This study investigated the relationship of organizational empowerment practices, feelings of psychological empowerment, important work outcomes, and the effects of these on self-reported assessments of service quality among frontline service workers in five-star hotels of Turkey. Personal demographics (e.g., level of education, organizational level and hours worked) were associated with higher levels of organizational empowerment practices. Organizational empowerment practices were only weakly related to employee reports of psychological empowerment. But organizational empowerment practices were directly related to more favorable work outcomes. Psychological empowerment and affective commitment were significant predictors of perceptions of service quality.

This study investigated the relationship of organizational empowerment practices, feelings of psychological empowerment, work outcomes, and perceptions of service quality being provided by frontline service workers of five-star hotels in Turkey. Frontline service workers, and how they are managed and motivated, are significant factors in hotel performance and success (Hoque, 1999; Kusluvan, 2003; and Kusluvan et al., 2010). For example, frontline service workers reporting higher levels of servant leadership from their supervisors and managers also rated the quality of service delivered to guests higher (Koyuncu et al., 2014).

Organizational empowerment practices in the hospitality sector may have a greater impact on performance, given the negative characteristics associated with this sector. Negative features include long work hours, low pay, poorly trained and autocratic supervision, routine jobs, abusive customers, and high turnover (Baum, 2007; Ayupp and Chung, 2010; and Kusluvan et al., 2010). This sector has generally paid little attention to Human Resource Management (HRM).

Organizational Empowerment Practices, Psychological Empowerment, Work Outcomes Among Frontline Service Employees, Five-Star Turkish Hotels.