Appling Theory X, Theory Y, and Theory XY with Restaurants in North

This section will discuss how the three world’s largest restaurant enterprises: T.G.I.

Fridays, Outback Steakhouse and McDonald’s in North America implemented their Theory X and Theory Y management into their business model. What are their strategies used for

conquering a legion of fans around the globe who are willingly to support these restaurant chains.

Table 2-5

Characteristics of Theory X, Y, and XY with Restaurants from N.A

Source: Table of this research was made by oneself (continue onto next page)

Table 2-5

Characteristics of Theory X, Y, and XY with Restaurants from N.A (continued)

Source: Table of this research was made by oneself

I) T.G.I. Fridays is an American casual dining restaurant and bar chain that specializes in hamburgers, BBQs, and steaks. For drinks at the bar, it serves alcohol and cocktails. It was

established in 1965 by Alan Stillman in New York. As of today, the success of the chain restaurant business owns 992 locations in the US and over 920 restaurants in 61 countries including several major continents: Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe, and Oceania

(tgifridays.com).

The restaurant chains’ main target audience is professional and white collar occupants which they seek for better services and premium food selections. In addition to the premium label it carries, the brand offers a fun atmosphere where people can go without knowing, but hoping to meet the other guests. In many ways it performs the community meeting point which Adelman et

al., (1994) suggest will become an increasing feature of services in cities where many people live

an individualized existence. T.G.I. Fridays provides a service which “creates a sense of social connection to others” (Adelman et al., 1994, p. 140). Average customers would spend US$20 to US$30 per person (NT$540 to NT$810).

The restaurant chain is critically acclaimed for its success in making a service offer to customers that can be described as “mass customization”, this means the management requires its

Theory X Theory Y Theory XY

employees to provide customers with both advice and counselling in the way they construct their meal experience, and a personalized service performance. Hence, in many ways, the author, Conrad Lashley describes the organization as a typical of Schmenner’s (1995) “service shop”.

T.G.I. Fridays uses Theory X management in its service standards and production processes are highly standardized, and yet elements of the service require some form of customization to specific customer needs. To make this happen, employees are managed through a cluster of approaches which are defined as “empowerment through involvement” (Lashley, 2000).

According to the financial statement of 2013, the restaurant chain currently has more than 900 restaurants in operation worldwide in 60 countries, and reported system-wide sales of $2.7 billion. T.G.I. Fridays currently employs over 70,000 people around the world (Carlson inc, 2014).The focus of the analysis on this chain restaurant is to explore the various themes and definition called “empowerment through involvement” where T.G.I. Fridays’ employees or dub-dubs (stage name given by the company) are given the authority to make suggestions about service quality improvement, or problem detection. However in the end, managers are still the ones that can make the final decision as they see fit, hence, employees have little decision making discretion about their tasks of sequence in which they are completed (Lashley, 2000).

The following section will continue to explore the types of empowerment that dub-dubs are allow to execute, the extent to which they can do to delight customers, whilst at the same time establishing important boundaries to empowerment by providing standardized consistency required of branded services. This type of managerial technique involved Theory X, which is equivalent to the set of boundaries and limitations found in the empowerment which required of Theory X employees to perform.

To sum up the definition of “empowerment through involvement”, service employees working at T.G.I. Fridays require more than merely “carrying plates”. Employee empowerment

meaning a willingness to accept responsibility for the service encounter is key to the managerial inspirations for the approach. In other words, employees need to be able to interpret, and then deliver which the customer service is required (Lashley, 2000).

Theory X management

a) Employment Management:

There are two levels to this management intention. The first level aimed to generate feelings of ownership of the service encounter. This includes recruitment and selection, induction and

training were aimed at encouraging employees to work toward the company’s goals. Level one

employment practice emphasizes empowerment as a “motivational construct” (Conger &

Kanungo, 1988). Through this approach, employees were being encouraged to develop feelings of personal efficacy and at the same time to discourage factors that aimed to develop feelings of disempowerment. Senior executives in the company confirm that the approach intended to encourage employees to “buy into the T.G.I. Fridays’ experience, allowing them to become believable” in their service intention towards customers. This means employees at T.G.I. Fridays are being taught to make people feel comfortable and to treat customers as real guests like family.

They were also taught to show their personalities at work, giving the customers an authentic dining experience that seems genuine rather than being too robotic in some standardized dining restaurants. Please note T.G.I. Fridays is a standardized operational branded company but is able to offer each customer a customized service experience (Lashley, 2000).

Recruitment and selection process: These three phases of the management are elaborate

and may involve psychometric tests and as many as three or four interviews. For instance, these sessions may require the applicants to perform or in role play situations (Lashley, 2000).

1. Screening process: The first phase involves managers to look for applicant with “the right kind of personality, someone who is extroverted, but not too much”.

2. Induction: The second phase involves training in the various dish and drink recipes for the front of house employees.

3. Training: The third phase requires training in cooking methods for kitchen staff.

In both cases, new employees are required to pass a test on the information given prior to being allowed to work on a station. New employees that went through the immediate course and pass the testing sessions, must be trained by working alongside a more experienced member staff, then a quiet station in the restaurant. Performance is monitored by managers, and they are keen to ensure that the employees are able to meet customer service requirements, answer queries, offer advice, provide the appropriate performance, and maintain company sales target. The nature of the work requires a particular type of individual that can relate well with customers but not too well. That is, someone who allows customers to linger too long over their meal, when the table could reused, or does not push particular target sales items might well be popular with customers but may be reprimanded by management. The first three phases are strictly Theory X management where employees must comply with the demands given to them. It is a series of screening procedure that the company wishes to employ of a certain individual that well fit to the profile and image that the company seeks (Conger & Kanungo, 1988).

b) Rewards and Performance Appraisals (Applicable to Theory X workers in general)

Reward and appraisals of front of house and kitchen employees: This Theory X management

involves the distributing of wages and tips to both front and back house employees. For the front of house employee, wage is largely structured around an individual commission on sales and linked to overall food produced for kitchen staff. For instance, dub-dubs and bar staff also get

tips, and a higher rate of commission is paid to kitchen staff to compensate for their lack of tips.

It was claimed that some employees were earning US$40,000 -$50,000 per year. Many reported that tips made up at least 50% of the total take home salary. The low basic salary coupled with the individually focused performance elements of commission and tips, this creates an incentive scheme which has different impacts for front and kitchen employees, with positive and negative impact. When tips is given to a front of house employee by individual customers often exceeded the commission, and there was clearly an element of mutuality between the company and the employee. There is a dilemma for the nature of customer servicing, as they both gained from greater customer sales, through the significance of tips create a “working for two bosses effect”.

Some employees would be willing to go as far as breaking company policies, so as to create more customer satisfaction and thereby enhance the greater chance of earning a good tip (Lashley, 2000).

For kitchen employees, the reward package was more a reflection of the collective effort because the bonus scheme paid out on the total number of meals served during one shift. Tips was shared out amongst those on duty during the shift. Kitchen employees did not normally have access to tips and so for them there was no “working for two bosses” dilemma but they did have a material interest in minimizing the employees on duty at any one time (Lashley, 2000).

In sum, the reward system could add stress to kitchen employees because of the extra work pressure it encouraged. Hence, employees had a chance to make extra money for their tremendous effort (Lashley, 2000).The final fourth phase is mostly Theory X management oriented where it is mostly focuses on devising a reward and appraisal system that could

encourage and motivates employees from both sides to reach the company’s goals and objectives (Conger & Kanungo, 1988).

Theory X management

Standard Operating Procedure (Coerced, controlled, and monitored)

T.G.I. Fridays is a highly standardized operating restaurant chain organization, therefore its highly standardized formula in the tangible aspects of the product allows little room for innovation and discretion. Production and service process are in many ways standardized, training focuses on delivering the product such as food and drinks, in a way will be repeated in every other T.G.I. Fridays unit. This is the only section of the empowerment which has no effect in employees’ part when it comes to standardizing all products the same way. Dub-Dubs are needed to work routines which require checking back with the customers within 3 minutes of delivering the meal. The approach allows front-line employees to develop a sense of ownership of the service encounter which means interacting with the customers. Other mandates included the delivering of meal time must be exact. For instance, service target times require appetizers to be served within 7 minutes of receipt of the order. Main course items must be served within 12 minutes. A computer programme helps monitor the achievement of these service times. The security of a highly standardized layout, décor, menu and process is balanced by an extensive menu which allows the customer to select what they want within the range. This is what “mass

customization” is all about, allowing customers to know what to expect, but at the same time,

they can personalize the experience through the extensive menu (Lashely, 2000).

Although having to wear a standardized uniform, dub-dubs are able to customize their own appearance by personalizing their head gear and by adding badges to their braces. This gives customers an entire authentic dining experience, because they are being served by

personalized rather than standardized servicing employees. For instance, this particular Theory X management would allow the serving employees to advise customers on the menu and how best to structure their meal. In some cases, “having a good laugh with the customers is needed”, and other times, they need to leave the guests some privacy, or create the necessary celebratory

atmosphere to match with a birthday or other party occasion. At other times, they have to entertain restive children. Hence, dub-dubs must be able to provide the behaviours and the emotional displays, to match with customer wants and feelings (Lashley, 2000).

Continuing with Theory X management of standardized operation, there are team briefings to take place during each shift. Both front of house and back of house employees must meet separately for about 20 minutes prior to the start of the main service periods; at lunch time and in dinner time. The purpose of these sessions help to set the agenda for action during the coming shift. They help the organization to set priorities such as sales targets, quality issues, operational requirements, etc. The sessions also help to produce the required team spirit and enthusiasm needed to improve individuals. All and all, the using of Theory X management of team briefings help boost the positive energy in team spirits, which largely brings out the authentic and individualized atmosphere (Lashley, 2000).

Theory X management

a) Employee Empowerment (limited rights)

The second level where senior executives encourage their employees to become empowered using a more relational construct by taking on, in a limited way, some of the responsibilities which would previously have been the responsibilities of unit managers. For instance, if a customer wants a dish which normally contains chicken cooked without chicken, senior executives will encourage the Dub-Dub (employees) to accept the order. Thus, the dub-dubs were empowered by the company to provide customers with non-menu items depending on the availability of the ingredients to make the dish. In addition, the front-line employees were encouraged to deal with customer complaints without having to summon the manager, unless necessary. This is one of the hefty prices that employee empowerment comes with, that is the absolute responsibility to accept customer complaints and sometimes listening to their

reprimands and not to react right away. As a matter of fact, employees and managers are reluctant to deal with customer complaints and several employees would see it as a manager’s role and duty, therefore they would pass it on to the manager to resolve it (Lashley, 2000).

Senior executives encourage the unit managers to accept empowerment for the sake of growth of the business, since the units were being increasingly located in local markets which needed a more responsive approach than could be generated from head office. Finally, they also suggested that the empowerment of unit managers enabled them to be more responsive to local conditions though it required managers to apply a wider range of skills than mere operational managements (Lashley, 2000).

b) Restrictions and Limitations in Employee Empowerment

T.G.I. Fridays employees may be given the empowerment from Theory X to make decisions or suggestions but still they have very little power, which is the limitations and

restrictions to make the final decision and must seek for top managers’ approval to make the cut.

For instance, the ability of employees to accept customer orders for non-menu dishes and to deal with complaints further extended the responsible autonomy that staff could exercise, but there were clearly limits and managers closely monitored individual employee “give away” whether the freebies exceed the company’s budget. Power to influence matters is also restricted to employees’ own task, through team briefings do allow some form of suggestion making. The culture tends to be control oriented with some managers’ styles being a little more trust oriented, particularly where experienced employees were concerned (Lashley, 2000).

Other form of empowerment is restricted to task level issues, specifically in the

intangibles. For instance, the range of issues over which employees have some involvement is limited to issues related to badges displayed on braces and the choice of headgear, and in the personalization of the performance given to customers. Their power to make decisions is limited

by the constraints placed upon them when a member of the unit management team indicated that service employees have the freedom to wear any type of headgear but they cannot wear baseball caps because “that is not Fridays” (Lashley, 2000).

However employees can make their own decision without managers’ approval and that is arranging their own working schedules. For instance, the employees who made up the “top team”

in each restaurant had greater control over the organization of their own working arrangements.

Top team members were empowered to determine their own shift patterns and decide what time and areas of the restaurants that they wanted to work at. In other words, top team members have the rights to plan work patterns that suited their needs (Lashley, 2000).

To conclude the Theory X managerial analysis of T.G.I. Fridays, which is the form of empowerment practiced by the organization are highly standardized, it does require employees to be creative in producing one of many types of customer interaction required by different guests.

Managerial intentions retain control of production process through a set of tightly defined service procedures and standards, but also empowers employees to provide the performance needed by the service recipient. In the end, “empowerment through involvement” for these employees means accepting responsibility for customer satisfaction, but also being able to apply discretion in the way they deliver the service (Lashley, 2000).

II) Outback Steakhouse is an Australian-themed American casual dining restaurant chain based in Tampa, Florida with over 1200 locations in 23 countries throughout North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. It was founded in February 1988 in Tampa by Bob Basham, Chris T. Sullivan, Trudy Cooper and Tim Gannon, and is now owned and operated in the United States by OSI Restaurant Partners, and by other franchise and venture agreements internationally. Besides serving quality steaks, the menu also serves seafood, desserts and soft drinks. The target audience is mostly white collars and occasional families will come as well.

Average customers would spend US$25 to US$35 (NT$675 to NT$945) per person on a set menu (Outback.com, 2015)

The casual dining restaurant chain has proven to be successful overseas, especially in South Korea. In 1997, Outback entered the South Korean market through the franchise agreement with Aussie Chung Inc. Currently, there are 101 Outback Steakhouse locations throughout South Korea. Thus the main focus of this case study is on transporting an American branded restaurant chain to a foreign soil and still can make it extremely popular. Outback Steakhouse of Korea is a good example of blending Western business culture into Asian society and finds its way to make it adaptable. The key among the 7 successful factors is a decentralized structure that takes advantage of the business acumen of managing partners. A flexible approach that allowed the Korean chain to respond to the country’s cultural patterns and market preferences is balanced with a strict approach to hiring and training (Enz, 2008; Lee Khan, & Ko, 2008). Here are the following key factors that led Outback Steakhouse restaurant chains to be a huge success in South Korea. Decentralized organization, training programs, customized operation strategies,

innovative human resources, blending American business culture, competitive strategies and true hospitality, and general organizational structure. The thesis will go through each of the key

factor and explains its Theory X and Theory Y management that has implemented into them.

According to its financial statement, Outback Steakhouse has earned $2.45 billion US for its system-wide sales that boasts 767 locations in the U.S. Sales per unit is estimated around

$3.19 million US (Nation’s Restaurant News, 2014).

Theory Y management

As McGregor (1960) would describe his perception of a decentralized organization which provides an environment in which the individual, through taking greater responsibility for his or

her own behavior, obtains intrinsic rewards in the form of ego and self-actualization, satisfactions, which encourage him or her to take still more responsibility and thus to grow (McGregor, 1960).

1. Decentralized Organization (Communication) is the pivotal organizational structure that differs from the other rivals which creates a great competitive advantage for the chain

restaurants in South Korea. The company minimized the number of headquarters staff and shifted key activities and responsibilities such as site selection, contracting with suppliers, and training to the firm’s eight regional operating partners and the managing partner of each outlet. For instance, once the firm decentralized its power by distributing it evenly among the partners, each regional operating partner would have full responsibility for opening new outlets, ranging from site selection to hiring staff, while managing partners would be in charge of day-to-day activities

在文檔中 X理論和Y理論在餐廳領導的應用 (頁 95-130)