Delivering customer-oriented behaviour through empowerment: An empirical test of HRM assumptions

TY - JOUR

T1 - Delivering customer-oriented behaviour through empowerment: An empirical test of HRM assumptions

AU - Peccei, R

AU - Rosenthal, P

PY - 2001/9

Y1 - 2001/9

N2 - Organizational initiatives to strengthen customer orientation among front-line service workers abound, and have led many commentators to speak of the reconstitution of service work. These interventions rest on managers' assumptions about what engenders the desired customer-oriented behaviours among employees. We evaluate those assumptions in the context of a major change initiative in a supermarket firm. The logic of the programme mirrors key precepts in the contemporary management literature. These are that management behaviour, job design and values-based training can produce a sense of empowerment among employees, and that empowerment will generate prosocial customer-oriented behaviour. Using data from a large scale employee sun-ey, we test the validity of those assumptions. Employees who perceived management behaviour in a positive light and who had participated in values-based training were more likely to feel empowered (i.e. to have internalized prosocial service values and to feel a sense of competence and autonomy on the job). Psychological empowerment was, in turn, positively related to the customer-oriented behaviour of workers. This study, there, provides support for key assumptions underlying HRM theory and practice fore. in services.

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

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0035457558&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1111/1467-6486.00261

DO - 10.1111/1467-6486.00261

M3 - Article

VL - 38

SP - 831

EP - 857

JO - Journal of Management Studies

JF - Journal of Management Studies

IS - 6

ER -