Winning at service recovery: the power of empowering leadership and proactive employees

Purpose Drawing on social cognitive theory, the paper positions occupational self-efficacy as the mechanism linking empowering leadership to service recovery performance (SRP). Drawing on the job demands-resources model, it positions employee proactivity as the boundary condition on that mechanism. Design/methodology/approach The study applied a multi-wave questionnaire to 420 hospitality frontline employees. This study employed PROCESS models to test the hypotheses. Findings The main finding indicates that empowering leadership behaviors are not the ideal leadership for enhancing all subordinates’ occupational self-efficacy and SRP. High employee proactivity is a critical boundary for effectively handling empowerment and service recovery. Practical implications The study offers guidance for leadership and subordinate development programs, recruitment and selection, and recognition systems. Originality/value The study specifies employee proactivity as a boundary condition on the path from empowering leadership to service recovery through occupational self-efficacy.