The impact of psychological empowerment on the service quality of front-of-house staff in the Jordanian hotel sector
This study examines the impact of role clarity, job satisfaction, organisational commitment, customer-orientated behaviour and psychological empowerment on service quality in Jordanian hotels by employing a sample of three-to-five star hotels within the capital of Jordan. Moreover, this study seeks to assess the importance of role clarity as a new factor, alongside other variables, in terms of influencing psychological empowerment and service quality. A quantitative approach, underpinned by the empowerment theory, was adapted for this study. 89 hotels were included in the sample, with 443 front-of-house staffs acting as participants. 375 were returned and 26 were eliminated thus, 349 questionnaires were utilised for the purpose of the analysis. A reliability analysis, factor analysis, and multi-regression analysis were employed in order to analyse the results and determine the findings of the study. The results of the descriptive analysis demonstrate that front-of-house staff in Jordanian hotels in the city of Amman who possessed appropriate understanding and direction on how to fulfil their duties tended to experience a high level of satisfaction with their roles, felt committed to their jobs and therefore, felt more empowered and confident that they had the required skills to perform their roles and fulfil the work expectations placed upon them. Moreover, the results of the regression analyses identified a significant positive impact of the five independent variables on service quality, indicating that front-of-house staff’s job satisfaction, clarity regarding their roles, commitment to the organisation, perceptions of customer-orientated behaviour and their psychological empowerment were positively and significantly correlated with service quality. Therefore, when employees experience a high level of these factors above, they are more likely to offer good service that impacts positively on customers’ perceptions of the quality of service.
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