Service standards communication
Service standards of internal service quality are an important antecedent to customer satisfaction(Berry et al..1991). Service standards provide a framework to guide the actions of employees by indicating what is expected of them,what they can/cannot do, and what behaviors/actions will be rewarded or punished. Also,service standards reduce ambiguity and doubts over initiating actions (Amenumey and Lockwood,2008).Conformance to service standards is more likely to be met if service standards are communicated and understood by all members of the organization,including line employees.Thus,open communication between frontline employees and managers is important for achieving service quality.Kanter(1989)encourages organizations wanting to create an empowered workforce to” make more information more available to more people at more levels through more devices”. The diffusion of information between the various levels of each organization enforces the feeling of employees’autonomy,responsibility,and involvement (Nonaka,1998;Robbins et al.,2002).Therefore,we hypothesize the following:
H4. Service standards communication will have a significant positive effect on perceived empowerment.