A Research on the Effect of Personnel Empowerment on Culinary Creativity in Restaurants

Today, the dynamic nature of the business environment requires businesses to be more sensitive to changing customer demands in an intensely competitive environment. Managers use available resources and time effectively to ensure that businesses achieve their primary goals. The main element is the personnel that will ensure the restaurants in the service sector provide quality service and reach the desired targets. Businesses attach great importance to improve personnel’s initiative use. In order to increase customer satisfaction and improve the quality of service, restaurants have a great interest in personnel empowerment and studies on the subject. For this reason, restaurants support the personnel to take initiatives and use them when necessary, within their mandate. Although the basis of personnel empowerment activities is to improve and develop service quality, this empowerment also increases the personnel’s motivation. This situation contributes to the development of a sense of belonging, enabling businesses to become even more competitive in a highly competitive market. In empowerment definitions, generally, the emphasis is placed on the individual’s sense of personal power, creating private activity, the need to control the situation, and the spirit of self-determination. Empowering the personnel enables the creation of an integrated quality environment where superior products and services become practical. In order to make restaurants more productive throughout the service sector, administrations need to focus more on the applications for personnel empowerment, support, and follow closely similar developments. The purpose of this qualitative research is to discover how personnel empowerment practices used by managers in restaurant businesses improve the creativity of the kitchen personnel and the possible effects of these practices. After the literature review, an interview form consisting of semi-structured questions was prepared, and in-depth interviews were held face-to-face with restaurant managers between June-July 2020. The interviews were held with first-class restaurant managers located in Antalya, known as one of the most popular tourist centers not only in Turkey and but also in the world. The data to be obtained as a result of the interviews have been analyzed through content analysis, and the possible effects of empowerment on kitchen creativity have been tried to be revealed in a concrete way.