with high profit potential. Conversely, when frontline
employees are handling special requests from customers with low profit potential, the
relationship nature between the employee and customer qualifies the effect of
customer-orientation on the compliance intention. Specifically, the effect of
customer-orientation on employees’ compliance intention is significant when they are
in personal relationship.
Moreover, the results show that when the customer only has low profit potential,
empowerment practices could make employees to stand on company’s best interests
even when the customer has a personal relationship with the employee. Thus,
managers of Chinese employees should pay more attention to the use of
empowerment practices.
Last, empowerment practices and customer-orientation attitude cannot generate
significant effect on employee’s intention to accommodate special requests from
customers of low profit potential in business relationship.
After discussing the findings, managerial implications and advices for future
research are offered.
ii
Tables of Contents:
Executive Summary .................................................................................................. i
List of Tables ........................................................................................................... iii
List of Figures ......................................................................................................... iv
1. Introduction .......................................................................................................... 1
1.1 Importance of Services Industry .................................................................... 1
1.2 Empowerment as a Solution to the Difficulty of Service Employees ........... 1
1.3 Customer-orientation of Service Employees ................................................. 2
1.4 Profit Potential of Customers ......................................................................... 4
1.5 Relationship Nature Between Customers and Employees ............................. 4
1.6 Toward a Research Agenda ........................................................................... 5
2. Literature Review ................................................................................................. 6
2.1 Empowerment ................................................................................................ 6
2.2 Customer-orientation ..................................................................................... 7
2.3 Profit Potential of Customer .......................................................................... 9
2.4 Relationship Nature ..................................................................................... 11
3. Methodology ...................................................................................................... 16
3.1 Design .......................................................................................................... 16
3.2 Scenarios ...................................................................................................... 17
3.3 Manipulation Checks ................................................................................... 19
3.4 Dependent Measurement ............................................................................. 19
3.5 Other Measurements .................................................................................... 20
3.6 Reliability and Validity ................................................................................ 20
4. Results and Discussion ....................................................................................... 26
4.1 Results of Repeated Measures ANOVA ...................................................... 26
4.2 Nested Structural Equation Models ............................................................. 30
5. Discussion and Implications ............................................................................... 41
5.1 Discussion of Path Analysis Results of Individual Scenario ....................... 41
5.2 Discussion of Analysis Results of Nested Structural Equation Models ...... 45
5.3 General Discussion and Theoretical Contribution ....................................... 48
5.4 Managerial Implications .............................................................................. 49
6. Limitations and Future Research ........................................................................ 51
References .............................................................................................................. 54
Appendix 1: Questionnaires ................................................................................... 59
iii
List of Tables:
Table 1.1 Confirmatory Factor Analysis for Scenario 1 ................................................. 21
Table 1.2 Confirmatory Factor Analysis for Scenario 2 ................................................. 22
Table 1.3 Confirmatory Factor Analysis for Scenario 3 ................................................. 23
Table 1.4 Confirmatory Factor Analysis for Scenario 4 ................................................. 24
Table 2.1 Results of Analysis of Variance for H1........................................................... 26
Table 2.2 Results of Analysis of Variance for H2 and H3 .............................................. 28
Table 2.3 Experiment Cell Means: Compliance Intention ............................................. 29
Table 3 Fit Statistics of Baseline Models ..................................................................... 36
Table 4.1 Chi-square Difference Test for H1 .................................................................. 38
Table 4.2 Chi-square Difference Test for H2 .................................................................. 39
Table 4.3 Chi-square Difference Test for H3 .................................................................. 40
Table 4.4 Chi-square Difference Test for the Interaction Term ...................................... 48
iv
List of Figures:
Figure 1.1 The Theoretical Framework for Hypothesis 1………………….... 11
Figure 1.1 The Theoretical Framework for Hypothesis 2 & 3………………. 15
Figure 2.1 Path Analysis of Scenario 1:
Personal Relationship, High Customer Profit Potential…………..
32
Figure 2.2 Path Analysis of Scenario 2:
Business Relationship, High Customer Profit Potential………….
33
Figure 2.2 Path Analysis of Scenario 3:
Personal Relationship, Low Customer Profit Potential…………..
34
Figure 2.2 Path Analysis of Scenario 4:
Business Relationship, Low Customer Profit Potential…………..
35
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1. Introduction
1.1 Importance of Services Industry
Service industry drives the sustainable economic growth (Donovan, 1963).
Currently, there has been a lively interest in the development of service industry in
China as well.
Pertaining to the service industry, it is widely held that customer’s satisfaction
and service organization’s profitability have a strong correlation with the quality of
service provided by frontline employees (Crosby, Evans, & Cowles, 1990; Heskett,
Jones, Loveman, Sasser, & Schlesinger, 1994). Thus, accurately identifying the
driving forces of enhancing service quality and properly managing these driving
forces are of paramount importance.
1.2 Empowerment as a Solution to the Difficulty of Service Employees
Usually, rules and regulations are utilized by the management to maintain and
improve operational efficiency of employee services while unique and customized
services are emphasized by more demanding customers nowadays. As
boundary-spanners, service employees not only have to abide by those rules and
regulations, but also need to be customer-oriented and fulfill various customers’
needs. In order to ease the tensions of boundary spanning employees who are torn
between organizational rules and customer requests, empowerment becomes a
popular management intervention (Fock, Chiang, Au, & Hui, 2011).
Empowerment, defined as providing employees with discretion and autonomy in
connection with their work, has drawn increasingly more attention from researchers
and practitioners (Kanter, 1979; Neilsen, 1986; Hui, Au, & Fock, 2004a).
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Empowerment has been widely accepted as an effective mean by which service
managers can improve the job performance and satisfaction of their frontline staff.
It is generally thought that empowerment plays a pivotal role in improving
organizational effectiveness, and enhancing service performance (Kanter 1979;
Bennis & Nanus, 1985; Hartline & Ferrell, 1996).
1.3 Customer-orientation of Service Employees
In addition to empowerment practices, past studies have found that
customer-orientation of frontline employees could influence the quality of service
provided and the fulfillment of customers’ needs as well. Customer-orientation is
defined as a continuous, proactive disposition of meeting customer exigencies and
focusing on customer satisfaction (Han, Kim, & Srivastrava, 1998). It was found that
frontline employees who are highly customer-oriented have higher concern for others.
Yet, employees with low customer-orientation show low concern for others but high
concern for themselves (Dubinsky & Staples, 1981; Saxe & Weitz, 1982). Evidence
abounds to suggest that customer-orientation positively influences employees’
performance and customers’ satisfaction (Goff, James, Danny, & Carrie, 1997;
Keillor, Parker, & Pettijohn, 1999; Sharma, Nikolaos, Michael, & Panagiotis, 1999;
Brown, John, Todd, & Jane, 2002).
Thus, it has been held that empowerment and customer-orientation are
positively correlated with frontline employees’ service performance. Empowered and
customer-oriented staffs tend to better cater to and better fulfill various customers’
needs in different encounters.
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However, to a large extent, these widely held viewpoints do not always work in
reality, especially in China. A few studies have found that high empowerment does
not necessarily mean that the empowered employees would exercise their power (Hui
et al., 2004a). In nations with high power distance and unequal power distribution,
frontline employees may feel nervous and ambiguous in accepting and exercising
discretionary power to satisfy customers’ unique needs (Robert, Probst, Martocchio,
Drasgow, & Lawler, 2000; Fock, Hui, Au, & Bond, 2013).
Whereas prior research in the western societies show that empowered
employees tend to be more customer-oriented and more likely to engage in
pro-customer behaviors (Peccei & Rosenthal, 2001), recent research evidence reveal
that in China, even in some industries which highly emphasize customer-orientation,
such as hotel and catering industries, the Chinese frontline employees are not always
willing to accommodate customers’ special requests (Hui, Au, & Fock, 2004b). They
tend to be reluctant to offer help to customers in need in some conditions. Hence,
some other factors may also influence the effects of customer-orientation and
empowerment on employees’ behavior in service encounters. This phenomenon
implies a knowledge gap which cannot be explained by current literatures.
Now and then, some viewpoints raised by western literatures, even some classic
ones, have shown a few of problems in explaining some phenomenon in Chinese
culture context (Smith & Bond, 1999). Some of those literatures also found the
unique effect of Chinese culture on Chinese employees working behaviors (Hofstede,
1980; Trompennars & Hampden-Turner, 1997).
In view of the above knowledge gap and the uniqueness of Chinese cultures, I
argue that the viewpoints held by previous studies would not necessarily work in
China. In this research, I propose two boundary conditions, namely profit potential of
customer and the nature of relationship between the employee and the customer, in
explaining the effect of customer-orientation and empowerment on Chinese
employees’ intention to comply with customers’ special requests.
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1.4 Profit Potential of Customers
Pertaining to the profit potential of customers, to obtain the maximum profit
potential of every customer relationship is supposed to be the primary goal of every
firm. One of the ways to earn the full profit is to extend the business relationship life
of every customer; to keep those desired customer behaviors for a longer period of
time. Firms identify customers that have the highest potential of profit-improvement.
Then, firms tend to orient every function to keep these customers and maximize the
profitability from them. Value exchange, namely the relationship between the
investments a business devotes into a particular customer relationships and the
pay-back generated by the customer tends to be cared and optimized by businesses
(Grant & Schlesinger, 1995; MacMillan & McGrath, 1996).
1.5 Relationship Nature Between Customers and Employees
Previous studies have found that employees may vary their responses to
customer’s special requests basing on the identity of the customer. It is generally
believed that people will take care of in-group members’ welfare ahead of others
(Cialdini, Wosinska, Barrett, Butner, & Gornik-Durose, 1999; Bove & Johnson, 2001;
Verbeke & Bagozzi, 2001). This behavior is regarded as social norms and obligations
to in-group members. To a large extent, it is natural that employees have to face more
pressure to fulfill the needs of customers with whom they have a closer relationship
(Hui et al., 2004b).
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1.6 Toward a Research Agenda
Take above all into consideration, this paper attempts to clarify on what
empowered and customer-oriented frontline employees would do when dealing with
special requests raised from customers under different customer relationships and
different perceptions of customers’ profit potential in China, to fill in the knowledge
gap which could not be explained by current literatures.
Moreover, findings of this study could make contributions to the real-life service
practices as well. With the research findings, service managers could obtain insights
on how to effectively identify and manage the causes of Chinese employees’ different
responses in dealing with customers’ special requests. Thus my study could facilitate
the enhancement of service quality and fulfillment of customer’s needs, which would
be beneficial for increasing customers’ satisfaction and firm’s profitability (Crosby et
al., 1990; Heskett et al., 1994).
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2. Literature Review
2.1 Empowerment
Now and then, employees, especially service employees who serve in boundary
spanning situation are required to accommodate customers’ various unique requests
(Bitner, Booms, & Tetreault, 1990; Mittal & Lassar, 1996). Therefore, a more flexible
system could be advantageous in service provision. Yet, Companies tend to utilize
rules and regulation to standardize employees’ behaviors and ensure smooth
coordination of operations (Mintzberg, 1979). This could pose restrictions on
employees’ autonomy and service flexibility, could bring about more rigidity to the
system.
However, to solely rely on rules and regulations cannot be effective to deliver
premium service to customers in this era of demanding customers (Kelley,
Longfellow, & Malehorn, 1996). Empowerment, which is providing service
employees with autonomy and discretion, can enhance service performance while
facilitate the fulfillment of customers’ unique needs (Bowen & Lawler, 1992).Thus,
higher customer satisfaction can be achieved.
Yet, even though empowerment provide employees with more autonomy and
discretion, whether the employees would utilize their discretionary power to satisfy
customers’ special requests depends on employees’ willingness to accept and exercise
their power and their motivation to satisfy customers’ needs in the service encounters
(Hui et al., 2004b). Prior studies have found that empowerment may barely or even
negatively affect employees’ job behaviors as well (Robert et al., 2000).
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In addition, for example, Hui et al. (2004a) have suggested that in nations with
high power distance, like Mainland China and Malaysia, the practice of discretionary
empowerment should be adopted cautiously. Since this practice may be inconsistent
or even contradictory with the culture of institutional hierarchy in these high
power-distance countries, frontline employees there may feel uncomfortable and
reluctant to accept and exercise discretionary power in satisfying customers’ needs
which are actually not beneficial to the firm (e.g., more discounts, extra breakfast).
2.2 Customer-orientation
The positive effect of frontline employees’ customer-orientation exerted on the
quality of service provided and the fulfillment of customers’ needs has been found by
past studies. Customer-orientation refers to a disposition to continuously deliver
superior value to customers, to proactively and attentively fulfill customers’ needs,
meet customer exigencies (Slater & Narver, 1994; Han et al., 1998).
Practitioners and researchers commonly agree that the quality of service
provided tends to rely on frontline employees’ customer-oriented job behaviors
(Zeithaml, Berry, & Parasuraman, 1988; Rucci, Kirn, & Quinn, 1998). Prior
researchers have found that customer-oriented frontline employees and salespeople
tend to pay attention to identify and cater to the needs and problems of customers
(Han et al., 1998). These boundary-spanners tend to refrain from taking actions that
would just increase the short-term profitability at the expense of sacrificing
customers’ benefits (Dubinksy & Staples, 1981; Saxe & Weitz, 1982). Several studies
also found that customer-orientation can positively influences employees’
performance (Keilor, Parker, & Pettijohn, 2000; Boles, Babin, Brashear, & Brooks,
2001; Brown et al., 2002). Moreover, frontline employees’ customer-oriented attitude
and behaviors positively influences customers’ overall satisfaction in the service
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encounters, which in return influences customers’ satisfaction with the service or
product provided (Humphreys & Williams, 1996; Goff et al., 1997; Sharma et al.,
1999).
In addition, previous study has found that customer-oriented frontline employees
generally show high concern for others. Conversely, frontline employees with low
customer-orientation normally have low concern for other people but higher concern
for themselves (Saxe & Weitz, 1982). More importantly, past literatures have found
that positive relationships exist between frontline employees’ customer-oriented
behaviors and these employees’ perceptions of their relationship with customers as
well as their intention to help customers (Saxe & Weitz, 1982; Schwepker Jr, 2003).
Yet, some cases in Chinese service industry cannot be clearly explained by the
findings of current western literatures. In a few of services industries which highly
emphasized customer-orientation, like hospitality industry, frontline service
employees are not willing to help customers with their special requests (e.g., Magnini
& Ford, 2004; Du, Fan, & Feng, 2010).
Since customer-orientation and empowerment cannot necessarily exert the same
effects on Chinese frontline employees’ job behaviors in meeting customers’ special
requests as explained by prior researchers, I postulate two boundary conditions,
customers’ profit potential and nature of customer relationship, which could impact
the effects of customer-orientation and empowerment suggested by current western
literatures. Next part, literatures reviews about the two boundary conditions
mentioned above are presented.
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2.3 Profit Potential of Customer
One of the fundamental goals of every business is to gain profit as much as
possible from each customer relationship. In addition to acquiring new customers,
one of the ways to earn the full profit potential is to extend the life of every customer
relationship; to keep those enhanced customer behaviors for a longer time.
Businesses, like Federal Express Corporation, Bank of America have categorized its
customers into different groups based on their profitability. Then service providers
devote different extent of efforts into different groups classified on their own.
Current businesses have found that not all customers deserve equally good
service. Offering different service to customers according to their profitability is
actually effective and profitable. To serve all customers with premium service and to
satisfy customers various needs are not only unprofitable but also impractical
(Zeithaml, Rust, & Lemon, 2001).
Value exchange, namely the relationship between the investments a business
makes in particular customer relationships and the pay-back generated by the
customer tends to be emphasized and optimized by businesses. Then, firms are
attempting to identify the customers that have the highest potential of
profit-improvement. After that, businesses devote more efforts into these profitable
customers, integrate and orient every function to maximize the profit earned from
these groups.
Thus, to adjust service in accordance with customers’ levels of profitability is
advantageous for the firm to be clear about the linkage between service quality and
profitability, thereby enabling the firm to optimally allocate scarce resources (Grant
& Schlesinger, 1995; MacMillan & McGrath, 1996).
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As mentioned in the above literature review, to successfully implement
empowerment practice, frontline employees have to accept and exercise their
discretionary power and should be motivated to accommodate customers’ needs when
facing customers’ special requests (Hui et al., 2004a). Therefore, in my research, I
propose that frontline employees will have motivation to make use their discretionary
power to meet special requests raised by customers whose profit potential is high.
The rationale is, to preferentially treat special requests of high profit potential
customers is beneficial for retention of this type of customers (Grant & Schlesinger,
1995; Cannon & Homburg, 2001; Wulf, Odekerken-Schroder, & Iacobucci, 2001), is
congruent with the long-term benefits of the firm, which gives a legitimate
motivation for the empowered frontline employee to exercise their discretionary
power. Furthermore, both acquiring a new customer with high profit potential and
retaining a patron with high profit potential are beneficial not only to the firm but
also to the employees’ individual interests (e.g., achievement of better performance
and higher bonus), which gives the empowered employee more incentives to use
power to satisfy customers’ needs.
Conversely, to devote more into customers with low profit potential is normally
not consistent with the interests of the firm and not beneficial to both the firm and the
employees themselves. Lack of motivation normally would prevent frontline
employees from meeting customers’ extra requests.
I therefore hypothesize that:
H1: The effect of empowerment exerted on employees’ compliance
intention will be more pronounced when the customer’s profit potential is high
than when it is low.
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Employee’s
Compliance
Intention
Employee
Perceived
Empowerment
Customer
Profit
Potential
H1
Figure 1.1 The Theoretical Framework for Hypothesis 1
2.4 Relationship Nature
2.4.1 Relational Norms
Researchers have found that employees may have different responses toward
customer’s special requests basing on the identity of the customer. It is generally
found that people tend to prioritize in-group members’ interests (Cialdini et al., 1999;
Bove & Johnson, 2001; Verbeke & Bagozzi, 2001). It is inevitable that service
employees have to face more pressure to accommodate the needs of customers with
whom they have a closer relationship (Hui et al., 2004b). This type of preferential
treatment is actually regarded as requirement of norms and obligations to in-group
members.
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Norms serve as guiding principles; they help people to decide which one is the
right way to go in a specific situation. People adhere to norms. They consider norms
when determining the value of an object instead of just focusing on the maximization
of economic utility (Johar, 2005).
Norms associated with relationships would be activated, so that relational
frames could affect value. Exchanges could be affected by those relational norms,
due to the social identities people tend to convey (Kahneman & Miller, 1986). The
different perception of a relationship would inevitably exert different effects on an
individual’s corresponding responses toward this relationship.
For example, imagine that you were a front desk staff in a hotel. One day a
customer with whom you have a certain kind of relationship comes to you, and he
asks you for more discounts, which is doable for you, yet with possibility of violating
organizational rules. At this moment, the nature of this relationship would
undoubtedly affect your responses toward this special request.
2.4.2 Communal and Exchange Relationships
Previous research has used behavior norms to identify two different
relationships; they are exchange relationships and communal relationships (Clark &
Mills, 1979, 1993). In exchange relationships, the purpose of interacting with other
people is to get benefits from exchange with others, people care a lot about what they
can receive for what they give (Clark & Mills, 1993, c.f. Aggarwal & Zhang, 2006).
Benefits are given “with the expectation of receiving a comparable benefit in return
or as repayment for a benefit received previously” (Clark & Mills, 1993, p.684).
Strangers and business partners are the best examples of this kind of relationship
(Aggarwal & Zhang, 2006).
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Yet, in communal relationships, “the norm is to give benefits in response to
needs, or to demonstrate a general concern for the other person…the receipt of a
benefit does not change the recipient’s obligation to respond to the other’s needs”
(Clark & Mills, 1993, p.684). People involved in this relationship genuinely concern
others’ well-being. Most close relationships, especially family relationships are the
typical examples of this sort of relationship (Aggarwal & Zhang, 2006).
Hence, these two kinds of relationships are characterized by norms that exert
effects on people’s expectation for others’ behavior and their corresponding reactions
to the actual behavior of others (Wan, Hui, & Wyer, 2011). According to Aggarwal &
Zhang (2006), salient relationship norms “serve as a lens through which people view
the world and guide their subsequent behavior.
More importantly, there is a second difference between these two kinds of
relationships, which is one of the focal points of my study as well. For an exchange
relationship, norms that govern transactions tend to be established. The expectations
and obligations in this kind of relationship are clearly held by both parties. However,
in a communal relationship, the expectations and obligations perceived by both
parties are depending. The perspective from which individuals think of this
relationship could make a huge difference (Wan et al., 2011). On one hand, an
individual may expect their counterparts to be sensitive to his own needs and
difficulties. On the other hand, he may view the relationship from counterparts’ angle,
so that to understand and cater to counterparts’ difficulties and needs (Aggarwal &
Zhang, 2006). Normally, people tend to feel obliged to care people in difficulty and
need. This phenomenon of human nature is usual in reality. In addition, according to
Wan, Hui, & Wyer (2011), the above situation would be complicated due to the
reason that attention to an individual’s own needs in a communal relationship would
make the other party’s obligation to take care of these needs salient at the same time.
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In a service encounter, it is conceivable that this kind of situation can occur.
Given that there may be a communal relationship between the service employee and
the customer (e.g. may be employee’s close friends, comrade-in-arms), whether this
service employee pays more attention to their own (self-obligation) or this customer’s
obligation (other-obligation), whether he view this relationship from the angle of his
own needs (other-obligation) or from customer’s angle (self-obligation) could
generate largely different effects on this employee’s responses. Wan, Hui, & Wyer’s
(2011) study has found that these two different perspectives could largely influence a
customer’s response toward a service failure which is made by his “communal”
service provider.
In this study, I postulate that the activation of service employees’ perspective of
self-obligation and other-obligation will be largely influenced by the customer’s
financial situation, because people tend to care people in need and difficulty.
Considering the literatures about customer-orientation, customer-oriented
frontline employees normally show high concern for others. Conversely, frontline
employees with low customer-orientation normally have low concern for other
people but higher concern for themselves. Accordingly, positive correlations are
expected between frontline employees’ customer-oriented behaviors and these
employees’ perceptions of their relationship with customers as well as their intention
to help customers (Dubinsky & Staples, 1981; Saxe & Weitz, 1982).
Hence, my second and third hypotheses are formulated as follows:
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H2: The effect of customer-orientation exerted on employees’ compliance
intention will be more pronounced when employees perceived the relationship
with the customers as a personal relationship than when they perceive the
relationship as a business one.
H3: The effect of customer-orientation exerted on employees’ compliance
intention will be the most pronounced when employees perceived the
relationship with the customers as a personal relationship and the customer is in
need and difficult.
Employee’s
Compliance
Intention
Customer-
orientation
Customer
Profit
Potential
Relationship
Nature
H3
H2
Figure 1.2 The Theoretical Framework for Hypothesis 2 & 3
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3. Methodology
3.1 Design
To manipulate business contexts with customers of different profit potentials and
relationship natures, quasi-experimental design was adopted in my study.
Qusai-experimental design has high control on confounding influences as well as
advantages of realism. The quasi-experiment is a 2 (customer profit potential: high vs.
low) × 2 (relationship nature: personal vs. business) within–subject factorial design.
The antecedents of levels of perceived empowerment and customer-orientation are
measured. One hundred and fifty one employees from three different hotels of a hotel
group took part in this experiment. All respondents were required to read the four
experiment scenarios and responded to the respective dependent measures (two
scenarios in one time slot within a two-week period). The choice of practicing
frontline employees in real-life market place as my research respondents was to
enhance realism.
These scenarios were included in three sets of questionnaires which were
distributed to the employees in three different time slots. I introduced a time lag of
four days between the distribution of each set of questionnaires to achieve the effect
of temporal separation, so that my study could overcome the problem of common
method as much as possible (Johnson, Rosen, & Djurdjevic, 2011). Moreover, all
respondents were asked to fill in their answers and put the completed questionnaires
in a sealed envelope to ensure confidentiality and avoid social desirability bias.
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Measurement items in all three sets of my questionnaires were originally
composed in English. A back-translation procedure was adopted to assure language
equivalence between the Chinese and English versions. I translated the English
version into Chinese and was then back translated by a doctoral student in Hong
Kong (Brislin, 1980). Discrepancies between the original version and back-translated
version were edited and improved. The syntax and grammar in the Chinese version
were reviewed as well, to make sure the wording was in the local dialect of
respondents.
3.2 Scenarios
I used scenario experiments in my study. In terms of researches on service
encounters, scenario experiments tend to be applied, and this kind of experiment do
have some inherent benefits (Bateson & Hui, 1992; Smith, Bolton, & Wagner, 1999;
Baker, Parasuraman, Grewal, & Voss, 2002).
In the four scenarios, customer’s profit potential was operationalized as whether
the customer’s financial situation was perceived by the frontline employee as good or
bad. Good financial situation or operating situation indicated high profit potential;
conversely, bad financial situation or operating situation indicated low profit potential.
Relationship nature was operationalized as whether the customer was an old
classmate of the employee or a regular client. The relationship with an old classmate
was regarded as a personal relationship, and the relationship with a regular client was
regarded as a business relationship. The following contents are two scenarios for the
conditions when the profit potential is high. The first one is for the condition when
the relationship is perceived as a personal one, and the second one is for the business
relationship. (Explanations in brackets are for the manipulation of the low profit
potential conditions):
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In Star Hotel (a fictitious name), every staff is required by the management
to try hard to fulfill customers’ various needs and earn more profits for the firm.
You are one of the front desk staffs.
One of the front desk staff’s responsibilities is handling room reservation.
Every front desk staff is empowered by the management to offer appropriate
discounts to prospects for attracting more customers.
Scenario for condition of Personal Relationship:
One day, you are on your shift at the front desk. Chen Ming, your old
classmate (for manipulation of personal relationship), comes to you. Chen Ming
owns a couple of companies which are running very well and leads an affluent
life. (In condition of low profit potential: Chen Ming now is working at a very
small company. You heard from other classmates that Chen’s company is not
running very well recently, and Chen’s life is difficult.)
After a small chat, Chen Ming tells you that he wants to book two rooms,
and asks you for some more discounts.
Scenario for condition of Business Relationship:
One day, you are on your shift at the front desk. A customer comes to you.
He tells you that he is the representative of Excellence Company (for
manipulation of business relationship). Star Hotel used to do business with
Excellence Company, and Excellence Company usually makes room
reservations in Star Hotel. During the past 3 years, you are the one who handles
Excellence Company’s room-booking. It has been very nice to do business with
Excellence Company and your experience of dealing with Excellence Company
is pleasant.
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As you know, Excellence Company is running very well all the time. (In
condition of low profit potential: As you know, Excellence Company is running
very badly recently.)
This time this representative of Excellence Company wants to book 5
rooms and he asks you for more discounts, considering that Excellence
Company is a patron.
3.3 Manipulation Checks
After reading each of the four scenarios, the respondents were asked to answer
several questions which included two measures to check the effectiveness of the
manipulations: (1) whether employees perceived that the customer was in good
financial or operating condition; and (2) whether the employee’s relationship with the
customer was a personal relationship or a business relationship (see Appendix 1 for
details). Manipulation of these two measures indicated that both the profit potential
and the relationship nature manipulation were very effective (100% of 151
employees chose the right answers accord with the corresponding scenario). Thus,
the experiment design was considered as an effective one.
3.4 Dependent Measurement
After 2 measures of manipulation check, every scenario also consisted of a set
of dependent measures. There were 4 measures of service employee’s intention to
comply with customer’s special request (to offer more discounts). Two of them were
direct measures of employee’s compliance intention while the other two were
projective measure of employee’s compliance intention (please refer to Appendix 1).
All four measures of compliance intention were adopted from Hui et al. (2004b). The
items used six-point semantic-differential items.
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3.5 Other Measurements
Measures of the two antecedents, namely employee perceived empowerment
and customer-orientation, were tapped in the third questionnaires. I gauged the
antecedents in a separate questionnaire after all other measures to ensure that the
respondents would not be able to answer the dependent measures with reference to
the antecedent measures. This design helps further reduce the possibility of common
method variance (Johnson et al. 2011). Employee’s perceived empowerment was
assessed with three items adopted from the self-determination scale in Spreitzer’s
(1995) study. Employee’s perception of customer-orientation was measured by five
items adopted from Han et al. (1998). For each item, the respondents indicated their
agreement on a 6-point Likert-type scales ranging from 1 (Stongly Disagree) to 6
(Strongly Agree). In addition, demographic variables include gender, education and
working experience in current hotel were included as control variables in the analysis
to control for possible confounding effects. (for the details of these measurement
items, please refer to Appendix 1)
3.6 Reliability and Validity
I examined the psychometric properties of the three measures by putting all the
12 measurement items into a confirmatory factor analysis with LISREL 8.4 before
fitting the data into subsequent analyses. The CFA results indicated an acceptable fit
of the 3-factor measurement model for all four scenarios (Scenario 1: χ² = 116.75, d.f.
= 51, p < .001; CFI = .94; NNFI = .92; RMSEA = .093; Scenario 2: χ² = 88.3, d.f. =
51, p < .001; CFI = .96; NNFI = .95; RMSEA = .070; Scenario 3: χ² = 88.33, d.f. =
51, p < .001; CFI = .96; NNFI = .94; RMSEA = .070; Scenario 4: χ² = 80.75, d.f. =
51, p < .01; CFI = .96; NNFI = .95; RMSEA = .062). The convergent validity of
customer-orientation is demonstrated (please refer to Table 1).
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Table 1.1 Confirmatory Factor Analysis
(Scenario 1: Personal Relationship, High Profit Potential; N=151)
Item Description Standardized
Loading T-Value CR AVE
Employee’s Compliance Intention (CI) 0.96 0.84
Are you inclined to offer more discounts to Chen Ming 0.88 15.34
Are your real-life colleagues inclined to offer more discounts
in similar situations (offer more discounts to rich old
classmates)?
0.88 15.20
Will you offer more discounts to Chen Ming at last 0.77 13.70
Will your real-life colleagues offer more discounts in similar
situations at last (offer more discounts to rich old
classmates)?
0.81 14.02
Perceived Empowerment (EM) 0.79 0.56
I have significant autonomy in determining how I do my job. 0.48 8.56
I can decide on my own how to go about doing my work. 0.67 10.32
I have considerable opportunity for independence and freedom
in how I do my job. 0.53 9.20
Customer-orientation (CO) 0.70 0.31
Our business objectives are driven by customer satisfaction. 0.35 6.43
We closely monitor and assess our level of commitment in
serving customers’ needs. 0.28 5.72
Our competitive advantage is based on understanding
customers’ needs. 0.25 5.39
Business strategies are driven by the goal of increasing
customer value. 0.29 5.85
We pay close attention to after-sale service. 0.40 6.92
χ² 116.75 (d.f. = 51, p < .001)
RMSEA .093
CFI .94
NNFI .92
Mean, Standard Deviation, and PHI Correlation Matrix
Mean SD CI EM CO
CI 3.87 1.09 1.00
EM 3.82 0.97 0.34* 1.00
CO 4.90 0.54 -0.01 0.23 1.00
Note. CR = Composite Reliability; AVE = Average Variance Extracted
*p < .05; **p < .01
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Table 1.2 Confirmatory Factor Analysis
(Scenario 2: Business Relationship, High Profit Potential; N=151)
Item Description Standardized
Loading T-Value CR AVE
Employee’s Compliance Intention (CI) 0.94 0.80
Are you inclined to offer more discounts to Excellence
Company? 0.74 13.12
Are your real-life colleagues inclined to offer more discounts
in similar situations (offer more discounts to regular clients
who are doing well)?
0.79 13.80
Will you offer more discounts to Excellence Company at
last? 0.81 14.17
Will your real-life colleagues offer more discounts in similar
situations at last (offer more discounts to regular clients
who are doing well)?
0.83 14.45
Perceived Empowerment (EM) 0.79 0.56
I have significant autonomy in determining how I do my job. 0.46 8.46
I can decide on my own how to go about doing my work. 0.69 10.33
I have considerable opportunity for independence and
freedom in how I do my job. 0.53 9.01
Customer-orientation (CO) 0.70 0.31
Our business objectives are driven by customer satisfaction. 0.35 6.41
We closely monitor and assess our level of commitment in
serving customers’ needs. 0.29 5.87
Our competitive advantage is based on understanding
customers’ needs. 0.25 5.36
Business strategies are driven by the goal of increasing
customer value. 0.28 5.77
We pay close attention to after-sale service. 0.40 6.94
χ² 88.3 (d.f. = 51, p < .001)
RMSEA .07
CFI .96
NNFI .95
Mean, Standard Deviation, and PHI Correlation Matrix
Mean SD CI EM CO
CI 4.19 0.92 1.00
EM 3.82 0.97 0.19 1.00
CO 4.90 0.54 -0.11 0.23* 1.00
Note. CR = Composite Reliability; AVE = Average Variance Extracted
*p < .05; **p < .01
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Table 1.3 Confirmatory Factor Analysis
(Scenario 3: Personal Relationship, Low Profit Potential; N=151)
Item Description Standardized
Loading T-Value CR AVE
Employee’s Compliance Intention (CI) 0.91 0.72
Are you inclined to offer more discounts to Chen Ming? 0.71 12.44
Are your real-life colleagues inclined to offer more discounts
in similar situations (offer more discounts to old classmates
in difficulty)?
0.69 12.17
Will you offer more discounts to Chen Ming at last? 0.76 13.18
Will your real-life colleagues offer more discounts in similar
situations at last (offer more discounts to old classmates in
difficulty)?
0.71 12.37
Perceived Empowerment (EM) 0.79 0.56
I have significant autonomy in determining how I do my job. 0.46 8.42
I can decide on my own how to go about doing my work. 0.71 10.36
I have considerable opportunity for independence and
freedom in how I do my job. 0.52 8.83
Customer-orientation (CO) 0.70 0.31
Our business objectives are driven by customer satisfaction. 0.44 7.42
We closely monitor and assess our level of commitment in
serving customers’ needs. 0.28 5.87
Our competitive advantage is based on understanding
customers’ needs. 0.24 5.42
Business strategies are driven by the goal of increasing
customer value. 0.25 5.49
We pay close attention to after-sale service. 0.34 6.45
χ² 88.33(d.f = 51, p < .001)
RMSEA .07
CFI .96
NNFI .94
Mean, Standard Deviation, and PHI Correlation Matrix
Mean SD CI EM CO
CI 4.35 0.79 1.00
EM 3.82 0.97 -0.001 1.00
CO 4.90 0.54 0.41** 0.22 1.00
Note. CR = Composite Reliability; AVE = Average Variance Extracted
*p < .05; **p < .01
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Table 1.4 Confirmatory Factor Analysis
(Scenario 4: Business Relationship, Low Profit Potential; N=151)
Item Description Standardized
Loading T-Value CR AVE
Employee’s Compliance Intention (CI) 0.91 0.73
Are you inclined to offer more discounts to Excellence
Company? 0.62 11.34
Are your real-life colleagues inclined to offer more discounts
in similar situations (offer more discounts to regular clients
who are doing badly)?
0.72 12.56
Will you offer more discounts to Excellence Company at
last? 0.76 13.18
Will your real-life colleagues offer more discounts in similar
situations at last (offer more discounts to regular clients
who are doing badly)?
0.79 13.68
Perceived Empowerment (EM) 0.79 0.56
I have significant autonomy in determining how I do my job. 0.48 8.50
I can decide on my own how to go about doing my work. 0.69 10.25
I have considerable opportunity for independence and
freedom in how I do my job. 0.52 8.92
Customer-orientation (CO) 0.70 0.31
Our business objectives are driven by customer satisfaction. 0.36 6.53
We closely monitor and assess our level of commitment in
serving customers’ needs. 0.28 5.78
Our competitive advantage is based on understanding
customers’ needs. 0.25 5.40
Business strategies are driven by the goal of increasing
customer value. 0.28 5.80
We pay close attention to after-sale service. 0.38 6.84
χ² 80.75 (d.f. = 51, p < .01)
RMSEA .062
CFI .96
NNFI .95
Mean, Standard Deviation, and PHI Correlation Matrix
Mean SD CI EM CO
CI 3.85 0.77 1.00
EM 3.82 0.97 0.04 1.00
CO 4.90 0.54 -0.14 0.23* 1.00
Note. CR = Composite Reliability; AVE = Average Variance Extracted
*p < .05; **p < .01
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Moreover, the composite reliabilities (CR) for empowerment,
customer-orientation and compliance intention were all above 0.70 in all scenarios. In
addition, the variance extracted (AVE) was adequate for the constructs of
empowerment and compliance intention in 4 scenarios, customer-orientation’s
variance extracted (AVE) was just marginally acceptable (AVE=0.31 in four
scenarios). Yet, the squared correlations between any pair of factors were still smaller
than the respective AVEs. Thus, discriminant validity was demonstrated.
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4. Results and Discussion
4.1 Results of Repeated Measures ANOVA
4.1.1 Empowerment Effects in Different Contexts
To test the hypothesis H1 and compare the effects of empowerment on the
compliance intention of employees across the four experimental conditions, a
repeated-measures ANOVA was conducted. A summary of results is given in Table
2.1.
Table 2.1 Results of Analysis of Variance for H1
Model/source
DV = Compliance Intention
F(1,150)
Main effects
Relationship Nature .33
Profit Potential 8.17**
Empowerment 11.29**
Two-way interaction
Relationship Nature * Profit Potential 13.80***
Relationship Nature * Empowerment .82
Profit Potential * Empowerment 7.39**
Three-way interaction
Relationship Nature * Profit Potential * Empowerment 4.24**
*p < .1
**p < .05
***p < .001
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Table 2.1 showed that the main effect of empowerment [F(1,150) = 11.29, p < .05]
on the compliance intention of employees as theorized. For the proposed contingency
factors, profit potential showed a significant effect [F(1,150) = 8.17, p < .05] while
relationship nature [F(1,150) = .33, ns] was non-significant. These outcomes reflected
that both empowerment and customer profit potential affected employee’s
compliance intention. Yet, relationship nature cannot significantly influence
employee’s compliance intention.
Our focus, however, falls on the interaction effects between empowerment and
the contingency factors. The ANOVA results further indicated a significant
interaction effect of empowerment and profit potential on employee’s compliance
intention [F(1,150) = 7.39, p < .05], as predicted by my hypothesis H1. This significant
interaction effect revealed that the effect of empowerment exerted on employee’s
compliance intention could be significantly influenced by customer’s profit potential.
However, we cannot identify in which situation of profit potential the effects of
empowerment could be stronger. Therefore I applied structural equation models after
the repeated measures ANOVA.
The three-way interaction of relationship nature, customer profit potential and
empowerment was significant [F(1,150) = 4.24, p < .05]. This finding reflected that the
effects of empowerment could be affected by different relationship nature and
different customer profit potential as well, even though this three-way interaction
effect was not hypothesized in this study.
4.1.2 Customer-orientation Effects in Different Contexts
To test my hypothesis H2 and hypothesis H3 and compare the effects of
customer-orientation on the compliance intention of employees across the four
experimental conditions, I conducted a repeated-measures ANOVA again. A summary
of results is given in Table 2.2.
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Table 2.2 Results of Analysis of Variance for H2 and H3
Model/source DV = Compliance Intention
F(1,150)
Main effects
Relationship Nature 8.21**
Profit Potential 1.57
Customer-orientation .21
Two-way interaction
Relationship Nature * Profit Potential 1.38
Relationship Nature * Customer-orientation 9.15**
Profit Potential * Customer-orientation 1.84
Three-way interaction
Relationship Nature * Profit Potential * Customer-orientation 3.78**
*p < .1
**p < .05
***p < .001
Table 2.2 showed that the main effect of customer-orientation [F(1,150) = .21, ns]
on the compliance intention of employees was non-significant. For the proposed
contingency factors, profit potential showed a non-significant effect [F(1,150) = 1.57,
ns]. Yet, relationship nature showed a significant effect [F(1,150) = 8.21, p < .01].
These outcomes reflected employees’ compliance intention could be affected by
relationship nature, however, could not be significantly influenced by both
customer-orientation and customer profit potential.
Similar to last section, interaction effects between customer-orientation and the
contingency factors are our focal points. The ANOVA results further indicated a
significant interaction effect of customer-orientation and relationship nature on
employee’s compliance intention [F(1,150) = 9.15, p < .05], as predicted by my
hypothesis H2. This significant interaction effect reflected that customer-orientation’s
effects on employee’s compliance intention could be significantly influenced by
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relationship nature. Yet, similarly, we cannot tell in which relationship
customer-orientation could generate stronger effects. Thus, more in-depth application
of structural equation models was introduced.
The three-way interaction of relationship nature, customer profit potential and
customer-orientation was significant [F(1,150) = 3.78, p < .05]. This finding reflected
that both relationship nature and customer profit potential could simultaneously affect
customer-orientation’s effect on employee’s compliance intention, as predicted by my
hypothesis H3. Due to the similar reason that it was difficult to tell in which one of
the four scenarios customer-orientation could generate stronger effects, structural
equation models were applied by me.
Moreover, since the two antecedent factors, namely empowerment and
customer-orientation, were measured, it would difficult to interpret the simple main
effects in each experimental condition with the distribution of means of the
dependent measure (Table 2.3) as well.
Thus, after the repeated measures ANOVA, I performed a follow-up study with
nested structural equation models to further illuminate the interaction effects of
empowerment and customer-orientation in different service contexts.
Table 2.3 Experiment Cell Means: Compliance Intention
Personal Relationship Business Relationship
High Customer Profit Potential 3.87 4.19
Low Customer Profit Potential 4.35 3.85
n = 151;
Compliance intention: 1 – 6 ratings; a higher score implies a greater intention to comply with
the customer request.
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4.2 Nested Structural Equation Models
Due to several advantages of the structural equation models, I applied this
approach in my study. The advantages of the structural equation approach are listed
below (Bagozzi & Yi, 1989).
1. This approach provides a natural way to correct for measurement error in
the measures of variables thus reduce the chances of making type II
errors.
2. This approach does not involve the restrictive assumption of
homogeneity in variances and covariances of the depend variables across
groups.
3. This approach allows for a complete modeling of theoretical relations.
The path analysis involved empowerment, customer-orientation, the interaction
term between empowerment and customer-orientation, and employee’s compliance
intention. Besides, demographic variables such as employee’s gender, education
background and employee’s working experience in current hotel were also included
as control variables to partial out their possible confounding effects.
Prior to the analysis, all measurement items of empowerment and
customer-orientation were mean-centered to eliminate the possible multi-collinearity
problem (Aiken & West, 1991). Since the two contingency factors are nominal data,
they were not mean-centered. The structural paths of the models for four scenarios
are shown in Figure 2.
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4.2.1 Findings of Path Analysis of Individual Service Scenario
Before the path models were nested together, an individual path analysis was
conducted for each scenario to assure that the path model fit and represented the data
of their respective service context. Findings of the four scenarios showed interesting
and distinctive patterns.
In the first scenario (Scenario 1: Personal Relationship, High Customer Profit
Potential; please refer to Figure 2.1), Empowerment was positively related to
employee’s compliance intention, as evidenced by a significant path ( = .39; t =
3.79). The effects of customer-orientation and its interaction term with empowerment
were both non-significant (p > .10). This result provided some support to my
hypothesis H1. These findings reflected that, when the relationship between the
employee and the customer was a personal relationship, empowerment practices were
effective in influencing employee’s intention to comply with special requests from
customers with high profit potential. Yet, the results also showed that, when customer
profit potential was high, customer-orientation could not affect employee’s
compliance intention in dealing with special requests from a customer with whom the
employee had a personal relationship. Thus, my hypothesis H2 cannot be supported.
Moreover, empowerment and customer-orientation could not generate interactive
effect on employee’s compliance intention when the customer’s profit potential was
high and the relationship nature was perceived as a personal one.
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Perceived
Empowerment
(PE)
The
interaction of
PE &CO
Customer-
orientation
(CO)
Employee’s
Compliance
Intention
(Scenario 1)
Other control variables
(Gender, Education
Attainment, and Working
experience at current hotel)
are all non-significant
Model Fit Statistics:
χ²= 155.95 (d.f. = 87, p < .001)
RMSEA = .073
NNFI = .91
CFI = .94
Figure 2.1 Scenario 1: Personal Relationship, High Customer Profit Potential
For the second scenario (Scenario 2: Business Relationship, High Customer
Profit Potential; please refer to Figure 2.2), similar to the first scenario,
empowerment was positively related to employee’s compliance intention, as
evidenced by a significant path ( = .22; t = 2.17). The effects of customer-orientation
and its interaction term with empowerment were both non-significant (p > .05). These
findings reflected that, when the relationship between the employee and the customer
was a business relationship, empowerment could influence employee’s intention to
accommodate special requests from customers with high profit potential. My
hypothesis H1 was supported by this result as well. However, employee’s compliance
intention cannot be influenced by customer-orientation and its joint effect with
empowerment practices in a business relationship and the customer comes with high
profit potential.
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Perceived
Empowerment
(PE)
The
interaction of
PE &CO
Customer-
orientation
(CO)
Employee’s
Compliance
Intention
(Scenario 2)
Model Fit Statistics:
χ²= 134.61 (d.f. = 87, p < .001)
RMSEA = .060
NNFI = .93
CFI = .95
Other control variables
(Gender, Education
Attainment, and Working
experience at current hotel)
are all non-significant
Figure 2.2 Scenario 2: Business Relationship, High Customer Profit Potential
Next, pertaining to the third and forth scenarios in which the customer was
perceived with low profit potential, let me elaborate on the forth scenario first
(Scenario 4: Business Relationship, Low Customer Profit Potential; please refer to
Figure 2.4). In the forth scenario, the effects of customer-orientation, empowerment
and the interaction term of customer-orientation and empowerment were all
non-significant (p > .10). The results reflected that, when the profit potential of a
customer was perceived by the employees as low, and the relationship between the
customer and the employee was business relationship, empowerment,
customer-orientation and the combined effect of these two factors could not make
any difference on the employee’s compliance intention.
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In the third scenario (Scenario 3: Personal Relationship, Low Customer Profit
Potential; please refer to Figure 2.3), customer-orientation was positively and
strongly related to employee’s compliance intention, as evidenced by a significant
path ( = .54; t = 4.26). The effect of empowerment was non-significant (p > .10). Yet,
more interestingly, the interaction term of empowerment and customer-orientation
was negatively and also strongly related to employee’s compliance intention, as
evidenced by a significant path ( = -.35; t = 3.99). These results showed that when
the customer and the employee were in a personal relationship, employees’ intention
to comply with special request from the customer could be positively affected by
customer-orientation, which supports my hypothesis H3. What’s more interesting is,
even though this intention cannot be influenced by empowerment, the significant and
negative joint effect of empowerment and customer-orientation shows that the effect
of customer-orientation on employee’s compliance intention can be weakened by
empowerment.
Perceived
Empowerment
(PE)
The
interaction of
PE &CO
Customer-
orientation
(CO)
Employee’s
Compliance
Intention
(Scenario 3)
Model Fit Statistics:
χ²= 125.75 (d.f. = 87, p < .01)
RMSEA = .054
NNFI = .94
CFI = .96
Other control variables
(Gender, Education
Attainment, and Working
experience at current hotel)
are all non-significant
Figure 2.3 Scenario 3: Personal Relationship, Low Customer Profit Potential
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Perceived
Empowerment
(PE)
The
interaction of
PE &CO
Customer-
orientation
(CO)
Employee’s
Compliance
Intention
(Scenario 4)
Model Fit Statistics:
χ²= 116.87 (d.f. = 87, p < .05)
RMSEA = .048
NNFI = .95
CFI = .96
Other control variables
(Gender, Education
Attainment, and Working
experience at current hotel)
are all non-significant
Figure 2.4 Scenario 4: Business Relationship, Low Customer Profit Potential
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4.2.2 Hypothesis Testing by Nested Structural Equation Models
To provide further evidence for testing the hypotheses in this study, individual
path models were nested in a pair to form baseline models for comparison of the
strength of hypothesized relations (γ1ijγijγijγij) between every pair of
models which represented different manipulated service contexts (please see fit
statistics in Table 3).
Table 3 Fit Statistics of Baseline Models
The nested model of
two scenarios χ2
RMSEA CFI NNFI
Scenario 1 & 2
(HP & HB)
299.23
(d.f. = 195, p < .001) .060 .95 .94
Scenario 1 & 3
(HP & LP)
305.67
(d.f. = 195, p < .001) .062 .95 .93
Scenario 1 & 4
(HP & LB)
290.62
(d.f. = 195, p < .001) .057 .95 .94
Scenario 2 & 3
(HB & LP)
278.38
(d.f. = 195, p < .001) .053 .96 .95
Scenario 2 & 4
(HB & LB)
256.87
(d.f. = 195, p < .005) .046 .97 .96
Scenario 3 & 4
(LP & LB)
256.88
(d.f. = 195, p < .005) .046 .97 .96
Notes: Scenario 1: Personal Relationship, High Profit Potential = HP
Scenario 2: Business Relationship, High Profit Potential = HB
Scenario 3: Personal Relationship, Low Profit Potential = LP
Scenario 4: Business Relationship, Low Profit Potential = LB
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My hypothesis H1 theorizes that the effect of empowerment exerted on
employees’ compliance intention will be more pronounced when the customer’s
profit potential is high than when it is low. To test this hypothesis, the paths between
empowerment and compliance intention were constrained to be equal among the
models of Scenario 1 (Personal Relationship, High Profit Potential) and 3 (Personal
Relationship, Low Profit Potential) (Constrained HP =
LP
), the models of
Scenario 2 (Business Relationship, High Profit Potential) and 4 (Business
Relationship, Low Profit Potential) (Constrained HB =
LB
), respectively.
Chi-square difference tests were applied to compare whether there were significant
differences between the baseline (unconstrained) models and the constrained models.
The results (please refer to Table 4.1) indicate that the effects of empowerment on
employee’s compliance intention showed significant difference between Scenario 1
and Scenario 3 (unconstrained model: χ² = 305.67. d.f. = 195; constrained model: χ² =
320.38, d.f. = 196; Δχ² = 14.71, Δd.f. = 1, p < 0.001), which provided evidence to
support my hypothesis H1. Yet, the relationship between empowerment and
employee’s compliance intention was not different between the Scenario 2 and 4
(unconstrained model: χ² = 256.87. d.f. = 195; constrained model: χ² = 257.78, d.f. =
196; Δχ² = .91, Δd.f. = 1, ns). This finding did not support my hypothesis H1. We
therefore got mixed findings. Because the repeated measures ANOVA results showed
that the two-way interaction of empowerment and relationship was not significant
[F(1,150) = .81, ns; please refer to Table 2.1], and my path analysis of individual
scenario also showed that the effects of empowerment on employee’s compliance
intention were just significant in models of Scenario 1 and 2, but not significant in
models of Scenario 3 and 4 (please refer to Figure 2). This finding of chi-square
difference tests indicates that relationship nature still may moderate the effects of
empowerment on employee’s compliance intention given that customer’s profit
potential is high.
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Table 4.1 Chi-square Difference Test for H1
Path Relations χ² d.f. Δχ² Δd.f. p-value
Baseline Model (Scenario 1 & 3) 305.67 195
Empowerment Employee’s Compliance Intention
(Constrained HP =
LP
) 320.38 196 14.71 1 0.001
Baseline Model (Scenario 2 & 4) 256.87 195
Empowerment Employee’s Compliance Intention
(Constrained HB =
LB
)
257.78 196 0.91 1 0.340
Notes: Scenario 1: Personal Relationship, High Profit Potential = HP
Scenario 2: Business Relationship, High Profit Potential = HB
Scenario 3: Personal Relationship, Low Profit Potential = LP
Scenario 4: Business Relationship, Low Profit Potential = LB
Next, my hypothesis H2 theorizes that the effect of customer-orientation exerted
on employees’ compliance intention will be more pronounced when employees
perceived the relationship with the customers as a personal relationship than when
they perceive the relationship as a business one. To test this hypothesis, firstly, the
paths between customer-orientation and compliance intention among the models of
Scenario 1 and Scenario 2 (Constrained HP =
HB
), and the models of Scenario 3
and 4 (Constrained LP =
LB
) were constrained to be equivalent. Chi-square
difference tests were applied to investigate whether there were significant differences
between personal relationship scenario and business relationship scenario across the
two scenarios which shared the same profit potential. The results (please refer to
Table 4.2) showed that the effects of customer-orientation on employee’s compliance
intention were significantly different between Scenario 3 and Scenario 4
(unconstrained model: χ²= 256.88. d.f.= 195; constrained model: χ²= 268.80, d.f.=
196; Δχ²= 11.92, Δd.f.= 1, p < 0.001). Yet, the relationship between
customer-orientation and employee’s compliance intention was not different between
Scenario 1 and 2 (unconstrained model: χ²= 299.23. d.f.= 195; constrained model: χ²=
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299.49, d.f.= 196; Δχ²= .26, Δd.f.= 1, ns). Thus, customer-orientation’s effects were
not significantly different between personal relationship scenario and business
relationship scenario given that customer’s profit potential is high. Thus, my
hypothesis H2 cannot be supported.
Table 4.2 Chi-square Difference Test for H2
Path Relations χ² d.f. Δχ² Δd.f. p-value
Baseline Model (Scenario 1 & 2) 299.23 195
Customer-orientation Employee’s Compliance Intention
(Constrained HP =
HB
) 299.49 196 0.26 1 .0610
Baseline Model (Scenario 3 & 4) 256.88 195
Customer-orientation Employee’s Compliance Intention
(Constrained LP =
LB
)
268.80 196 11.92 1 0.001
Notes: Scenario 1: Personal Relationship, High Profit Potential = HP
Scenario 2: Business Relationship, High Profit Potential = HB
Scenario 3: Personal Relationship, Low Profit Potential = LP
Scenario 4: Business Relationship, Low Profit Potential = LB
Furthermore, in my hypothesis H3, I propose that the effect of
customer-orientation exerted on employees’ compliance intention will be the most
pronounced when employees perceived the relationship with the customers as a
personal relationship and the customer is in need and difficult. To test this hypothesis
H3, the paths between customer-orientation and compliance intention among the
models of Scenario 1 and Scenario 3, the models of Scenario 2 and 3, the models of
Scenario 3 and 4 were constrained to be equal. Similarly, chi-square difference tests
were applied.
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The results (Please refer to Table 4.3) revealed that the effects of
customer-orientation on employee’s compliance intention in Scenario 3 were
significantly different from Scenario 1 (unconstrained model: χ²= 305.67. d.f.= 195;
constrained model: χ²= 317.09, d.f.= 196; Δχ²= 11.42, Δd.f.= 1, p < 0.001), Scenario 2
(unconstrained model: χ²= 278.38, d.f.= 195; constrained model: χ²= 294.99, d.f.=
196; Δχ²= 16.61, Δd.f.= 1, p < 0.001) and Scenario 4 ((unconstrained model: χ²=
256.88. d.f.= 195; constrained model: χ²= 268.80, d.f.= 196; Δχ²= 11.92, Δd.f.= 1, p <
0.001), respectively.
Thus, my hypothesis H3 is supported.
Table 4.3 Chi-square Difference Test for H3
Path Relations χ² d.f. Δχ² Δd.f. p-value
Baseline Model (Scenario 1 & 3) 305.67 195
Customer-orientation Employee’s Compliance Intention
(Constrained HP =
LP
) 317.09 196 11.42 1 0.001
Baseline Model (Scenario 2 & 3) 278.38 195
Customer-orientation Employee’s Compliance Intention
(Constrained HB =
LP
) 294.99 196 16.61 1 0.001
Baseline Model (Scenario 3 & 4) 256.88 195
Customer-orientation Employee’s Compliance Intention
(Constrained LP =
LB
)
268.80 196 11.92 1 0.001
Notes: Scenario 1: Personal Relationship, High Profit Potential = HP
Scenario 2: Business Relationship, High Profit Potential = HB
Scenario 3: Personal Relationship, Low Profit Potential = LP
Scenario 4: Business Relationship, Low Profit Potential = LB
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5. Discussion and Implications
This study provides new insights related to the roles of customer relationship
nature and customer profit potential in moderating the effects of empowerment and
customer-orientation on service employees’ intention of complying with customers’
special requests. I aimed to investigate under what kind of situation empowerment
and customer-orientation could affect employees’ compliance intention in Chinese
hotel industry.
5.1 Discussion of Path Analysis Results of Individual Scenario
Few prior researches have ever probed into why western literatures about
empowerment and customer-orientation could not explain special phenomena in
Chinese service industry and why empowerment practices and customer-orientation
cultivation cannot always make employees to accommodate customer’s special
requests. It was stimulating and inspiring to find that different combinations of
customer profit potential and customer relationship nature did affect the effects of
empowerment and customer-orientation on compliance intention of employees. Next,
findings got from the path analysis of the four combinations in my study are
presented.
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5.1.1 Two Scenarios of High Customer Profit Potential (Scenario 1 & 2)
In the path analysis of individual scenario for Scenario 1 (Personal Relationship,
High Profit Potential) and Scenario 2 (Business Relationship, High Profit Potential),
just the effects of empowerment were significant on compliance intention, which was
consistent with my hypotheses H1.
The reasons are clear. Since to comply with special requests from customers
with high profit potential is consistent with the interests of both the employee and the
firm, frontline employees tend to be willing and motivated to accommodate these
customers’ special needs.
The reasons why customer-orientation cannot take significant effect in these 2
scenarios can be, for a customer with high profit potential, his financial situation
tends to be ideal. Thus, he can be perceived by employees as actually not in great
need or exigencies of more discounts. Customer-orientation which primarily means
proactively fulfilling customers’ needs and meeting customers’ exigencies thus
cannot generate effect here. Employees comply with profitable customers’ special
and extra requests can simply due to their perception and expectation of high profit
potential possessed by the customer.
5.1.2 Business Relationship and Low Customer Profit Potential (Scenario 4)
In Scenario 4 (Business Relationship, Low Profit Potential), both empowerment
and customer-orientation could not generate significant effects on compliance
intention, which was reasonable as well.
To sacrifice the benefits of the hotel for retaining a customer with low profit
potential is definitely not a wise move for an employee. Following reasons can
explain this rationale clearly.
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First of all, business relationships tend to be exchange relationships in which
people care about what they can get back for what they give (Aggarwal & Zhang,
2006). No extra benefits, no extra devotion. Employees tend to process everything
according to established rules and regulations, or just follow the conventional
practices. In addition, employees will not feel obliged to accommodate the special
needs of customers in this relationship. Whether the customers are in need or not will
not affect the employees’ judge and according responses.
Moreover, to satisfy the special requests from a customer with low profit
potential in the expense of the firm’s benefits is inconsistent with the interests of both
the firm and the employee. Employees would not be willing as well as motivated to
comply with these special requests by utilizing the power at hand.
Taking in the above two aspects into consideration, the employees tend to be
inattentive to whether their customers are in need or even in difficulty, thus
customer-orientation attitude which basically means a disposition to take care of
customers’ needs can simply not take effect in this Scenario 4. In addition, lack of
both willingness and motivation to use the discretionary power at hand to help the
customers encountered will make the effects of empowerment practices dormant.
Thus, in this situation, both empowerment and customer-orientation cannot impact
employee’s compliance intention.
5.1.3 Personal Relationship and Low Customer Profit Potential (Scenario 3)
In Scenario 3 (Personal Relationship, Low Profit Potential), I found significant
effect of customer-orientation on employee’s compliance intention. Yet,
empowerment’s effect was non-significant.
Compared with the business customer with low profit potential, the nature of
personal relationship could differently impacts employee’s compliance intention.
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Friends tend to regard a personal relationship as a communal relationship in
which people are willing to give benefits in response to friends’ needs regardless of
their possible pay-back. In this kind of relationship, the return of benefits will not
change the giver’s perspective of obligation to accommodate the others’ needs (Clark
& Mills, 1993). Thus, service employees tend to feel obliged to comply with the
special requests from the friend customers.
Generally customer-oriented employees tend to show high concern for others’
needs and meet customers’ needs and exigencies (Saxe and Weitz, 1982, Han et al.,
1998). In the scenarios of low customer profit potential, though the profit potential of
the customer encountered is low, that means this customer is in greater need of this
special request (e.g., more discounts).
Employees tend to feel obliged to help their communal customers, thus tend to
be aware of and be attentive to the exigencies of the customers. Hence, the effect of
customer-orientation on employee’s intention to meet the special requests thus can be
significant.
More interestingly, in this scenario (Personal Relationship, Low Profit Potential),
the significant but negative interaction between empowerment and
customer-orientation on compliance intention shows that the effect of empowerment
would be attenuated by the strength of customer-orientation. This finding does not
necessarily reflect that empowerment effect will be reversed by customer-orientation
but the two effects may offset each other in affecting the employees’ compliance
intention. In other words, customer-orientation serves as a “ceiling effect” on the
empowerment effect.
The reasons can be: prior researchers have found that empowerment is
beneficial for enhancing employees’ satisfaction and promoting employees’ sense of
belonging to the firm (Bowen & Lawler, 1992; Liao, Toya, Lepak, & Hong, 2009).
Yet, since to comply with the special requests from customers with low profit
potential is actually not consistent with the firm’s interests, employees who are highly
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empowered and have a sense of belonging to the firm tend to prioritize firms’
interests over their originally perceived obligation in a communal relationship.
Employees who bear in mind firm’s interests may not feel so obliged to attentive to
exigencies of communal customers. Therefore customer-orientation’s effect would be
attenuated. Thus, the more empowered employees feel, the less they would comply
with special requests from friend customers with low profit potential. This
unexpectedly significant and negative interaction effect actually may deserve more
attention of future research.
5.2 Discussion of Analysis Results of Nested Structural Equation Models
5.2.1 The Mixed Findings of Testing Hypothesis H1
In testing hypothesis H1, we got mixed findings. The repeated measures
ANOVA results showed us that the two-way interaction of empowerment and
relationship was not significant [F(1,150) = .81, ns; please refer to Table 2.1].
Simultaneously, my path analysis of individual scenario also showed that the effects
of empowerment on employee’s compliance intention were just significant in
Scenario 1 (Personal Relationship, High Profit Potential) and 2 (Business
Relationship, High Profit Potential), but not significant in Scenario 3 (Personal
Relationship, Low Profit Potential) and 4 (Business Relationship, Low Profit
Potential) (please refer to Figure 2). However, the chi-square difference tests showed
that the relationship between empowerment and employee’s compliance intention
was significantly different between Scenario 1 and 3, but was not different between
Scenario 2 and 4, indicating that relationship nature still may moderate the effects of
empowerment on employee’s compliance intention given that customer’s profit
potential was high.
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Actually the results of chi-square difference tests are not inconceivable as well,
because people still tend to prioritize in-group members’ interests as suggested by
previous literatures (Cialdini et al., 1999; Bove & Johnson, 2001; Verbeke & Bagozzi,
2001). Personal relationship may motivate the employee and further strengthen the
effects of empowerment on top of the motivation driven by the perceived profit
potential. In contrast, a business relationship does not possess a similar motivation
power which drives frontline employees to use their discretionary power on hand to
satisfy special needs of customers.
5.2.2 The Findings of Testing Hypothesis H2 and Hypothesis H3
In testing hypothesis H2, the chi-square difference tests showed us that the
relationship between customer-orientation and employee’s compliance intention was
significantly different between Scenario 3 (Personal Relationship, Low Profit
Potential) and 4 (Business Relationship, Low Profit Potential), but was not
significantly different between Scenario 1 (Personal Relationship, High Profit
Potential) and 2 (Business Relationship, High Profit Potential), indicating that the
strength of customer-orientation could not be affected by relationship nature when the
customer’s profit potential was high. In testing hypothesis H3, the chi-square
difference tests showed that the relationship between customer-orientation and
employee’s compliance intention in Scenario 3 was significantly different from the
effects of customer-orientation in other three scenarios, which implied the effects of
customer-orientation are the most significant in Scenario 3 (Personal Relationship,
Low Profit Potential).
These two sets of tests did provide us consistent evidence with the path analysis
of individual scenarios, in which we also found similar results, because the effects of
customer-orientation on employee’s compliance intention were just significant in
Scenario 3 (Personal Relationship, Low Profit Potential), not significant in other
three scenarios.
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5.2.3 Chi-square Difference Tests for the Significant Interaction Effect of
Customer-orientation and Empowerment in Scenario3
In the path analysis of individual scenario for Scenario 3 (Personal Relationship,
Low Profit Potential), we unexpectedly found that, the interaction term of
empowerment and customer-orientation was negatively and significantly related to
employee’s compliance intention. This significant and negative joint effect of
empowerment and customer-orientation showed that the effect of
customer-orientation on the compliance intention of employees could be weakened
by empowerment. Even though we did not hypothesize this interaction effect, we also
applied chi-square difference tests to investigate whether the relationship between the
interaction term and compliance intention in Scenario 3 (Personal Relationship, Low
Profit Potential) was significantly different from that in other three scenarios. The
results (please refer to Table 4.4) showed that the relationship between the interaction
term and employee’s compliance intention in Scenario 3 was not significantly
different from that in Scenario 1 (Personal Relationship, High Profit Potential) and 4
(Business Relationship, Low Profit Potential). Thus, the interesting finding we found
in the path analysis of individual scenario was not very distinctive because there were
similar phenomena in Scenario 1 and 4 as well. This extra finding may deserve future
research.
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Table 4.4 Chi-square Difference Test for the Interaction Term of Empowerment and
Customer-orientation
Path Relations χ² d.f. Δχ² Δd.f. p-value
Baseline Model (Scenario 1 & 3) 305.67 195
EMP x CO Employee’s Compliance Intention
(Constrained HP =
LP
) 305.34 196 0.33 1 0.566
Baseline Model (Scenario 2 & 3) 278.38 195
EMP x CO Employee’s Compliance Intention
(Constrained HB =
LP
) 283.95 196 5.57 1 0.018
Baseline Model (Scenario 3 & 4) 256.88 195
EMP x CO Employee’s Compliance Intention
(Constrained LP =
LB
)
258.54 196 1.66 1 0.198
Notes: Scenario 1: Personal Relationship, High Profit Potential = HP
Scenario 2: Business Relationship, High Profit Potential = HB
Scenario 3: Personal Relationship, Low Profit Potential = LP
Scenario 4: Business Relationship, Low Profit Potential = LB
5.3 General Discussion and Theoretical Contribution
In conclusion, this study found out the different effects of empowerment and
customer-orientation on employee’s intention to comply with customers’ special
requests under different influences from relationship nature and perception of
customer profit potential in Chinese hotel industry.
My results revealed that the effect of empowerment was especially significant
when service employees were handling customers with high profit potential and high
value of retention, though the mixed findings of nested structural models showed that
relationship nature might moderate empowerment’s effects on employee’s
compliance intention even when employees were dealing with customers with high
profit potential.
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Moreover, this study demonstrated that service employees tended to treat
business relationships as exchange relationships in which staff would care more
about the balance between giving and receiving.
It was stimulating to find that the effect of customer-orientation could be very
significant when employees were dealing with special requests from customers in
need given that the employees and the customers were in a personal relationship.
Employees tended to be attentive to the needs and exigencies of people with whom
employees have a personal relationship.
More interestingly, this study found that empowerment practices might inspire
the employees to put firm’s interests at first. To empower the frontline employees
which could improve employee’s satisfaction and cultivate their sense of belonging to
the firm may make employees be inclined to prioritize firm’s benefits over their
originally perceived obligations in communal relationships. Though we finally found
that this interaction of empowerment and customer-orientation was not distinctive in
just Scenario 3 (Personal Relationship, Low Profit Potential), but the finding that
similar phenomena might exist in other scenarios did provide a potential direction for
future studies.
5.4 Managerial Implications
To put my findings into practice, this study provides more evidence to
recommend empowerment practices to Chinese managers.
First of all, empowerment practices tend to encourage the frontline employees to
acquire or retain profitable clients with less hesitation, which is very beneficial for
the firm’s long-term benefits.
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Second, Chinese employees apparently treat customers differently according to
employees’ own perception of customers’ profit potential. Thus, managers should
figure out how to link employee’s natural inclination with firm’s interests by utilizing
empowerment practices. For instance, service managers may devise a guideline
which could help frontline employees identify profitable customers in a subtle way
and give employees a direction on how to deal with customers with different profit
potential by utilizing power at hand.
Moreover, empowerment practices may enhance employee’s sense of belonging
to the firm which in turn, inspire the employees to prioritize firm’s benefits over own
interests. With empowerment practices, frontline employees are inclined to perceive
the enhancement of firm’s benefits as beneficial for the enhancement of their own
interests. A good employer-employee relationship is advantageous to the firm. Thus,
managers should pay more attention to the utilization of empowerment practices. To
decisively empower the frontline employees and trust the empowered subordinates
actually can motivate staffs to care about the company’s interests and work hard for
company’s benefits.
Pertaining to customer-orientation, my findings show that to purely pursue
cultivation of customer-orientation does not necessarily generate positive and
beneficial results for the firm. Thus, how to strike a balance between
profit-orientation and customer-orientation could be decided by service practitioners
more cautiously.
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6. Limitations and Future Research
6.1 Limitations
The context chosen by me is a hotel group. This choice may pose some biases
which are detrimental to the generalizability of my results. Moreover, this hotel is
running in the inland area of China. It is generally thought that the businesses in the
coastal area are very different from the businesses in the inland area, in terms of
degree of modernization, management practices, and concepts in doing business. The
culture and perspectives regarding to relationship nature and personal tie can be very
different between these two areas mentioned above as well. Thus, we cannot directly
generalize these findings to the whole hotel industry in China.
Given the resources base of doing this study, I just collected data from three
hotels from a hotel group which actually just can be defined as a medium-sized firm.
If my study can be backed up by more resources, like time, and connections, I would
try to collect data from some large-scale hotels or collect data from hotels in various
scales so that the representativeness of my study could be improved.
6.2 Future research
Future study may pay more attention to other fields in service industry instead of
just focusing on hospitality industry.
Moreover, as I mentioned in section 5.1.3 and section 5.2.3, in this study, I just
tried to explain why the interaction term of empowerment and customer-orientation
could negatively affected employee’s compliance intention. We have not elaborated
this finding with solid evidences and analyses. Moreover, we also found that the
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significant and negative interaction effects of empowerment and customer-orientation
which was found by us unexpectedly in Scenario 3 (Personal Relationship, Low
Profit Potential) may exist in Scenario 1 (Personal Relationship, High Profit Potential)
and 4 (Business Relationship, Low Profit Potential) as well. Future research may try
to investigate whether there are actually other factors influencing the interaction
effects of customer-orientation and empowerment on employee’s compliance
intention.
Last but not least, future studies could keep an eye on the cultivation of a
balanced combination of customer-orientation and profit-orientation to the service
employees. Whether a balanced orientation can bring about more beneficial results to
the service providers or not deserves the attention of future studies.
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Appendix 1: Questionnaires
Series 1
Part One: Please read the following scenarios, imagine that you were this staff in these
scenarios, and pick the corresponding answers according to the scenarios.
In Star Hotel, every staff is required by the management to try hard to fulfill customers’
various needs and earn more profits for the firm. You are one of the front desk staffs.
One of the front desk staff’s responsibilities is handling room reservation. Every front desk
staff is empowered by the management to offer appropriate discounts to prospects for attracting
more customers.
Basing on 2 different situations below (A, B), what will you do accordingly?
Situation A:
One day, you are on your shift at the front desk. Chen Ming, your old classmate, comes to you.
Chen Ming owns a couple of companies which are running very well and leads an affluent life.
After a small chat, Chen Ming tells you that he wants to book two rooms, and asks you for
some more discounts.
1. Chen Ming is your___?
2. Chen Ming’s financial situation is ___?
A. Bad B. Good
3. How will you think of your relationship with Chen Ming?
A. Old classmate B. Old boss
C. Distant relative D. Subordinate
A. Personal relationship B. Business relationship
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To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following viewpoints?
Please Circle the answers which are most consistent with your own viewpoints in following
questions.
6. Are you inclined to offer more discounts to Chen Ming?
Definitely
Unlikely Definitely
Likely
1 2 3 4 5 6
7. Are your real-life colleagues inclined to offer more discounts in similar situations (offer
more discounts to rich old classmates)?
Definitely
Unlikely Definitely
Likely
1 2 3 4 5 6
8. Will you offer more discounts to Chen Ming at last?
Definitely
No Definitely
Yes
1 2 3 4 5 6
9. Will your real-life colleagues offer more discounts in similar situations at last (offer more
discounts to rich old classmates)?
Definitely
No Definitely
Yes
1 2 3 4 5 6
Totally
Disagree
Totally
Agree
4 I think it is my duty to offer
more discounts to Chen Ming. 1 2 3 4 5 6
5
I think it is Chen Ming’s duty
to understand my difficulties
and support my work. 1 2 3 4 5 6
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Situation B:
One day, you are on your shift at the front desk. A customer comes to you. He tells you that he
is the representative of Excellence Company.
Star Hotel used to do business with Excellence Company, and Excellence Company usually
makes room reservations in Star Hotel. During the past 3 years, you are the one who handles
Excellence Company’s room-booking. It has been very nice to do business with Excellence
Company and your experience of dealing with Excellence Company is pleasant.
As you know, Excellence Company is running very well.
This time this representative of Excellence Company wants to book 5 rooms, and he asks you
for more discounts, considering that Excellence Company is a patron.
10. Excellence Company is your____?
A. Regular client B. Old classmate
C. Surbodinate D. Relative
11. The operating situation of Excellence Company is___?
A. Good B. Bad
12. How will you think of your relationship with Excellence Company?
A. Personal relationship B. Business relationship
To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following viewpoints?
Totally
Disagree
Totally
Agree
13
I think it is my duty to offer
more discounts to Excellence
Company. 1 2 3 4 5 6
14
I think it is Excellence
Company’s duty to understand
my difficulties and support my
work.
1 2 3 4 5 6
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Please Circle the answers which are most consistent with your own viewpoints in following
questions.
15. Are you inclined to offer more discounts to Excellence Company?
Definitely
Unlikely Definitely
Likely
1 2 3 4 5 6
16. Are your real-life colleagues inclined to offer more discounts in similar situations (offer
more discounts to regular clients who are doing well)?
Definitely
Unlikely Definitely
Likely
1 2 3 4 5 6
17. Will you offer more discounts to Excellence Company at last?
Definitely
No Definitely
Yes
1 2 3 4 5 6
18. Will your real-life colleagues offer more discounts in similar situations at last (offer more
discounts to regular clients who are doing well)?
Definitely
No Definitely
Yes
1 2 3 4 5 6
The End of Series One
Please put this questionnaire in a sealed envelope for confidentiality.
Thanks for your cooperation.
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Series 2
Part One: Please read the following scenarios, imagine that you were this staff in these
scenarios, and pick the corresponding answers according to the scenarios.
In Star Hotel, every staff is required by the management to try hard to fulfill customers’
various needs and earn more profits for the firm. You are one of the front desk staffs.
One of the front desk staff’s responsibilities is handling room reservation. Every front desk
staff is empowered by the management to offer appropriate discounts to prospects for attracting
more customers.
Basing on 2 different situations below (A, B), what will you do accordingly?
Situation A:
One day, you are on your shift at the front desk. Chen Ming, your old classmate, comes to you.
Chen Ming now is working at a very small company. You heard from other classmates that Chen’s
company is not running very well recently, and Chen’s life is difficult.
After a small chat, Chen Ming tells you that he wants to book two rooms, and asks you for
some more discounts.
1. Chen Ming is your___?
2. Chen Ming’s financial situation is ___?
A. Bad B. Good
3. How will you think of your relationship with Chen Ming?
To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following viewpoints?
A. Old classmate B. Old boss
C. Distant relative D. Subordinate
A. Personal relationship B. Business relationship
Totally
Disagree
Totally
Agree
4 I think it is my duty to offer
more discounts to Chen Ming. 1 2 3 4 5 6
5
I think it is Chen Ming’s duty
to understand my difficulties
and support my work. 1 2 3 4 5 6
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Please Circle the answers which are most consistent with your own viewpoints in following
questions.
6. Are you inclined to offer more discounts to Chen Ming?
Definitely
Unlikely Definitely
Likely
1 2 3 4 5 6
7. Are your real-life colleagues inclined to offer more discounts in similar situations (offer
more discounts to old classmates in difficulty)?
Definitely
Unlikely Definitely
Likely
1 2 3 4 5 6
8. Will you offer more discounts to Chen Ming at last?
Definitely
No Definitely
Yes
1 2 3 4 5 6
9. Will your real-life colleagues offer more discounts in similar situations at last (offer more
discounts to old classmates in difficulty)?
Definitely
No Definitely
Yes
1 2 3 4 5 6
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Situation B:
One day, you are on your shift at the front desk. A customer comes to you. He tells you that he
is the representative of Excellence Company.
Star Hotel used to do business with Excellence Company, and Excellence Company usually
makes room reservations in Star Hotel. During the past 3 years, you are the one who handles
Excellence Company’s room-booking. It has been very nice to do business with Excellence
Company and your experience of dealing with Excellence Company is pleasant.
As you know, Excellence Company is running very badly.
This time this representative of Excellence Company wants to book 5 rooms, and he asks you
for more discounts, considering that Excellence Company is a patron.
10. Excellence Company is your____?
A. Regular client B. Old classmate
C. Surbodinate D. Relative
11. The operating situation of Excellence Company is___?
A. Good B. Bad
12. How will you think of your relationship with Excellence Company?
A. Personal relationship B. Business relationship
To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following viewpoints?
Totally
Disagree
Totally
Agree
13
I think it is my duty to offer
more discounts to Excellence
Company. 1 2 3 4 5 6
14
I think it is Excellence
Company’s duty to understand
my difficulties and support my
work.
1 2 3 4 5 6
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Please Circle the answers which are most consistent with your own viewpoints in following
questions.
15. Are you inclined to offer more discounts to Excellence Company?
Definitely
Unlikely Definitely
Likely
1 2 3 4 5 6
16. Are your real-life colleagues inclined to offer more discounts in similar situations (offer
more discounts to regular clients who are in difficulty)?
Definitely
Unlikely Definitely
Likely
1 2 3 4 5 6
17. Will you offer more discounts to Excellence Company at last?
Definitely
No Definitely
Yes
1 2 3 4 5 6
18. Will your real-life colleagues offer more discounts in similar situations at last (offer more
discounts to regular clients who are in difficulty)?
Definitely
No Definitely
Yes
1 2 3 4 5 6
The End of Series Two.
Please put this questionnaire in a sealed envelope for confidentiality.
Thanks for your cooperation
BUS 3570 BBA Project
67
Series 3
Part 1:
1. Please Circle the answers which are most consistent with
your own viewpoints in following questions. Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree
Our business objectives are driven by customer satisfaction. 1 2 3 4 5 6
We closely monitor and assess our level of commitment in serving
customers’ needs. 1 2 3 4 5 6
Our competitive advantage is based on understanding
customers’needs. 1 2 3 4 5 6
Business strategies are driven by the goal of increasing customer
value. 1 2 3 4 5 6
We pay close attention to after-sale service. 1 2 3 4 5 6
2. To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following
viewpoints? Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree
I have significant autonomy in determining how I do my job. 1 2 3 4 5 6
I can decide on my own how to go about doing my work. 1 2 3 4 5 6
I have considerable opportunity for independence and freedom in
how I do my job. 1 2 3 4 5 6
Part 2: About Your Personal Information
1. Your Gender: Male / Female (Please circle the appropriate answer)
2. Your Education Background: (Please circle the appropriate answer)
a. Primary
School
b. Junior
Middle School
c. Senior
Middle School
d. Vocational
School
e. Bachelor
or above
3. How many years have you worked in current firm: _________Years _________Months
This is the end of all 3 series of surveys.
Thanks so much for your time and cooperation!
Please put this questionnaire in a sealed envelope for confidentiality!