ABSTRACTS
The study examined the sustainable employee empowerment and customer satisfaction in hotels in Umuahia. The objectives of the study are; To examine the application of employee empowerment on the hotels in the study area, ascertain the role of the applied employee empowerment status on customer satisfaction in the study area, examine the factors affecting employee empowerment in an organization in the study area, determine the way forward to employee empowerment in the study area. To achieve the objective of the study, survey research design was adopted. The researcher adopted primary data in getting the required information through the use of structured questionnaire. The population of the study is 38 registered hotels in Umuahia, Abia State with 520 staff strength. The sample size of the study is 226 after adopting Taro Yamane formula. In analyzing the data, simple descriptive statistics was used. The findings revealed that there is high level of application of employee empowerment in hotel establishments. The findings also revealed that applied employee empowerment plays a significant role on customer satisfaction in the study area. The findings further revealed that there are many factors affecting employee empowerment in the hotel establishments which includes lack of skills, lack of trust, lack of clear policies, job insecurity, failure to identify empowerment, lack of top management example and lack of training. The study recommends that employees need to be trained and updated to be knowledgeable and resource full to give full-fledged service to the customers they are rendering service. Training for technical and interactive skills: for employees to deliver service quality they need an on-going training in the necessary technical skills and knowledge and in- process or interactive skills.
TABLE
OF CONTENTS
Title
page i
Approval ii
Certification iii
Dedication iv
Acknowledgement
v
Table
of contents vi
List
of table
xi
Abstract xii
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the study 1
1.2 Statement of Problem 5
1.3 Objectives of the Study 6
1.4 Research Questions
7
1.5 Significance of the Study 7
1.7 Scope of the Study
CHAPTER
TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Conceptual framework 9
2.1.1 The Hospitality Industry 9
2.1.2 Basis and Definition of Empowerment 11
2.1.3 Concept of Customer Satisfaction 16
2.1.4 Services Sector and Satisfaction 18
2.1.5 Service Quality 21
2.1.6 Employee Empowerment on Hotel Business
Performance 23
2.1.7 Employee Empowerment and its Benefits
in Customer Retention 24
2.1.8 Employee Empowerment and Customer
Satisfaction 26
2.1.9 Who is a Customer 27
2.1.9.1 Customer Service 28
2.1.9.2 Customer Loyalty 28
2.1.9.3 Effects of Customer Satisfaction on
Customer Loyalty and Retention 29
2.2 Theoretical Framework 30
2.2.1 Theory of Structural
Empowerment 30
2.2.2 Theory of Motivation 31
2.3 Empirical Literatures 32
2.4 Summary of Related
Literature 37
CHAPTER
THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 Research Design 39
3.2 Area of the Study 39
3.3 Population for the Study 39
3.4 Sample and Sampling Technique 40
3.4.2 Sampling Technique 41
3.5 Instrument for Data Collection 41
3.6 Validation of the Instrument 41
3.7 Reliability of the Instrument
42
3.8 Method of Data Collection 42
3.9 Statistical Techniques for Data
Analysis 42
CHAPTER
FOUR: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
4.1 Results 43
4.1.1 Socio-economic Characteristics 43
4.2 Analysis of Research Questions 44
4.3 Major Findings 51
4.4 Discussion of Findings
CHAPTER
FIVE: SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5.1 Summary 53
5.1.1 Restatement of the Problem 54
5.1.2 Description of Methods used 55
5.2 Conclusion 56
5.3 Recommendation 57
5.4 Contribution to Knowledge 57
5.5 Suggestion for Further Studies
REFERENCE
APPENDIX 1
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
Hospitality
industry all over the world has been increasingly getting worried about employee
empowerment. As
we know that employee is the backbone of the organization because he/she is the
only person who is directly in touch with the customer on the time of service
delivery. Oloko & Ogutu (2012) defined employee
empowerment as the ways in which hotel establishments provide their employees
with a certain degree of autonomy and control in their day-to-day activities.
This can include having a voice in process improvement, helping to create and
manage new systems and tactics, and running smaller departments with less
oversight from higher-level management (Yeh-Yun-Lin 2012). A key principle of
employee empowerment is providing employees the means for making important
decisions and helping ensure those decisions are correct. When deployed
properly, this should result in heightened productivity and a better quality of
employee work and work life.
Empowerment
is the degree of autonomy and self-determination in people and in job
environment. This enables them to represent their interests in a responsible
and self-determined way, acting on their own authority. It is the process of
becoming stronger and more confident, especially in controlling one's life and
claiming one's rights. Empowerment as action refers both to the process of
self-empowerment and to professional support of people, which enables them to
overcome their sense of powerlessness and lack of influence, and to recognize
and use their resources. Empowerment of employee will guide the productivity
improvement, job satisfaction, individual and organizational performance (Shazia,
Azhar & Nadeem, 2010). Employee
empowerment has been associated with the concept of power, implying that power
in the organization should be re-shared by the top management to the lower
management (Vogt 1997 in Wolf 2010). Without empowerment employee will not be confident, not be
creative and will not have the technical knowledge, therefore, unable to
provide better performance as per expectation. Employee will be successful if
management provides them with some level of authority and systematic knowledge
according to their work, which is known as the employee empowerment. The
continuous development of employee empowerment directly affects the quality of
service and satisfaction level of customer towards the service provider.
Whereas at present scenario all the service industries are making themselves
strong in order to increase the quality of service and customer satisfaction.
Employee empowerment is one of the reflections of this modern approach to man
management. It invariably leads to a positive change within the organization
(Chatura, 2013). Empowered employees are more motivated as compared to those
who just follow the given lines. Employee empowerment creates sense of
belongingness and ownership towards the parent organization.
According
to Bass, Avolio, Zhu, Koh and Bhatia (2004 in Boudrias, Gaudreau, Savoir and
Morin 2013). satisfaction is a notion associated with the job. Furthermore, the
satisfaction of a leader‘s action makes the employee more motivated and
committed to attaining organizational and group goals. The important
achievement from the point of view of the organization is its employee
performance. The growth, achievement of the organisation is the effort of all
employees in the organisation, not a few. The purpose of performance as a key
multi-dimensional construct is to achieve goals, which are linked to organizational
strategic goals Mwita (2004 in Gandhi & Kang 2012). Customer satisfaction
in hospitality industry is posited to be a function of service quality i.e.
customer service, corporate image, price, innovativeness and convenience, among
others (Colwell, Scott, Jiang and Joshi 2016). Odindo and Delvin (2010) noted
that increase customer satisfaction has the potential to enhance organizational
performance and as a result managers should have customer satisfaction as a key
target. Oloko & Ogutu (2012) stated that, in recent past, employee
empowerment has been promoted as a general recipe for enhancing work
performance. In support of the above, Manzoor (2013) claimed that, empowerment
provides benefits to organizations and makes sense of belonging and pride in
the workforce. He further contended
that, it builds a win-win connection among organizations and employees, which
is considered an ideal environment in numerous organizations and their
employees. Empowered employees focus
their job and work-life with additional importance and this leads to constant
progress in coordination and work procedures.
In his contribution to empowerment literature, Ayinde (2012) provided a
lucid definition: ‘empowerment means giving power or entitlement to people,
helping them acquire capabilities or qualifications, establishing structures
which enable them to have more control over decisions affecting them.
Customer
satisfaction is a business philosophy which tends to the creation of value for
customers, anticipating and managing their expectations, and demonstrating
ability and responsibility to satisfy their needs (Peters and Mazdarani 2011).
Quality of service and customer satisfaction are critical factors for success
of any business Gronoos (1990), Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1988) in Garrison
and Noreen (2015). As Valdani (2009) points out: enterprises exist because they
have a customer to serve. The key to achieve sustainable advantage lies in
delivering high quality service that results in satisfied customers Shemwell, Yavas
and Bilgin (1998 in Nicholson and Broione 2012). Service quality and customer
satisfaction are key factors in the battle to obtain competitive advantage and
customer retention. Customer satisfaction is the outcome of customer’s
perception of the value received in a transaction or relationship, where value
equals perceived service quality, compared to the value expected from
transactions or relationships with competing vendors. In order to achieve
customer satisfaction, it is important to recognize and to anticipate
customers' needs and to be able to satisfy them. Enterprises which are able to
rapidly understand and satisfy customers' needs, make greater profits than
those which fail to understand and satisfy them Barsky & Nash, (2003 in
Peters and Mazdarani 2011). Since the cost of attracting new customers is
higher than the cost of retaining the existing ones, in order to be successful
managers must concentrate on retaining existing customers implementing
effective policies of customer satisfaction and loyalty. This is especially
true in the hotel industry.
Retention
refers as a commitment to continue to do business or exchange with a particular
company on an ongoing basis. Retention also can be defined as the customers’
liking, identification, commitment, trust, willingness to recommend, and
repurchase intentions, with the first four being emotional-cognitive retention
constructs, and the last two being behavioral intention (Stauss, Chojnacki,
Decker and Hoffman 2011). According to Lockyer (2015), customer retention is
deeply held commitment to rebuy or repatronize a preferred product or service
consistently in the future, despite situational influences and marketing
efforts having the potential to cause switching behaviour. Later, Chatura
(2013) defines customer retention is the propensity of the customer to stay
with their service provider. Many organization today having difficulty to
attack new customer so the restructures their marketing department and appoint
managers to give attention to their existing customer (Ahmad and Buttle, 2012).
Customer retention is very important for the hotel in order to ensure hotel
sustainability and growth for a long time; therefore, it is the hotel’s duty to
ensure that they had been able to fulfil all the customer’s needs and wants
from time to time. Whenever crises arise, they need to be alerted to the
current situation and be able to respond to it quickly. Besides that, hotel’s
management needs to ensure that individual customer is satisfied with the service
standard. If management is serious about helping customers succeed, retention
is a necessary but not sufficient component to their satisfaction. In fact,
retention should be the minimal expectation for customer success that they
simply return to the hotel after their first year (Kahrig, 2015). It is against
this background the study tends to examine the employee empowerment and
customer satisfaction; an approach to customers retention and sustainability of
hotel establishment.
1.2
Statement of Problem
Globalization
has opened up various opportunities and challenges for hotel operations to
compete internationally. Besides technological advancement, a developed,
competent and empowered workforce will give hotel operations an edge over its
competitors. Studies on empowerment have shown that it has a strong correlation
to employee performance in terms of higher productivity, job satisfaction and
reduction in staff turnover in hotel operations (Ohuabunwa 2010). This, leads
to the question of, is this correlation applicable to the hotel operations
customers’ retention and sustainability. This question is prompted based on Lin
(2012). Rating on hotel establishment in umuahia indicates operations of
non-employee empowerment.
Empowerment
is a well-studied subject in Nigeria, but little research has been conducted in
hotel operations. So far on employee
empowerment in the abia state, have been found to focus on the institutions
rather than hotel operations as a whole. Studies on the impact of empowerment
on employee performance in umuahia hotel operations, however, is still lacking.
As a result, this study puts forward a model to link between employee
empowerment and customer satisfaction to impact customer’s retention and
sustainability of hotel establishment. This model introduced constructs of
training and development, engagement (inputting and control) and trust
(employee access to information flow and serving others-feedback), as three
employee empowerment and self determination factors.
Despite the enormous amount of
research work carried out in the field of employee empowerment, throughout the
developed and emerging economies of the world, In short, there is little or
nothing known about the importance of employee empowerment influence on
customers’ satisfaction in hotel industry in Nigeria. This study therefore
posits that, employee empowerment can be the panacea to the public distrust and
lack of customers’ satisfaction in the hotel industry in Nigeria (Parker
and Price 1994 in Taylor and Baker 2015).
It is based on these identified problems that this study is set to
provide a structured and investigation that will set to reveal the influence of
sustainable employee
empowerment and customer satisfaction in hotels in Umuahia.
1.3 Objective of the Study
The main objective of this study is to examine the sustainable employee empowerment and customer
satisfaction in hotels in Umuahia. The specific objectives of the study are:
- To
examine the application of employee empowerment practices on hotels in
the study area.
- To
ascertain the role of the applied employee empowerment practices on
customer satisfaction in the study area.
- To
examine the factors affecting the application of employee empowerment practices
in hotels in the study area.
- To
determine the way forward to employee empowerment in the study area
1.4 Research Questions
- What
are the applications of employee empowerment practices on hotels in
the study area?
- What
are the roles of the applied employee empowerment practices on customer
satisfaction in the study area?
- What
are the factors affecting the application of employee empowerment practices
in hotels in the study area?
4. What are the ways forward to
employee empowerment in the study area?
1.6 Significance of the Study
The
study will be significant to hotel establishment, hotel manager, hotel staff
and scholars.
The findings of this study will
educate hotel operators as they will be able to understand
the relationship between employee empowerment and customer satisfaction to
customers’ retention and sustainability. With the knowledge from this study
when published will enable hotel operators appreciate
the
application of employee empowerment on hotel operations
productivity.
Customer’s
retention and sustainability are paramount to hotel managers in ensuring the
productivity of the operations. Hence, the study will be useful in
application of employee empowerment status on customer satisfaction in
the operations. The study will also enable hotel managers determine factors affecting
employee empowerment and customer satisfaction
in hotel operations
Empowered
employees are more motivated as compared to those who just follow the given
lines. The findings of the study will creates sense of belongingness and
ownership towards the parent organization and also the findings of the study
will enable empowered employee feel more confident and try to give their best
to their employers, as a result, customer satisfaction is achieved. The study will contribute to the
literature on employee empowerment and customer satisfaction which will form
part of articles that will be useful to researchers who want to further in this
study.
Finally,
the study will educate students of these noble institutions and other
institutions on the sustainable employee empowerment and customer satisfaction
in hotels. The study will also serve as a reference material to researchers who
would wish to research on a similar topic in future.
1.7 Scope of the Study
The
study focused on sustainable
employee empowerment and customer satisfaction in hotels in Umuahia.
The study was carried out in Hotels in Umuahia metropolis. Managers and staff
of selected hotels constitute the population size of the study.
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