A longitudinal analysis of an accelerating effect of empowerment on job satisfaction Customer-contact vs. non-customer-contact workers.pdfVIP

International Journal of Hospitality Management 57 (2016) 1–8 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect International Journal of Hospitality Management journal homepage: /locate/ijhosman A longitudinal analysis of an accelerating effect of empowerment on job satisfaction: Customer-contact vs. non-customer-contact workers Gyumin Lee a, Peter Beomcheol Kim b,?, Richard R. Perdue c a School of Hospitality Management, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, South Korea b School of Hospitality and Tourism, Auckland University of Technology (AUT), Auckland, New Zealand c Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, USA article info Article history: Received 2 September 2015 Received in revised form 6 April 2016 Accepted 17 May 2016 Available online 2 June 2016 Keywords: Longitudinal analysis Empowerment Job satisfaction Customer-contact abstract The primary purpose of this paper is to examine whether the impact of empowerment on job satisfaction increases as time changes, and whether this impact is stronger for customer-contact employees than noncustomer-contact employees. This study employs a Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) technique to test research hypotheses using a longitudinal dataset from an annual employee opinion survey conducted by a hospitality company in the United States for three consecutive years; 67 work teams consisting of 1534 employees are the unit of analysis. This study ?nds that the effect of empowerment on job satisfaction is more salient for customer-contact employees, and the effect of empowerment accelerates over the years regardless of the nature of work. Implications of the ?ndings are discussed for researchers and industry practitioners alike. ? 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Employee empowerment is regarded as an effective management practice for desirable work outcomes, as empowered employees are more likely to be satis?ed with their job (e.g., Fock et al., 2011; Laschinger et al., 2004; Liden