‘Empowerment: HR strategies for service excellence’ shows managers and students the importance of empowerment as part of human resource strategy. It provides a critical perspective of this established vital management technique, identifying factors that will lead to a win: win situation for all concerned. When successfully incorporated as part of HR strategy, empowerment can:* enable organizations to gain commercial and competitive advantage* become more flexible* improve employee commitment* use the skills of individual employees to best advantage and enhance personal capabilities.’Empowerment: HR strategies for service excellence’ uses case studies from companies such as Mc Donalds, TGI Fridays and Harvester Restaurants to build a picture of empowerment of service employees in context, illustrating how different forms of empowerment are employed and different working arrangements are practiced.