CUSTOMER-CONTACT EMPLOYEE EMPOWERMENT AND RESILIENCE OF QUICK SERVICE RESTAURANTS

The QSR industry in Nigeria has witnessed the emergence and disappearance of several actors. Some stride the industry for a couple of years; others fade away as quickly as they surfaced. Yet there are QSRs that have thrived and endured in the industry. Several factors could be responsible for this phenomenon. However, the current study investigated the extent to which employee empowerment can account for resilience of QSRs. ECD, DoA and EPDM are used as indicators of employee empowerment. The study adopted an explanatory research design and used a questionnaire to collect primary data; while the Spearman’s rank order correlation (rho) was employed as the test statistic. The study relied on SPSS version 20.0 for data analyses. The study observed that employee empowerment associates strongly with resilience of QSRs as all the dimensions of employee empowerment posted strong, positive and statistically significant relationship with resilience of QSRs. The study concludes that employee empowerment informs resilience of QSRs, or that resilience of QSRs depends on DoA, EPDM, and ECD; and recommends that QSRs that desires resilience in the business-scape must continually update the competencies of their customer-contact employees, involve them in decision-making and give them adequate powers to perform tasks and discharge duties assigned to them. Article visualizations