The current study investigated the relationship between employee empowerment and job satisfaction for restaurant employees. Specifically, it examined psychological empowerment, the dimensions of psychological empowerment, job satisfaction, and organizational variables affecting psychological empowerment. Organizational commitment as an outcome of job satisfaction of non-supervisory employees working in casual restaurants was also explored. Nine research questions were asked in the study. A survey instrument, including the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ)- short form, was developed using various scales measuring psychological empowerment, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, information accuracy, communication openness, trust, leader member exchange and training.
Data was gathered from non-supervisory restaurant employees working in three casual restaurant chains located in Midwest United States. A total number of 924 surveys from 66 restaurants were used in the analysis. In addition to descriptive statistics, other analyses such as factor analysis, analysis of variance, and hierarchical multiple regression analysis were used to investigate the research questions.
The results of this study showed that there is a statistically significant relationship between psychological empowerment and job satisfaction. It is also found that psychological empowerment partially mediates the relationship between job satisfaction and organizational commitment. The results of the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire revealed a four-factor solution for the restaurant employees. Organizational factors, which were information accuracy, communication openness, leader member exchange quality, trust, and training played important roles in explaining psychological empowerment. Leader member exchange quality was found to be the strongest predictor of psychological empowerment. Implications of the findings for theory and practice were discussed in addition to the limitations and recommendations.