Exploring the potential risks of empowerment in hotels: how and when does empowering leadership produce frontline employees’ pro-customer deviance?

Purpose Drawing on self-determination theory and the job demands-resources model, this study examines how empowering leadership influences employees’ pro-customer deviance (PCD) through job autonomy. It further investigates the moderating effects of error-aversion culture and leader-trained ethics on the job autonomy–PCD relationship. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from 416 frontline employees across 63 service departments in 18 hotels. Hierarchical linear modeling was employed to test the hypotheses. Findings Empowering leadership had a direct positive effect on employees’ PCD, as well as an indirect effect through job autonomy. Furthermore, error aversion culture amplified the positive effect of job autonomy on PCD, whereas leader-trained ethics attenuated it. Practical implications This finding encourages hotel managers to move beyond the generic perspective that “empowerment is good” and adopt a more strategic approach that maximizes its benefits while minimizing its risks. Originality/value These findings offer important theoretical implications for the empowering leadership and PCD literature by identifying job autonomy as a key mediating mechanism and by clarifying the contextual boundaries of error aversion culture and leader-trained ethics.