Abstract
Drawing on the cognitive appraisal theory of stress and regulatory focus theory, this study constructs a “double-edged sword” theoretical model of the impact of customer empowerment on employees’ service innovation. It explores the chained mediating effects of challenge stressors and hindrance stressors, as well as promotion focus and prevention focus, together with the moderating role of customer-oriented perspective taking. A questionnaire survey was conducted among frontline employees of four-star hotels in Lanzhou, Gansu Province, to empirically test the proposed model. The findings reveal that customer empowerment positively influences employees’ service innovation through challenge stressors and promotion focus, under the moderating effect of customer-oriented perspective taking, thereby serving as a “driving force” for service innovation. On the other hand, customer empowerment also exerts a negative effect on service innovation via hindrance stressors and prevention focus, under the same moderating effect, thus becoming a “burden” on employees’ innovative performance.
Recommended Citation
Li, Cheng-Jin; Ji, Hao-Ran; Huang, Yong; and Ding, Le, "How Does Perspective-Taking Inspire Innovation? The Chain Mediating Role of Customer Empowerment and Regulatory Focus in Hotel Service Innovation" (2026). ICEB 2026 Proceedings (Beijing, China). 48.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/iceb2026/48