Employee empowerment,job satisfaction and

organizational commitmentAn in-depth empirical investigation

Sut I Wong HumborstadDepartment of Leadership and Organizational Management,BI Norwegian School of Management, Oslo, Norway, and

Chad PerryGibaran Graduate School of Business, Adelaide, Australia

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to test the relationship between perceived empowermentpractices and Chinese service employee service effort and turnover intention, also to examine themediating role of employee job attitudes in this relationship.

Design/methodology/approach – To test hypotheses about the relationships above, survey datawere collected by a self-administered questionnaire from frontline service workers at six four- andfive-star hotels in the Macau Special Administrative Region of China. The final sample of290 participants rated empowerment practices in their workplace, as well as their job attitudes, serviceeffort and turnover intention. Perceived empowerment practices were measured using items fromHayes’ employee employment questionnaire. Employee job attitudes were measured using jobsatisfaction and organizational commitment scales based on Harrison et al. Structural equationmodeling was used to examine the hypotheses.

Findings – Statistically significant results were obtained for a full mediating effect of job attitudes onthe relationship between empowerment practices and turnover intention. However, the relationshipbetween empowerment and Chinese employee service effort was insignificant.

Research limitations/implications – This study is cross-sectional and so a longitudinalexamination of the variables could be revealing. In addition, other moderating and/or mediatingfactors could exist such as demographic characteristics of service employees. Finally, most of theconceptual underpinnings for this study come from research carried out in Western countries andmore work should be done within Chinese organisations and more qualitative research would beappropriate for theory-building research.

Practical implications – Managers in service industries in China should carefully monitoremployee job attitudes towards the empowerment practices. Owing to cultural differences on the highvs low power distance dimension in particular, managers from the West should not overlook howmuch empowerment is accepted among Chinese service employees.

Originality/value – Contributing to attitude engagement theory, job attitudes consisting of jobsatisfaction and organizational commitment explain the success of empowerment implementation inChinese service organisations.

Keywords China, Employee behaviour, Customer service management, Empowerment, Job attitudes,Job satisfaction, Organizational commitment, Turnover intention, Service effort

Paper type Research paper

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Chinese Management StudiesVol. 5 No. 3, 2011

pp. 325-344q Emerald Group Publishing Limited

1750-614XDOI 10.1108/17506141111163390

IntroductionEmpowerment involves giving employees the autonomy to make decisions about howthey go about their daily activities (Carless, 2004; Haas, 2010). As service industriesbecome more competitive, the importance of empowerment in service industries isincreasingly recognized as a key to catering to more and more demanding customers(Boshoff and Allen, 2000).

However, empowerment is contextual (Foster-Fishman et al., 1998). It is a socialconstruct nested in how an individual integrates perceptions of personal control,a proactive approach to life and an understanding of the socio-political environment(Perkins, 1995; Rappaport, 1995; Zimmerman, 1995; Perkins and Zimmerman, 1995).Hence, empowerment can be viewed differently across cultures (Robert et al., 2000;Fock et al., 2002) and thus the success of empowerment as a managerial practicedepends on an appropriate understanding of the culturally based assumptions, valuesand beliefs held by those who are being managed (Hofstede, 1993; Robert et al., 2000;Wang, 2008). In particular, incongruence between empowerment as a managementpractice and cultural values may be influential in high power distance nations wheresubordinates are accustomed to unquestioningly taking orders from their supervisors(Hui et al., 2004; Humborstad et al., 2008b).

Results of the few empowerment studies conducted in high power distance culturalcontexts have been inconsistent (Hui et al., 2004; Powpaka, 2008). For example,Robert et al. (2000) failed to obtain conclusive findings. In their study, theempowerment-job satisfaction relationship was revealed to be negative in the Indiasample, but this relationship was found otherwise in some other high power distancecountry samples. On the other hand, Hui et al. (2004) provided support for variation inempowerment effects on job satisfaction and the intention to comply with customerrequests being a function of power distance, after controlling some extraneousvariables. Also, empowerment’s effect on organizational commitment showsinconclusive results. Bhatnagar (2007) and Chen and Chen (2008) found that some ofthe sub-dimensions of empowerment were positively correlated to organizationalcommitment, but others were negatively or not correlated to organizationalcommitment in their India and Taiwan samples, respectively. It is important thatthis uncertainty be explored further because of the growing economic importance ofChina (a high power distance country, as noted above) and the number of Westernmanagers entering China with possibly misplaced ideas about empowerment.

Given the extant uncertainty about empowerment in high power distance cultures,this study aimed to more thoroughly investigate how perceived empowermentpractices are linked with Chinese service employee job satisfaction and organizationalcommitment, to predict their service effort and turnover intention – these areimportant for service organisations because they reflect the quality of serviceperformance (Zeithaml et al., 1990). Our contribution centres on the effects of the newvariable of job attitudes on this service performance.

The research setting for this study of service employees who interact with customersis the hotel/casino industry in the Macau Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China.This setting is appropriate because Chinese culture is known to have a higher powerdistance orientation than some Western countries do (Hofstede, 1980; Correia, 1997).Indeed, appropriately for this research, Correia (1997) used Hofstede’s (1991)five-dimensional framework to confirm the presence of high power distance culture

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at workplaces in the Macau setting. This setting is also an important one. A clear policydirection of the Macau Government has set tourism, gaming, conventions andexhibitions as the “head”, and the service industry as the “body”, driving the rest of theeconomy (DSEC, 2009). Tourism industries contribute more than 50 per cent of the GDPand hotels cater for more than 22 million visitors to Macau (DSEC, 2009). Thus, thesetting provides a multi-organisation, homogeneous culture site to investigate animportant, high power distance phenomenon where all subjects are boundary spannersbetween customers and the organisation.

In the rest of the paper, a literature review develops two hypotheses. Then themethodology of path analysis and bootstrapping are described and the findingsexplained. Implications for management are explored. Finally, limitations and furtherresearch are presented.

EmpowermentThe notion of empowerment derived from alienation, industrial democracy, participativemanagement and job enrichment (Eccles, 1993; Spreitzer et al., 1999b) and has becomewidespread (Bartunek and Spreitzer, 2006). It concerns a form of employee involvementinitiative (Wilkinson, 1998) and refers to the degree with which employees areencouraged to make certain decisions without consulting their supervisors, so thatorganizational dynamics are initiated at the bottom (Michailova, 2002). Empowermentpractices decentralize power by involving employees in decision making (Carless, 2004).This aspect of empowerment is concerned with the behaviour of a supervisor (Lee andKoh, 2001) and so empowerment can be defined as a discretionary construct that hasmanagement providing employees with discretion and autonomy over their tasks(Hsieh and Chao, 2004). It focuses on the relationships between team leaders andmembers (Lee and Koh, 2001) and on the employee’s perception of their individual powerto cope with the events, situations and people they encounter at work (Carless, 2004).

Empowerment implies that people at the lower levels of organisations sometimesknow best – the leaders’ role should be to act as coach and/or mentor and importantdecisions can be made at all levels of organisations (Robert et al., 2000). It encouragesservice personnel to use their own judgment to make prompt decisions (Lovelock, 1992;Humborstad et al., 2008b). In brief, empowerment practices could stimulate individualfrontline service employees to deliver high-quality service as a discretionary effort(Malhotra and Mukherjee, 1999; Hancer and George, 2003).

High power distance cultural contextMembers of organisations within a high power distance culture accept that power isdistributed unequally (Hofstede, 1991). They are accustomed to hierarchal structuresand paternalistic leadership so they often hesitate to take the initiative or make decisionswithout consulting supervisors (Chen and Fahr, 2001; Aycan et al., 2000). This culturalvalue of power distance might affect the personal value of power sharing – employeesmay not accept and exercise any discretionary power granted by management(Aryee and Chen, 2006; Chow et al., 2005). However, having employees willing to acceptempowerment is one of the conditions for its successful implementation (Hui et al., 2004).That is, even if empowerment can be used as a management tool to achieve better qualityand performance (Bordin et al., 2006; Gumusluoglu and Ilsev, 2009; Spreitzer et al., 1997),it requires employee willingness to accept it (Liden et al., 2000).

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Although some studies have investigated the effect of empowerment on jobsatisfaction and performance in such a high power distance cultural context (Eylon andAu, 1999; Hui et al., 2004; Robert et al., 2000; Littrell, 2007), the empirical evidence aboutdifferences between empowerment effectiveness in high power distance countries and lowpower distance countries is inconclusive (Powpaka, 2008). For instance, Robert et al. (2000)found a significant negative empowerment – job satisfaction relationship in an Indiansample, while positive results were found in Mexican and Polish samples (these twocountries are high on the power distance dimension and all three samples were conductedacross industries). On the other hand, Hui et al. (2004) revealed positive results in both highand low power distance contexts, but the effects of empowerment were weaker in theirChinese frontline hotel workers sample. Moreover, perceptions of empowerment coulddiffer among Chinese workers due to recent industrial modernization (Li, 1999). Somemight accept empowerment as a way to motivate and utilize human resources, but othersmight find empowerment too difficult to work with because of their traditional norms ofhigh power distance between management and employees. In brief, while research in theWest has consistently shown positive effects of empowerment on outcomes such as jobsatisfaction, turnover intention and creativity to drive better performance (Spreitzer,2008), the inconsistent findings in the East seem not to fit in.

Perhaps, the recently uncovered, higher order variable of workers’ job attitudes couldhave an important bearing on their behaviour under empowerment (Harrison et al.,2006). Could that variable better explain how empowerment could work in China andother high power distance cultures? The next section justifies our consideration of thatjob attitudes variable.

Empowerment, job attitudes and service effortTo capture Chinese employee attitudes towards empowerment, we developed a modelof the mechanisms of their empowerment that includes the variable of job attitudes.That job attitudes variable (Harrison et al., 2006) combines job satisfaction withaffective organizational commitment and is linked to service effort and turnoverintention within a structural model of empowerment, as shown in Figure 1. Eachconcept in that model is discussed next to develop hypotheses.

Figure 1.Proposed structural model

Jobsatisfaction

Organisationalcommitment

Serviceeffort

Jopattitude

Source: Developed for this study

Turnoverintention

Empowerment

H1

H2

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First, consider job attitudes. Job attitudes are a combination of job satisfaction andorganizational commitment and job satisfaction and organizational commitment aretwo of the most often studied variables in organizational behaviour research (Mathieuand Zajac, 1990; Riketta, 2002; Petty et al., 1984). The concept of attitude is usuallypresented as having an affective component – a feeling, preference, or mood – about aperson, idea, event or object (Warr and Wall, 1975). In more detail, job satisfaction is apleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or jobexperience (Locke, 1976). It is an affective or emotional response toward various facetsof one’s job. In turn, affective organizational commitment is viewed as the relativestrength of an individual’s emotional attachments to, identification with andinvolvement in a particular organisation (Mowday et al., 1982).

In the meta-analysis of Harrison et al. (2006), job satisfaction and affectiveorganizational commitment were found to contribute to second-order structured jobattitudes and suggested that these two constructs should be combined to evaluatea more general concept of job attitudes. (A second-order factor, like job attitudes in ourmodel, is present when first-order factors like job satisfaction and organizationalcommitment are explained by some higher order factor structure (Schumacker andLomax, 2004).) Based on this meta-analysis results of 112 management studies,Harrison et al. (2006) argue that a combination of these two constructs captures anemployee’s general attitudes towards their job and is important for understandingwork behaviour. This study about work behaviours adopted their recent framework.In brief, job attitude is measured here as a second-order construct consisting of jobsatisfaction and organizational commitment.

Next, consider the crucial factor of service effort. When service employees are unwillingor unable to deliver service at the required level, service quality suffers (Zeithaml et al.,1990; Humborstad et al., 2008a). The effort of service employees to deliver quality serviceplays a significant role in the organisation’s attempts to satisfy customer expectations(Gronroos, 1990; Zeithaml et al., 1990). Thus, effort is an important element in motivationtheory (Mohr and Bitner, 1995). It mediates the relationship between motivation andperformance and forms a mechanism by which motivation is translated into accomplishedwork (Brown and Peterson, 1994; Naylor et al., 1980). Indeed, actual employee serviceperformance is likely to reflect the amount of employee effort expended in serviceencounter situations (Yoon et al., 2004). Of course, effort does not necessarily automaticallytranslate into performance; for example, if a worker has insufficient training, resources orequipment, they might conceivably put in a lot of effort but still not perform at a high level.However, the relationship would usually be positive and the use of effort in this research isjustified because we are interested in workers’ rather than managers’ views, that is, effortcould be considered more relevant than harder-to-measure performance. That is, serviceeffort is what managers were aiming to achieve with their direct empowerment actionsand is a reasonable proxy for actual service performance.

In turn, empowerment could bring conflicting values to an organisation’s high powerdistance tradition (Hui et al., 2004; Robert et al., 2000) – to facilitate empowerment,organisations could actually shorten the distance between leaders and members, withrules and procedures reduced (Hirst et al., 2008). These empowerment practices mightconflict with traditions where hierarchy and managerial rules are respected. As notedabove, some studies demonstrated strong resistance to empowerment in the high powercultural context (Robert et al., 2000; Pang et al., 1998). However, some studies revealed

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otherwise (Aryee and Chen, 2006; Hui et al., 2004; Eylon and Au, 1999). For example,Eylon and Au (1999) found both low and high power distance groups experiencedincreased job satisfaction led by empowerment and no significant differences betweenthe two groups were found. Hui et al. (2004) also supported the effect of empowerment onjob satisfaction. However, they argued that this effect is more pronounced in a low powerdistance cultural context. On the other hand, Aryee and Chen (2006) provided empiricalevidence that empowerment leads to higher job satisfaction and performance in aChinese sample of manufacturing workers. In brief, extant evidence about whetherempowerment produces positive job satisfaction and organizational commitment inhigh power distance workplaces, is inconclusive.

Thus, it is interesting to look at if or how the hitherto unexplored effect of job attitudesmediates the mechanism of the empowerment-organizational outcomes relationshipsand this mediation may be particularly apt in the Chinese context of this research. Chinahas been experiencing the rapid industrialization of modern societies in the past twodecades and the values implicit in modern institutions may have been to some extentincorporated into the personal values of some Chinese service workers (Powpaka, 2008;Zhang et al., 2009). That is, empowerment may produce positive job attitudes amongChinese service employees and may in turn lead to higher service effort. Thus,we hypothesize that job attitude is a mediator – it clarifies the nature of the relationshipbetween the independent and dependent variables (MacKinnon, 2008). (In contrast,a moderator C sets conditions on the relationship between variables A and B.)We hypothesize that:

H1. Job attitudes positively mediate the positive relationship betweenempowerment and service effort in Chinese service organisations.

Empowerment and turnover intentionIn addition, through job attitudes, empowerment may affect turnover intention.Turnover intention is a conscious and deliberate wilfulness to leave an organisation(Tett and Meyer, 1993). It can be described as a psychological response to specificorganizational conditions which fall along a continuum of organizational withdrawalbehaviours ranging from daydreaming to the physical act of turnover (Kraut, 1975).Employee turnover intentions, absenteeism and actual turnover have receivedsubstantial theoretical and empirical consideration (Chiu et al., 2005; Mowday et al.,1982; Porter and Steers, 1973). This dysfunctional behaviour negatively impactsorganizational performance (Mobley, 1982). Moreover, the potential cost of staffturnover in service industries is recognized to be high, and includes knowledge lostwithin the organisation, the training required for new employees, loss of establishedconnections with customers, and ultimately, lowered service quality and customersatisfaction ( Joiner et al., 2004). In particular, there has been a rapid development in thehotel industry in Macau since the gaming license has been liberated in 2000. Retainingqualified frontline employees has been a great challenge in the Macau gaming industry(it is the largest gaming centre in the world), tourist numbers are increasing at a fasterrate then the local population. Consequently, career development in tourism industry ismore important than in other industries. That is, retaining qualified service employeesis one of the main HR issues for many hotels in Macau and explains why so manymanagers were willing to be involved in this study.

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Furthermore, deciding to leave one’s job is not normally impulsive but is a decisionthat one has been contemplating/intending for some time prior to taking action(Barak et al., 2001). Therefore, turnover intention is considered to have an immediatecausal effect on turnover and is believed to be the best predictor of actual turnover bymany researchers (Lee and Bruvold, 2003; Barak et al., 2001; Kiyak et al., 1997; Hom andGriffeth, 1991). Presumably, satisfied and committed employees are likely to dedicatemore of their time, energy and talents as a way to demonstrate their reciprocity and tomaintain a close tie to their organisation and are less likely to leave their organisations(Boshoff and Mels, 1995; Siu, 2002). Hence, should empowerment lead to positive jobattitudes, it would in turn decrease employee turnover intention. Thus, we hypothesize:

H2. Job attitudes positively mediate the negative relationship betweenempowerment and turnover intention in Chinese service organisations.

MethodSample and procedureTo test the hypotheses developed above, this study collected data by aself-administered questionnaire within similar hotels in one industry – from sixfour- and five-star hotels in the Macau SAR of China during the first quarter of 2006.The focus of this research is high power distance and so indirect empowermentinfluencers like job characteristics and types of leadership were appropriately heldconstant – all the hotels had similar processes and were of a similar size and standard.Macau is a suitable setting to investigate the high power distance of China, eventhough it was the West’s first colony in China. The Western country of Portugal was alight colonial power in Macau until the handover in 1999, but this does not mean powerdistance in Macau is necessarily lower than Mainland China’s because Portugal itselfhas a somewhat high power distance score (Hofstede, 1991). Since the handover, Macauhas been a SAR of China with its own Macau Government and Portuguese constitutea mere 2 per cent (and declining) of the population (DSEC, 2009). The six hotels werechosen because they had a long business history in Macau with Chinese owners andmanagement. Other hotels that were owned by Western corporations or had sizablenon-Chinese staffs were not considered in this study.

Out of the 445 questionnaires distributed by managers and supervisors to all thefrontline service employees at the hotels (the total number of service employees hired atthe six selected hotels), 316 respondents replied. Of their responses, 26 were incomplete.Thus, the final sample consisted of 290 participants, giving a satisfactory responserate of 65.2 per cent. To achieve this response rate (Kinnear and Taylor, 1991),all questionnaires were distributed with sealable envelopes attached. Respondents wereasked to complete the questionnaire and to insert the completed script into the attachedenvelope and to seal it before return. It was also stated that the sealed envelope would beopened only by the researchers to ensure confidentiality and anonymity. Although a65.2 per cent response rate is considerably high, a non-response bias test was performedby using t-test to ensure the data were appropriate. Following the standard Armstrongand Overton (1977) procedure, two groups of data (one consisted of the first100 respondents to reply and the second one consisted of the last 100 respondents toreply) were extracted from the original data set, with the second group reflectingnon-responders more than the first group. t-tests were carried out to compare the meanresponses of all items between the two groups to assess whether there would be any

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significantly different pattern between the two groups. Out of all 26 items includingdemographic questions, we found only two questions with statistically significantdifferences between the mean responses of these two groups. They were one item fromthe job satisfaction scale (higher with the first group) and one item about educationattainment (lower with the first group). Therefore, we consider that there is noproblematic issue with potential non-response bias.

Two major actions were taken in this study to ensure the reliability of thequestionnaire. First, nearly all measures were adopted from past studies reported in theliterature (discussed below), thus ensuring that they had been previously tested andproven to be reliable. Most of these measured have also been used in other studies withEastern samples and have shown good reliability. The Appendix presents all the itemsin the measures. All these items were originally written in English, and for this studyquestionnaires were needed in Chinese. To ensure the reliability of the translation, eachquestion was back translated from Chinese to English by a second translator andcompared with the original text. Some modification was made after the review. Second,the questionnaire was pre-tested with a pilot sample of 15 individuals in Macau to ensurethat all directions and items were clearly understood. The data and feedback collectedfrom the pilot test were reviewed, and minor modifications on the translation were done.

From the profiles of the 290 respondents, the sample was reasonably representativeof Macau service workers – the sample was evenly distributed in both genders (male –48 per cent/female – 52 per cent) and in marital status (single – 50 per cent/married –50 per cent). Most respondents were suitably from 21 to 30 years old (48 per cent),while 23 per cent were 31-40 years old, and 20 per cent were 41-50 and those who have ahigh school education (45 per cent) dominated the sample. With the rapid growth of thetourism industries in Macau, working in these industries was attractive – careerdevelopment in tourism industries would be relatively more fruitful than in otherindustries. Therefore, the perception of frontline service jobs might not necessarily bethe same as in other countries, where tourism products are more underdeveloped.

MeasuresEmpowerment. All constructs in the questionnaire used established measures. Hayes’(1994) five items (1 – strongly disagree; 5 – strongly agree) employee empowermentscales were used to measure the respondents’ perception of empowerment at work. Themeasures were specialized for customer contact personnel. A sample item is “I have theauthority to correct customer problems when they occur”. To ensure the internalconsistency of the items measured, reliability tests were performed by examiningCronbach’s alpha values. Reliability measures above 0.70 are deemed to be acceptablefor research purposes (Nunnally, 1978). And the alpha coefficient for the four items(one item from the original scale was omitted to achieve a satisfactory alpha coefficient)was 0.70. The original English measurement items are attached as the Appendix.

Job attitudes. This was a second-order latent variable consisting of job satisfactionand organizational commitment (Harrison et al., 2006). To measure job satisfaction,Hackman and Oldham’s (1975) three items (1 – strongly disagree; 5 – strongly agree)were used (e.g. I am satisfied with my job currently). The alpha coefficient of the threeitems was 0.85. In turn, we assessed organizational commitment using the four items(1 – strongly disagree; 5 – strongly agree) from an affective organizational commitmentscale developed by Meyer and Allen (1991). A sample item is “I feel a strong sense

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of belonging to the organisation”. Some of the items were reverse coded. The alphacoefficient was 0.69.

Service effort. For service effort as the dependent variable, a perception measurementwas used by asking respondents a single question about their willingness to invest effortto deliver quality service at their work. A multi-item source was not available andsingle-item measures can sometimes have advantages over multi-item measuresbecause multi-domain measures can confound the dimensionality of the concept with themultiplicity of their causal sources (Bowling, 2005). This confounding from a multi-itemvariable may have been particularly serious in this study because of the complex linksbetween effort and performance discussed above.

Turnover intention. The respondents’ turnover intention was measured using afour-item scale (1 – strongly disagree; 5 – strongly agree) developed by Seashore et al.(1982). A sample item is “For me, this company is the best of all possible organisationsto work for”. The five-year time horizon in one item was approved by the managersinvolved. The alpha coefficient was an acceptable 0.79, as depicted in Table I.To conclude, some of the Cronbach’s alpha values among the scales adopted were onlyacceptable. The results of relatively low alpha coefficients could be due to the fact thatall scales were adopted from past studies, which were developed in the West.

Analytical proceduresBecause the proposed meditational model involves latent constructs, this research usedstructural equation modelling (Baron and Kenny, 1986; Judd and Kenny, 1981) of theAMOS 16 software. To evaluate the hypothesized model, we followed the two-stageprocedure recommended by Anderson and Gerbing (1988). First, confirmatory factoranalysis (CFA) was examined to assess the adequacy of the measurement component ofthe model. Then the structural model was evaluated. To examine the significance of theindirect effects, a bootstrapping procedure was performed (Shrout and Bolger, 2002;Preacher and Hayes, 2008). Moreover, since all measures were obtained from thecommon source, a control of common method variance was carried out to compare theresults with and without potential bias of the common method variance (Mackenzie et al.,1999; Podsakoff et al., 2003).

Analysis of the dataThere were missing values in the data collected. However, all variables forming themodel appeared to have less than 10 per cent of the respondent missing data – therange was from 1.2 to 4.3 per cent. Hence, the results indicate that the missing data

Variables SD M I 1 2 2a 2b 3

1. Empowerment 0.91 2.57 0.70 1.002. Job attitudes NA NA NA 0.31 * * 1.002a. Job satisfaction 1.00 3.14 0.85 0.34 * * NA 1.002b. Organizational commitment 0.84 3.09 0.64 0.14 NA 0.87 * * 1.003. Service effort 1.33 2.93 NA 0.12 0.51 * * 0.49 * * 0.47 * * 1.004. Turnover intention 1.08 2.85 0.79 20.29 * * 20.84 * * 20.79 * * 20.79 * * 20.60 * *

Notes: Correlation is significant at the *0.05 and * *0.01 levels (two-tailed); n ¼ 290Source: Analysis of the survey data

Table I.Standard deviations,

means, reliabilities andintercorrelations of latent

variables

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in this research do not pose problems in treatment (Malhotra and Mukherjee, 1999).Single imputation with mean substitution and regression-based imputation were usedto handle them (Kline, 2005; Schumacker and Lomax, 2004).

Measurement model. A structural regression model allows a latent variable to havesingle or multiple indicators for each measurement model (Schumacker and Lomax,2004). To examine their construct validity, CFA was used because it has advantagesover exploratory approaches in validating theoretically developed constructs(Vandenbosch, 1996). As noted, all latent variables were measured using item-leveldata except service effort.

The results of the measurement model indicate appropriate validity with satisfactorymodel fit, including empowerment, job attitudes as the second-order variable consistingof job satisfaction and organizational commitment, service effort and turnover intention.Although the x 2 value was 166.26 with p-value greater than 0.05, the normed x 2 was1.75 indicating that there was no significant difference between the model and thesample data. In addition, the root mean square of error of approximation (RMSEA) andstandardized root mean square residual (SRMR) were both 0.05 (less than 0.08), and thegoodness-of-fit index (GFI), comparative fit index (CFI) and Tucker-Lewis index(TLI) were 0.93, 0.96 and 0.95, respectively, so the indicators are reasonable measures ofempowerment and provide evidence of convergent validity. Hence, the results supportthe view that job satisfaction and organizational commitment are explained by asecond-order structured latent variable of job attitudes.

Structural model. After assessing the validity of the constructs adopted, the positedstructural models were evaluated. Same model fit indices of the measurement modelswere used to examine the proposed models. First, we examined the fully mediated model,that is, there were no direct paths from empowerment to service effort and turnoverintention. The results of model fit demonstrated that the x 2 was significant(x2 ¼ 182.99, df ¼ 98, p ¼ 0.00). However, x 2 is sensitive to sample size (Kline, 1998;Anderson and Gerbing, 1988; Hair et al., 1998; Kline, 2005), hence, the normed x 2 (x2/df)was also assessed and was 1.87 (less than 3.0) suggesting a good model fit between theimplied model and the sample data. The GFI and CFI were 0.93 and 0.95, respectively,greater than 0.90. The RMSEA and SRMR were 0.05, lower than 0.08. Also, the TLI was0.94 greater than the 0.80 criterion, as depicted in Table II. All indices met the criterionand support the modified model having a reasonable model fit.

Next, a mediated model with additional direct paths from empowerment to serviceeffort and turnover was evaluated. The x 2 value was 181.80 (df ¼ 96; p , 0.001) andthe normed x 2 was 1.89, which were approximately same as the x 2 results of the fullmediated model. The GFI, CFI, RMSEA, SRMR and TLI values were 0.93, 0.95, 0.05,0.05 and 0.94, respectively. Hence, results suggest that the two models had similar fit tothe data. So, to compare these two models, a x 2 difference test was performed. The Dx2

between the fully and partially mediated models was 1.19 and the Ddf was 2 resultingin a value of 0.595 (less than 3.84) (Hair et al., 2006). This result indicates the differenceof adding two extra direct paths in the partially mediated model was not significant.That is, it suggests that the fully mediated model is an accurate representation.

Hypotheses testing. Now the hypotheses could be tested. First, H1 was evaluated.As shown in Table I, the correlation between empowerment and service effort was notsignificant. Hence, it did not fulfil the basic requirements for mediation forfurther analysis (Baron and Kenny, 1986). Thus, H1 was not supported.

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Nevertheless, the indirect and direct paths between empowerment and service effortremained as posited in the conceptual model discussed earlier. For H2, the correlationbetween empowerment and turnover intention was significant with correlationcoefficient of 20.29 and p-value less than 0.01. Hence, the first basic condition for H2was fulfilled. Next, the mediator of job attitudes was introduced in the relationshipbetween empowerment and turnover intention. The path estimates of the model revealedthat all paths were significant with p-values lower than 0.01, as depicted in Table III,except the direct path of empowerment – turnover intention had a p-value greater than0.05, that is, the direct path between empowerment and turnover intention was notsignificant when job attitudes as a mediator was controlled, indicating a potential fullmediating effect. That is, empowerment does not directly lead to turnover intentionwhen the mediator of job attitudes is controlled.

Next, to assess the statistical significance of the mediating effect, a bootstrapprocedure was conducted. There were two indirect effects of this model, that is,empowerment-job attitudes-service effort, and empowerment-job attitudes-turnoverintention. Following the recommendations of Shrout and Bolger (2002), we first created

DescriptionNot controlling for

common method varianceControlling for common

method variance

Direct effectsEmpowerment – job attitudes 0.32 * * 0.51 *

Empowerment – service effort 20.073 20.25Empowerment – turnover intention 0.002 0.21Job attitudes – service effort 0.62 * * 0.63 * *

Job attitudes – turnover intention 20.89 * * 20.93 * *

Indirect effects (bootstrap results)Empowerment – job attitudes – service effort 0.20 * * 0.24 *

Empowerment – job attitudes – turnoverintention 0.28 * * 0.27 *

Notes: *p , 0.05; * *p , 0.01; n ¼ 290Source: Analysis of the survey data

Table III.Standardized parameterestimates for both direct

and indirect effects

Model fit indicesAcceptable

levelMeasurement

modelFully mediated

modelPartially mediated

model

x 2 166.26 182.99 181.80Degrees of freedom (df) 95 98 96p (x 2) .0.05 0.00 0.00 0.00Normed x 2 (CMIN/DF) .1.0 , 3.0 1.75 1.87 1.89RMSEA ,0.08 0.05 0.05 0.05SRMR ,0.08 0.05 0.05 0.05CFI .0.90 0.96 0.95 0.95GFI .0.90 0.93 0.93 0.93TLI .0.80 0.95 0.94 0.94

Note: n ¼ 290Source: Analysis of the survey data

Table II.Model fit indices of the

measurement and thestructural models

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10,000 bootstrap samples from the original dataset (n ¼ 290); then we ran the structuralmodel with these bootstrap samples. Standardized coefficients and errors werecalculated for the two indirect effects. The results from the bootstrap samples indicatedthat the standardized point estimate of the indirect effect (empowerment-jobattitudes-turnover intention) was 0.28 with the standard error of 0.08. The 95 per centconfidence interval (CI) for the indirect effect ranged from 0.13 to 0.46. As zero is not inthe CI, the results revealed that the mean of the indirect effect of empowerment-jobattitudes-turnover intention (H2) was significantly from zero at the 0.001 level. Thus,H2 was supported. While the direct effect from empowerment to job attitudes wassignificant with a standardized coefficient of 0.32 and a p-value of 0.001, the direct effectsfrom job attitudes to turnover intention (standardized coefficient ¼ 0.89 andp-value , 0.001) were also significant.

Moreover, H1 (empowerment-job attitudes-service effort) was not supported. Theresults reveal that empowerment was not directly correlated to service effort amongChinese service employees. However, empowerment-job attitudes was significant –this finding indicates that empowerment should lead to higher job attitudes; in turn,empowerment could indirectly affect Chinese workers’ service effort through its effecton job attitudes and job attitudes’ effect on effort.

Assessing the potential bias from common method varianceBecause both exogenous and endogenous variables were measured using the samesource, the relationships between variables in this study may have inflated due tocommon method variance (Spector, 2006; Podsakoff et al., 2003). To assess thispotential bias, we added a first-order latent variable to the indicators of both exogenousand endogenous variables. This procedure controlled for the portion of variance in theindicators measured from the common source (Mackenzie et al., 1999). Moreover, someof the method factor loadings were constrained to be equal for identification purposes.The results, as shown in Table III, revealed that the previously supported significantrelationships were not affected by common method variance. That is, common methodvariance is not a potential threat in this study.

To conclude, H2 was supported in this study. The structural model of the proposedmodel is shown in Figure 2 with all the path coefficients. Discussion of this finding andits implications are provided next.

Discussion and implicationsLiterature on empowerment in Chinese organizational settings is not settled. Whileempowerment in the West is widely suggested to stimulate untapped human resources(Spreitzer et al., 1999a; Spreitzer, 2008), its use in high power distance Chineseorganisations needs evidence like this research. Some have argued that empowermentmay be less effective in high power distance cultures (Robert et al., 2000) and soWestern management concepts such as empowerment may not be useful amongChinese employees (Pang et al., 1998). In turn, we found that, on their own, perceivedempowerment practices do not stimulate or motivate stronger service effort amongChinese service employees (H1).

However, we found the mediating effect of job attitudes is a mechanism that helpsempowerment lead to lower turnover intention among Chinese service employees (H2).Managers use empowerment to allow workers to solve problems themselves

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(the Appendix) but they must also include actions that foster job satisfaction andorganizational commitment, to ensure that empowerment would affect turnoverintention among Chinese service employees. That is, management in China shouldfoster positive job attitudes through processes such as better and wider communicationof the purpose of empowerment and stronger organizational and supervisor support.They could begin by looking at the items in the questionnaire (the Appendix) aboutsatisfaction and commitment – they are the core elements within the core variable ofjob attitudes.

For example, satisfaction involves the work environment, and commitment involvesemotional commitment to the “family” of the organisation. Giving staff a sense ofbelonging to the organisation (by shared values or rituals) would make them feelemotionally attached and “part of the family”. Also, the Chinese are sensitive to giving,taking, gaining or protecting “face” in social settings – it is considered the protocol of ahighly hierarchical relationship between superior and subordinate (Li, 1999).Supervisors should learn to encourage different ideas and opinions so that Chineseemployees could feel committed – their voices are listened to and their contributionsimpact on their company’s performance (Tian-Foreman, 2009).

In brief, Chinese employees tend to have more favourable work attitudes andbehaviour if they perceive favourable social relationships in their workplace (Wong andHuang, 2003). With emphases on satisfaction and commitment like these, the usual stepsof empowerment would become more effective for reducing turnover intention. Thehuman resource manager of a five-star hotel in Macau SAR, China, illustrates a techniquethat managers could use these job attitudes/satisfaction and commitment implicationsof the research findings. She has short briefing sessions with employees on a regularbasis, to discuss outstanding issues. All ideas and issues would be listened to anddiscussed. Although not all issues could be solved at once, employees would feel helplessand distanced from their immediate supervisors/managers without these sessions.

Finally, consider limitations of the research and implications for future studies.First, the present study is cross-sectional. A longitudinal examination of the variables

Figure 2.Supported model

with standardizedparameter estimates

Jobsatisfaction

Organisationalcommitment

Serviceeffort

Jobattitude

Turnoverintention

Empowerment

0.62**

0.32**

0.062 n.s.

Notes: *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; n.s. = non-significantSource: Developed for this study

–0.073 n.s.

–0.89**

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as they occur and as managerial interventions are made to improve desirableorganizational outcomes could be revealing. In addition, such research could examinethe impact of changes in the variables. Moreover, there may be other potentialmoderating and/or mediating factors in addition to the important ones uncovered andinvestigated in this study such as demographic characteristics of service employees.(These demographics were not included in this analysis because there are no a priorireasons to suspect they affect high power distance.) As well, possible relationshipsbetween service effort and actual performance should be examined to provide an evenmore comprehensive model.

Next, most of the conceptual underpinnings for this study come from researchcarried out in Western countries. However, considering that human cultural contextsand behaviour vary from country to country, more work should be done within Chineseorganisations to confirm the transferability of the ideas examined in this research.More qualitative research would be appropriate for this kind of theory-buildingresearch. Thus, future research needs to be centred in China to generate more relevantconstructs and their measurement.

Furthermore, to confirm the generalizability of the supported models in thisresearch, this work could be replicated in other cultural contexts than China such asAfrica and the Middle East. This sort of research could also be tried in less-modernparts of China like Lanzhou city. Indeed, it could even be replicated in Europeancountries with high power distance like France and Germany (Hofstede, 1991). As well,other service organisations with a different level of tangibility (Shostack, 1977) such asfast-food outlets, airlines and consulting institutions, could be investigated.

In conclusion, this research found how Chinese employees accept empoweringmanagement practices to demonstrate stronger job satisfaction and organizationalcommitment, and so help empowerment to lead to lower turnover intention. However,the relationship between empowerment and service effort was found insignificant.This finding will help managers in China to effectively adopt empowerment policiesand be an empirical base for future researchers.

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Appendix. The English measurement itemsThe English version of the measurement items used follows. Note that respondents actuallycompleted a questionnaire in Chinese, which is a translation of this original.

Empowerment (Hayes, 1994):

(1) I have the authority to correct customer problems when they occur.

(2) I am encouraged to handle customer problems by myself.

(3) I do not have to get management’s approval before I handle customer problems.

(4) I am allowed to do almost anything to solve customer problems.

(5) I have control over how I solve customer problems.

Job satisfaction (Hackman and Oldham, 1975):

(1) You are satisfied with your job currently.

(2) Your work environment is pleasant.

(3) You are extremely glad that you chose this company to work for, over otherorganisations.

Affective organizational commitment (Meyer and Allen, 1991):

(1) I do not feel like “part of the family” at the organisation.

(2) The organisation has a great deal of personal meaning for me.

(3) I do not feel “emotionally attached” to the organisation.

(4) I feel a strong sense of belonging to the organisation.

Turnover intention (Seashore et al., 1982):

(1) You are very likely to stay in this company for the next five years.

(2) For you, this company is the best of all possible organisations to work for.

(3) You will not give up this company easily.

(4) You seldom hear about or are exposed to jobs outside your company that interestyou.

Service effort:

(1) I am willing to invest effort to deliver quality service to customers.

Corresponding authorSut I Wong Humborstad can be contacted at: sut.i.w.humborstad@bi.no

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