No abstract

No abstract

Empowerment, job satisfaction, and customer’s perception of service quality have been extensively researched in a multitude of industries. Although the service quality literature points out the importance of managing service quality from both customers’ and employees’ views, only a few studies have jointly considered an employee—customer research design. This study examined the answers from 474 restaurant contact employees and their 1,259 customers to determine the effects of empowerment and job satisfaction on customers’ perception of service quality. The uniqueness of this study is in its service quality variable used in the structural model. Whereas previous research based the service quality variable on the SERVQUAL conceptualization and measurement, this study conceptualized customers’ perceived service quality variable according to the “hierarchical approach” model and used the performance-only index for its measurement. Findings suggest that empowerment and job satisfaction have a significant impact on customers’ perception of service quality. Implications of the findings are discussed in detail.

The primary purpose of this study was to examine job satisfaction of restaurant employees working in nonsupervisory positions. A survey instrument including the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) short form and demographic questions was used in the study. Factor analysis was conducted to investigate the dimensions of the MSQ short form. A total of 798 usable surveys from 52 restaurants, representing a 50.5% response rate, were included in the analysis. The factor analysis resulted in a four-factor structure of the MSQ short form. A low level of satisfaction was indicated by 50.2% of the respondents, whereas 25.6% indicated an average level and 24.2% a high level of job satisfaction. Security was ranked as the highest and compensation was ranked as the lowest of the examined items. Significant differences in job satisfaction scores were found between the pairs within the subgroups of age, job tenure, gender, and job type.

No abstract