Introduction
As client sensitivity increases, competition expands and intensifies the economy facing becoming more and more competitive and the issue of evaluating professional service quality has become crucial to the survival of a company. The domain of the quality professional has changed substantially over the years. From its humble beginnings in manufacturing it has spread enormously over nearly every working sector such as IT, Human Resource to the profession level to date. For most services, the server cannot be separated from the service. The agent plays a significant part of the real estate service. In reality the consumers buys the people when they buy the service. (Service marketing starts from within p1). Therefore in today's fierce world of competition, Parasuraman et al (1988) argues that ‘rendering quality service is vital for subsistence and success'.
What is service Quality?
The evolution of service quality has developed dramatically since the introduction of the concept in the 1980's. To date there has been several models that have been developed in order to aid the management team to effectively position themselves in a competitive position against their opposition.
Service quality is now seen as a critical component in running a successful business in today's economy (Blose et al., 2005). Nadiri et al (2007) endorse Blose et al.'s (2005) claim by stating that service quality has become an increasingly important factor for success. There is growing recognition that it is more profitable to retain satisfied consumers, that to be continuously seeking to recruit new consumers to replace lapsed ones (Palmer and O'Neill, 2003).
Gronroos (1982) contends that consumers compare the service they expect with perceptions of the service they receive in evaluating service quality. Bitner and Hubbert (1994:77) define service quality as the ‘consumer's overall impression', while Lowis and Boom (1983) propose that service quality is a measure of how well the service level delivered matches the consumer's expectations. Delivering quality service means conforming to consumers expectations on a consistent basis. As a result, many models have been developed to measure customer perceptions of service quality. Unlike goods quality, which can be measured by durability and number of defects, service quality is an abstract and elusive construct because of the features unique to services. These include intangibility, inseparability and heterogeneity. Some marketers consider intangibility the most important difference between a good and a service. Services are intangible because they are performances and personal experience rather than experience (Kangis and Passa, 1997), similar to Bateson's (1997) view that services are intangible because they are performances rather than a product. One of the characteristics that make services unique is that the consumer has a production role: services are produced and consumed at the same time (Bateson, 1977). Services cannot be separated from their providers, whether they are people or machinery (Kotler, 2002). Services are heterogeneous, as performance varies from consumer to consumer. This refers to the fact that services are delivered by individuals and therefore such service encounter will be different by virtue of the precipitants, the time of the performance and of the circumstances (Gabbott and Hogg, 1998). For management understanding these three features in particular are crucial to the success of the implementation of the correct model of service quality.
Measuring service quality
Service quality can be measured by assessing the discrepancies or gaps between what the consumers expects and what the consumers perceives they receive (Parusuraman et al., 1985). As previously stated above a service is intangible, inseparable and heterogeneity and therefore the consumer has to base their opinion on their perception or the service of their expectation of the service. According to Van Der Wagen (1994:3) ‘individual consumers have many different perceptions which are influenced by their education, upbringing, experience and many other factors'. The perception a consumer has of a particular company can alone be a major reason to why the consumer deals with that company and utilize the service that they provide. Perceptions feed onto expectations.
Expectations are based on both past and future experiences of the company. Expectations are understood to be desires or wants of the consumer, what the service provider should provider offer (Parusuraman et al., 1985). As consumers evaluate the performance of a service they typically compare the performance to what they originally expected (Zeithaml, 1993). Often expectations of consumers can be very high and sometimes unrealistic; however, the management team have the task in trying to identify the expectations of the consumers and maintain the standard that they have already put into practise. Furthermore consumers develop or design in their heads what they expect the service is going to entail. They can do this from word of mouth, reading articles and if their expectations are not met this could lead to the consumers defecting.
Models of Service Quality
Many researchers have made attempts in designing service quality model by which the management team can use in order to position themselves competitively against their competitors. The main model is attributable to Parasuraman et al., (1985, 1988).
The first attempt to measure service quality was based on Gronroos' (1984) service quality paradigm. He distinguished between technical quality, which refers to the outcome of the service performance, and functional quality, which relates to the subjective perception of how the service is delivered. Rust and Oliver (1994) expanded Gronroos' model (1984) by adding a service environment dimension.
Later the most notable and widely used attempt was made by Parasuraman et al.,
(1985, 1988) where by they developed SERVQUAL which breaks down the notion of service quality into five dimensions:
SERVQUAL is based on the idea that when consumers expectations are meet with successful service then the service is deemed to be of high quality. Its based on a 97 point scale where by people score their expectation and perceptions of the service provided on a scale of 1 to 7 ( 1 being strongly agree and 7 being strongly disagree). After collecting all the data, it's slotted into the five dimensions above that represent that core criteria by which consumers where asked to evaluate the service on. These are then used to assess the overall service that is provided by the companies. (Parasuraman et al., 1988).
Parasuraman et al., (1988) later went on to develop a five gap model by which a consumer assesses the service quality delivered. These five gaps are;
Gap1: Consumer expectations- Management perception gap
This discrepancy exists where by the management team perceptions of what the consumer expects in a service and what the consumer's expectations are of the service. The failure of the management team to focus in on what the consumers expect to get out of the service can be detrimental to the company. Often the mismatch can come from the lack of internal communication and the lack of interaction with the consumers. They management team do not communicate enough with their main focus group and that is the consumers. (Parasuraman et al., 1985). However it can also stem from the lack of communication with the management team and the frontline employees and this can be avoided if the correct amount of time and effort is put into internal marketing within the company.
Gap 2; Perception- service quality specification gap.
Managers are continuously coming under pressure to meet or exceed consumer's expectations. Grapentine (1999:7) defines this gap as the ‘actual specifications management establishes for a service often differs from consumer expectations'. The knowledge of consumers expectations exist but the perceived means to deliver the required expectations does not exist. Devising a plan to exceed consumers' expectations can prove somewhat tricky for the management team and an area that is being continuously being revised and assessed by the management team of a company.
Gap3; Service quality specifications- service delivery gap.
Even though guidelines are in place for performing services well and treating consumers correctly, high quality service performance may not be a certainty. Service firm employees exert a strong influence on the service quality performance perceived by consumers but the employee performance cannot be always standardised. (Parasuraman et al., 1985). The interaction between service employee and the consumer is very complex, so it is not surprising that that staff fails to deliver on very occasion, especially true in the case of labour intensive service (Murphy 1993).
Gap 4; Service delivery- external communications gap.
Media advertising and other communications by a firm can affect consumer expectations. If expectations play a major role in consumer perceptions of service quality the firm must be certain not to promise more in communications than it can deliver in reality. Promising more that can be delivered will raise initial expectations but lower perceptions of quality when promises are not fulfilled. External communications can affect not only consumer expectations about a service but also consumer perceptions of the delivered service. Alternatively, discrepancies between service delivery and external communications- in the form of exaggerated promises and/or the absence of information about service delivery aspects intended to serve the consumers well can affect consumer perceptions of service quality.
Gap 5; Expected service- perceived service gap.
The final gap is a summary of all the other five. It's unambiguously stated that the notion to ensuring good quality service is meeting or exceeding what consumers expect from the service. If a company goes beyond what it's actually supposed to provide and if possible provide another service while providing the initial service that was intended this puts the company in a very competitive position. This will in turn make the consumer loyal to the company and promote them in any way possible, however, if the consumer had a bad experience with the company this will result in the consumer bad mouthing the company. It appears that a judgement of high and low service quality depends on how consumers perceive the actual service performance in the context of what they expected (Parasuraman et al., 1985) Understanding consumer needs, achieving these successfully, ensuring service specification is carried out and controlling what is the key to closing this final gap (Murphy, 1993).
Criticisms of SERVQUAL and alternative models
Despite the fact that SERVQUAL has been the model most widely used the confident claims of Parasuraman et al., (1985, 1988,) in relation to SERVQUAL provoked a great deal of evaluation and criticism from researcher and practitioners alike, beginning most notably with Carmen (1990), Mangold and Babakus (1991), Richard and Allaway (1991), Lewis (1993), Cronin and Taylor (1992, 1994) and Karatepe et al. (2005).
Carmen (1990) criticised the usage of five dimensions, claiming that they could not possibly be sufficiently generic and his reapplication of the SERVQUAL technique found that there is a fundamental need to incorporate more if the original ten dimensions. Although Parasuramen et al., (1985) claim that SERVQUAL can be effectively applied to any service, Carmen (1990) argues that the reality is that flexibility of the framework is needed to ensure true measurement of specific industries.
According to Mangold and Babakus (1991), SERVQUAL's focus on the functional aspects of the service delivery process does not allow for the accurate evaluations of service quality to be made. In support of the Richard and Allaway (1991) found that measures of both technical and functional aspects accounted for more of the variation in choice behaviour, than functional measures alone. Anderson (1992) criticised the failure of Parusuraman et al. (1985, 1988) to use economic, statistical and psychological theory to inform the development of SERVQUAL.
Cronin and Taylor (1992, 1994) condemn the use of disconfirmation model as a basis for SERVQUAL as they believe it is not appropriate. They propose that an attitudinal model of service quality that should be used instead. Cronin and Taylor (1992:64) concluded that the conceptual advances suggest that the disconfirmation- based SERVQUAL scale is measuring neither service quality or consumer satisfaction and that marketing's current conceptualisation and marketing of service quality are based on flawed paradigm. They later went on to develop the SERVPERF
According to Lewis (1993) the seven point scale Likert is flawed. She has raised questions about the scale for its lack of verbal labelling between points two to six. She suggests that it can lead the consumer to overuse the extreme ends of the scale because the points in between are not descriptive enough.
This view was also adopted by Iacobucci et al (1994:14) who reports ‘in some general psychological sense, it is not clear what short- term evaluations (of quality and satisfaction) are if not “attitudes”'. Brady and Cronin (2001) maintain that in addition to the provision of quality services, the value of the service, the physical environment in which the service is delivered, and other uncontrollable factors associated with the service encounter should all be included in the assessment of service quality. This led them to develop the service quality model Hierarchal multidimensional model.
Later criticisms of SERVQUAL came about because of the claim by Parasuraman et al. (1988) that the model could be applied over all service industries. However many researchers were in disagreement of this and looked to develop industry specific service quality models. These include (among others): restaurants (Stevens et al., 1995); retail banks (Bahia and Nantel, 2000; Aldlaigan and Buttle, 2002; Sureshchandar et al., 2002; Belini et al., 2005; Garcia and Caro, 2007, Nadiri et al., 2007) hotels (Ekinci and Riley, 1998; Akbaba, 2006; Wilkins et al., 2007);
Dabholkar et al. (1996: 14) summarized this view in the following terms:
It appears that a [single] measure of service quality across industries is not feasible. Therefore, future research on service quality should involve the development of industry-specific measures of service quality.
Alternative Models to SERVQUAL
SERVPERF
This model is used to measure the service quality without using the disconfirmation paradigm (Cronin and Taylor 2002). This model is similar to SERVQUAL, in that is uses the 22 item based scale on the five dimensions that Parasuraman et al. (1988) used. However, SERVPERF is claimed by Cronin and Taylor (1992) to be based on an attitude model rather than the satisfaction model proposed in SERVQUAL.
Hierarchal multidimensional model
This model is based on the presumption that consumers form their perceptions on the basis of evaluation of performance at multiple levels and taking all these various levels into consideration when coming to a decision about the service. In this instance service quality is described in terms of three dimensions, interaction quality, physical environment quality and outcome quality. Each of these three dimensions consists of sub dimensions: attitude, behaviour and experience quality, ambient conditions, design and social factors and waiting times, tangibles and valence. This model allows the service marketer to see what defines perceptions, how service perceptions are formed and how important the service environment is.
(Brady and Cronin, 2001).
SQ standing for service Quality
Parasuraman (2004) adds that for best results SERVQUAL should be used as part of an SQ Information System (SQ standing for service quality) and lists some of the components of this system as: transactional surveys; mystery shopping; customer advisory panels and employee field reporting.
Service quality in retail banks
Irish retail banks provide essentially the same product choices (Streeter 2002) and as a result this means that they must seek other ways to gain competitive advantage. Cui et al.'s (2003) is in agreement with this by stating that provision of high-quality service helps in meeting several essential requirements for financial institutions to successfully compete in the market, for example, consumers satisfaction and the resulting loyalty, market share, financial performance and profitability. Also Petridou et al (2006) state that firm managers are aware that service quality in banking is a route to competitive advantage and corporate profitability. It is therefore, essential to reliably assess, measure, and seek ways to enhance the quality of service. Although it's a well known fact that the level of service quality provided does boost profits, there seems to be a lack of models developed to aid the management team of retail banks in the delivery of service quality.
Applying the SERVQUAL framework to measure service quality in retail banks.
Despite numerous criticisms of SERVQUAL, Zeithaml et al (1993) contend that the instrument provides a useful method for quantifying desired levels of service, minimum service levels and consumers perceptions of actual service. The SERVQUAL framework has been applied to retail banks and studies have largely found the responsiveness was the single most important factors to consumers (Avkiran, 1994 and Johnston, 1997). This finding comes in line with that of Parasuraman et al.'s (1985) original study that found responsiveness was the second most critical dimension across all service industries.
Measuring service quality in retail banks.
Several authors have made an attempt to develop a specific model of service quality that can be applied to the retail banking sector. These include banks (Bahia and Nantel, 2000; Aldlaigan and Buttle, 2002; Sureshchandar et al., 2002; Belini et al., 2005; Garcia and Caro, 2007, Nadiri et al., 2007)
Although service quality is seen by Irish banks to be imperative in gaining competitive advantage, many Irish banks don't have a standard model to measure service quality in place (Bahia and Nantel 2000).
Among the researchers who looked towards the creation of new and alternative service quality measure tools include Bahia and Nantel (2000) who suggested the Banking Services Quality (BSQ) - as a suitable measurement tool specific to the retail banking sector. This scale was developed with thirty-one items applied across six dimensions:
(Bahia and Nantel 2000)
In comparing their model with the SERVQUAL model, the authors cite an inherent advantage of BSQ is it's specificity to the banking sector. They noted that all five dimensions of SERVQUAL are correlated in their dimension 1 (Bahia and Nantel, 2000) thus meaning that the BSQ is more encompassing.
Further, Bellini et al.'s (2005) contribution to service quality measurement came in the form of a framework for addressing quality in banks, consisting if five factors:
(Bellini et al 2005).
These five factors should be applied across the company when assessing the level of service quality that is being operated.
Nadiri et al (2007) proposed a conceptual model called BANKZOT for the measurement of the zone of tolerance in the banking sector. This model expands on the work of Zeithaml et al.'s (1993) work by incorporating two levels of expectations desired and adequate. Desired expectations represent the level of bank service that a consumers hopes to receive- a blend of what consumers believe ‘can be' and ‘should be' offered. Adequate expectations represent a lower level of expectations. They relate to what a bank consumer considers an ‘acceptable' level of performance. Desired expectations are deemed to remain relatively stable over time, whereas as adequate performance expectations may vary over time. The difference between these two levels of service expectations is deemed to be the zone of tolerance for banks. (Put Diagram in here p.g 1552). This concept of zone of tolerance helps managers to analyse the effectiveness of service quality and to identify problem areas that need improvement.
Conclusion
It's clearly evident from above that service quality has some along way since the initial founding's by Parusuraman et al.(1985,1988); however their opening journals provoked an enormous amount of discussions and literature on the topic area. It could be said that having a well developed and implemented model of service quality could give a company the competitive edge over its main rivals. However having a flawless design which could have potentially cost a company thousands can be the easy part, but having a highly motivated work force to apply the high level of service could prove to be the plummeting point for many companies. For that reason, if a company wants their high level of service quality implemented effectively, they have to take into consideration the role and effect that employees have on the delivery of the service. As acknowledged by Berry and Parasuraman (1992), the accountant is a significant part of the accounting service, the agent a significant part of the real estate service. In reality the consumers buys the people when they buy the service. Therefore a company has to link the service quality with the internal marketing of the firm or company in order to keep there profits high and retain the consumer.
Having a high standard of service quality is only the starting point for companies they must have a strong internal marketing in order for service quality to be implemented to the highest standard.
Internal marketing
The term internal marketing seemed to be first used by Berry et al (1976) and later by George (1977) and Thompson et al (1978) and Murray (1979). However, it wasn't until Berry ( 1981) article that the official use of internal marketing was recorded and seen as viewing employees as internal consumers, viewing jobs as internal products that satisfy the needs and wants of these internal consumers while addressing the overall objectives of the organisation. Internal marketing is based on the understanding that no single management function is effective if it operates in isolation. Internal marketing was initially proposed as an approach to service management which entailed the application of the traditional marketing concept and the associated marketing mix within the company's amongst employees as consumers of the company in order to improve corporate effectiveness by improving internal marketing relationships. (Berry 1981 and Helman and Payne 1992).
Several authors have put their slant on what they think internal marketing is and although there is slight varation's a key concept has emerged over time and that is that your internal marketing should focus on your employees. It has been noted that the most effective way to compete effectively is by treating your employee as consumers (Barbee, C and Bott, V, 1991). Many service businesses are labour-intensive, employees are the principal focus for customers as they perceive fairness ( Bowen., 1999).
Rafiq, M and Pervaiz, (2000:3) is in agreement with the above authors that; attraction, retention and motivation of a high quality staff is especially critical in situations where the quality of service is the only real differentiating factor between competitor
Internal marketing can be seen as selling the firm to employees (Gringos, 1981), or Berry (1981) as viewing employees as internal consumers, viewing jobs as internal products that satisfy the needs and wants of these internal consumers while addressing the overall objectives of the organisation. George and Gronroos (1991:86) maintain this thinking ‘internal markets of employees is best motivated for service- mindedness and consumers orientation behaviour by an active, marketing like approach, where marketing like activities are used internally'.
If the employees are, in fact, the most important firms' asset, then the firms should struggle to provide a work environment that truly captivates, satisfies, and keeps their best ones. Therefore in order for internal marketing to be effective management have to motivate and train the employee from the starting point. They can do from the type of training programmes, incentive schemes, empowerment, motivation and training in non verbal communication. Great hiring decisions start with ensuring that candidates have the right skills and experience.
a paramount mechanism in which one can build work environments where employees can find and enjoy unique job experiences as well as they are fostered to achieve their full potential (Vasconcelos, 2004a).
The thought is that the higher employee satisfaction which will result will make it possible to develop a more customer-focused and market orientated firm (Cahill, 1995)
As Berry and Parasuraman (1991:171) state, the firms that practise internal marketing effectively will:
Compete aggressively for talent.
Offer a vision that brings purpose and meaning to the workplace.
Equip people with the skills and knowledge to perform their roles excellently.
Bring people together to benefit from the fruits of team play.
Leverage the freedom factor.
Nurture achievement through measurement and rewards.
Base job design decisions on research.
These seven models are simple when one reads them but so difficult to implement in reality.
The importance of frontline staff in relation to service quality.
The importance of frontline employee's role in delivering a quality service is emphasised and confirmed by a study conducted by Congram and Friedmans (1991). They attempt to describe the ten most important characteristics of successful service firms. Of the ten listed they refer three time to employees.
The latter implies that the ‘employee-organisation fit' will impact on the service delivery.
With the service firms employees as a part of their products, no service business can afford to divorce its customer contact employees from the firms marketing strategies (Lovelock, 1996).
According to Reynoso (1994) internal customers of a firm and their satisfaction is the “mirror image” of the external customers and their satisfactions. In a similar pattern, it could be argued that personnel who effectively manage internal customers would demonstrate similar, appropriate behaviour when interacting with external customers
(Bellou and Andronikidis, 2008).
It has been suggested that a primary advantage of focusing on the internal market is the direct improvements to perceived quality, and thus the positive effect on external customer satisfaction (Strauss, 1995; Varey, 1995)
The banking sector is a demand driven industry, which constitutes an important part of the overall service industry (Mishkin, 2001).
Conduit and Mavondo (2001) indicate that there are positive associations among internal service quality, employee satisfaction and customer retention. Customer retention is linked with employee satisfaction, as result employee satisfaction is dependant by the level of service quality provided by other internal units (Bellou and Andronikidis, 2008).
Today the concept is being increasingly discussed in the literature as a strategic tool for meeting and exceeding customers' expectations (see for example Lings 2004; Papasolomou-Doukakis 2002; Papasolomou-Doukakis 2003; Mudie 2003).
The increasing recognition of the importance of the employee's role in the service industry had led organisations to adapt internal marketing (Kelemen, 2007)
Empowerment.
Various literature sources such as; (Peters 1997, Bradley 1997) support the concept that employee empowerment can be termed the most arguable concept in the management of the 1990's. Berry and Parasuraman (1991) are in agreement with this by concluding that empowerment is an essential aspect of internal marketing. Empowerment in Ahmed and Rafiq (1995) models impacts on job satisfaction, consumer's orientation and service quality. In order for interactive marketing to occur, front-line employees need to be empowered, that is they require a degree of latitude over the service task performance in order to be responsive to consumers needs and be able to perform service recovery. However, the degree of empowerment is contingent on the complexity/variability of consumer's needs and the degree of task complexity (Rafiq and Ahmed, 1998). Overtime, many authors and researcher's have made numerous attempt to provide a definition for the meaning of empowerment by have in some sense they have all came to the same conclusion with slight variations. Holt et al., (2000) define empowerment as a perception that an employee holds. Empowerment is handling the power of decision and action to the employees and giving them more authority and responsibility to achieve their job and thus customer satisfaction (Jaffer and Zairi, 2002). The notion of empowerment involves the workforce being provided with a greater degree of flexibility and more freedom to make decisions relating to work (Greasley, 2007). This is not to say that the employee should be given the free rain of their actions, but the employee must have the confidence to know their responsibility and to take actions that sometimes rest outside the rules and regulations imposed on them by the company. It's at the manager's discretion on who much free rain that their employee can have and this must be monitored endlessly. Consumers like to deal with a service person that has the power and confidence to act on their behalf. Creating an atmosphere where the employees have autonomy will enable them to develop positive attitudes, and these attitudes will become apparent to the consumers. When employees feel good about their work they work harder to please the consumers. (Barbee, C and Bott, V, 1991:29)
The dynamic relationship of the leader with employees is frequently cited as crucial in the empowerment literature. Two distinct perspectives on empowerment have evolved overtime which tend to be studied separately (Greasley, 2007).
Structural empowerment refers to the organisational policies, practises and structures that grant employees greater latitude to make decisions and exert influence regarding their work (Liden and Arad, 1996; Eylon and Bamberger, 2000; Mills and Ungson, 2003). This relates to the notion of power sharing between employees and employers. The structural dimension of empowerment views empowerment in terms of the power redistribution model, whereby power equalisation produces trust and collaboration (Legge, 1995). Structural empowerment represents something of a dilemma for managers as it success is predicted on their ability of managers to reconcile the loss of control with the fundamental need for gaol congruence (Mills and Ungson, 2003).
The psychological empowerment perspective moves away from the traditional study of management practises and instead emphasises employees perceptions and cognitions (Peccei and Rosenthal, 2001; Holt et al., 2000). Through such an approach, the emphasis is upon perceptions and beliefs of power, competence, control and self efficancy (Psoinos and Smithson, 2002).
Later the multi-dimensional perspective came about whereby when considering empowerment the role of the managers and leaders must be taken into consideration. Greasley et al., (2004) back this up by expressing their view that the above is very important because it can have a considerable impact upon the psychological sense of empowermenet held by employees. Honald (1997) and Johnson (1994) both argued that the leader is responsible for creating a common goal, which they communicate and share. Also the leader should continually moniter if the employees feel empowered. The leader may also play a role in recognising the contributions made by employees by emphasing efforts of the employees (Psoinos and Smithson, 2002). Greasley et al., (2004) mention in there may be limits to the rewards that leaders may be able to offer, and so senior management may also need to consider the implementation of profit related schemes. The leader may also be inflenutial in team development by concentrating on strategies that encourage self-management and group automony. The final area of the multi-dimensional perspective model it the need for management to play a pivotal role in the training of the employee. In summary, it is evident that management and leaders may influence individual perceptions of empowerment in many ways. This, a multidimensional approach is necessary if a culture of empowerment is to be implemented and maintained. The way in which this is achieved is context dependant and managers/leaders need to adopt empowerment to the needs of their own particular organisation (Greasley et al., 2004).
Models of empowerment
Thomas and Velthouse (1990) developed a cognitive model of empowerment. They defined empowerment as increased intrinsic task motivation and outlined four cognitions which they claim are the basic of worker empowerment; sense of impact; competence; meaningfulness and choice. A very similar definition of empowerment was outlined by Lee and Koh (2001) who described these four dimensions as describing the psychological state of the subordinate;
(Lee and Koh, 2001)
The higher the individuals score in reach of these elements, the greater the sense of empowerment.
Wilkinson (1998) identified five types of empowerment: information sharing; upward problem solving; task autonomy; attitudinal shaping and self management.
Employee empowerment can be conceived in two ways:
(1) As a set of managerial practices aiming at increasing employees' autonomy and
responsibilities; and
(2) As an individual (pro) active work orientation.
(Boudrais et al., 2009)
If the above area is not closely monitored and continuously being updated this could have a knock on effect to the customers and as a result cause the customer to defect.
Barbee and Bott (1991: 28) highlight this by saying that;
‘Perhaps the biggest cause of inadequate service is the lack of responsibility given to employees. The result of spending time on the front line is that the data reflected in financial reports comes alive'.
Potential benefits of empowerment
The supposed benefits of empowerment can be broadly divided into two areas: benefits for the organisation and benefits for the individual. Much of the empirical research into empowerment has focused on the organisational benefits assuming these are the driving force behind attempts to engender empowered working (Cunningham et al,. 1996). Certainly the motivation for managerial adoption of empowerment is typically driven to help managers manage and improve work organisation and job performance, not to primarily create an environment that is beneficial for the employee (Psoinis and Smithson, 2002). Having an empowered employee certainly does have a knock on effect of the profits of an organisation because it the employee is happy in their place of work this will result in them having a positive attitude about the company.
While it could be argued that the primary motive for empowerment is initially driven by the need to improve the economic performance of the organisation, benefits of the employee has also been identified. Nykodym et al., (1994) found that employees who consider themselves empowered have reduced conflict and ambiguity in their role, as they are able to control (to a certain extent) their own environment. Thus, as a result the employee once again has an upbeat view of the organisation and this will feed on to the customers.
