The empowering, the empowered, and the empowerment disparity: A multilevel analysis of the integrated model of employee empowerment

This study aims to examine an integrated research model of employee empowerment from the perspectives of managers (the empowering) and employees (the empowered) with a newly proposed construct, empowerment disparity that captures a difference in employees' perception of empowerment within a team. A multilevel analysis was conducted using Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) to test the hypotheses using a matched sample of 286 restaurant employees along with 51 managers and 2129 customers from five tourist cities in Thailand. The findings show that psychological empowerment and the psychological contract have a positive effect on customers' assessment of interaction quality, and empowerment disparity moderates the links between a manager's empowering behavior and psychological empowerment, and psychological empowerment and the psychological contract. The theoretical and managerial implications suggested by the findings are provided for researchers and practitioners.