Final answer:
Service standardization diminishes employee autonomy as it creates uniform procedures which limit decision-making. Employee empowerment, however, allows for more autonomy, which can lead to less standardized services. The concept of McDonaldization highlights a loss in goods variety as its disadvantage and points to productivity and efficiency as the benefits of bureaucracies.
Step-by-step explanation:
Among the statements about service standardization and employee empowerment, the true one is that service standardization diminishes employee autonomy. This happens because when services are standardized, procedures and outputs are designed to be consistent and uniform, which necessarily limits the decision-making power of employees. On the contrary, employee empowerment involves giving employees more authority to make decisions and to own their work processes, which may actually lead to variations in service delivery as individuals apply their judgment to different situations.
Regarding the McDonaldization of society, one disadvantage is that there is less variety of goods. The increased standardization across many areas of life can lead to homogeneity, with fewer unique offerings in the marketplace. Additionally, intended positive aspects of bureaucracies, such as those found in the structure of McDonald's, include increased productivity and increased efficiency.