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Increasingly both academic and industrial commentators advocate that a commitment to service quality improvement requires the development of “service driven culture” or a “total quality culture”, based on approaches to human resource management which ensure greater employee involvement and empowerment. Harvester Restaurants is an organization which has made attempts to address some of these issues through the empowerment of employees in the group′s restaurants.

Employee empowerment is said to benefit all organisations. The fast moving global economy requires that organisations learn and adapt to change quickly, and employees have a key role to play here. This is particularly true in modern service organisations. The empowered employee is said to respond more quickly to customer service requests, act to rectify complaints and be more engaged in service encounters. A more reflective approach suggests there are different managerial perceptions of empowerment, resulting in empowerment being introduced in different service organisations in different ways, and presenting different benefits to managers and working experiences for the empowered. This paper suggests that a framework of analysis needs to be developed which goes beyond the more simplistic claims which tend to discuss empowerment as that which is labelled empowerment. The success or failure of an initiative which claims to be empowering will be determined by the experience of being empowered.

Discusses the Total Quality culture of Harvester restaurants, concentrating on training to achieve the company′s mission of delivering a high quality service to its guests. Outlines the importance of teamwork in the programme, and provides a case study of the executive team, showing how the system works in practice.

Investigates customer attitudes to waiting times in the hotel and restaurant industry, based broadly on Maister′s “psychology of waiting lines”. Results of a survey of 100 customers suggest that customer behaviour is affected by the length of time they have to wait. Also investigates the response times found in typical hotel and restaurant operations managed by Forte plc. Comparison is made between customer attitudes and the firm′s ability to deliver. On the basis of this the company developed ten key action points aimed at improving performance with respect to response times. Explains specific examples of developments in service systems design and delivery in both hotels and restaurants.

Examines implementation of the total quality culture in Harvester Restaurants, where it is considered a way of life. Maintains that training is vital to attaining the company′s goal of delivering a high quality service to its “guests”.

Informed by research projects undertaken at Nottingham Trent, this paper discusses the different HRM practices of some operators in fast‐food restaurants. Outlines the nature of service provision and some key determinants of the service offer. These help to categorize the types of service offered to customers. Operational categories are also outlined and by using both a matrix is created which produces a series of four ideal types of approach to HRM management. These styles relate to the amount of employee involvement and participation in shaping the service encounter and therefore the kind of empowerment enjoyed by employees. Two case studies of well‐known fast food operators are used to demonstrate the ideal types identified.

The food service business is a complex one. The food and drink that a restaurant offers form part of their total product and only partially explains why customers choose it. Other reasons may include service, decor and ambience. Although every restaurant needs people to deliver the product and service, the food service sector is characterised by a wide range of different management styles and human resource strategies. Owners and managers of restaurants need to balance the need for profit and customer satisfaction against the need for greater employee retention in a sector where staff turnover is common. This can create tensions between management control of work processes for consistency of service quality with the needs of employees for job interest and satisfaction. This article explores some of these conflicting issues in the food service business and looks at the role that teamwork may play in resolving them. In particular, the approach to teamworking in the UK TGI Fridays restaurant group is examined.

Suggestions for improvements in service quality in hospitality operations frequently advocate the use of empowerment as a strategy for the management of employees. Analysis of employer initiatives that claim to empower employees needs to distinguish those initiatives labelled empowerment and those which are empowering. At root, empowerment should develop a sense of personal efficacy in employees. TGI Fridays is an organization that makes a service offer to customers that can be described as “mass customisation”. The successful service encounter requires employees to provide customers with both advice and counselling in the way they construct their meal experience, and a personalised service performance. To make this happen, employees are managed through a cluster of approaches which are defined as “empowerment through involvement”. That is, they include some development of personal efficacy and engagement in service performance, but which involves limited decision making apart from that required of their role in service performance.

This article discusses the important role that branding can play in the development of Service Industry marketing strategy. It outlines the evoloution of the traditional British public house (pub), the implementation of branding on the pub leisure retail (PLR) industry and the effect it has had on smaller, traditional pub operations. It offers an insight into the leading pub leisure retail establishments and to the ways in which branding has been the key to their success.

Reports on the early stage of a research project being undertaken at Nottingham Business School. Suggests that claims made for the benefits of employee empowerment need to be viewed with caution: there are clearly different meanings to empowerment and a variety of different forms in different organizations. Suggests that a framework of analysis is needed so as to identify the precise nature of the form of empowerment being initiated. Provides a five‐dimensional model. Each dimension is based on a dichotomous continuum which compares the empowered hospitality organization with the traditional “Production‐line” organization. The dimensions given are the task dimension, the task allocation dimension, the power dimension, the commitment dimension and the cultural dimension.