Salesperson empowerment in Spanish banks: A performance-driven view

Our research has a dual purpose. The first is to deepen our understanding of the dimension of power transference within the concept of empowerment. We consider power transference to be a driver of the individual feeling of empowerment, and identify two kinds of power to be transferred and, as a consequence, two different drivers of empowerment: process-driven empowerment (PDE) and decision-making-driven empowerment (DDE). The second is to study the relationship between both of them in relation to performance. We use multiple sources of evidence to build validity. We show that empowerment has its limits. Top management decisions regarding the transference of power to salespeople are performance-driven. A positive relationship between PDE and performance is confirmed. Nevertheless, the existence of a positive relationship between DDE and performance might be questioned.     

E-service quality: an internal,multichannel and pure service perspective

This article contributes to the emerging e-service quality literature by adopting a different approach to the dominant focus in previous research. The work centres on the internal perspective of organisation, studies the pure service sector and subjects the personal sales channel and the Internet channel to joint examination. A new conceptual framework is proposed via an adaptation of the service pyramid model [Parasuraman, A. (1996). Understanding and leveraging the role of customer service in external interactive and internal marketing. Paper presented at the 1996 Frontiers in Services Conference, Nashville, TN], and employee-orientated internal marketing and technology-orientated internal marketing are analysed as integrated drivers of commercial performance, within the context of retail banking in Spain. The results suggest that both marketing activities constitute part of a coherent strategy that is geared towards making and meeting service promises, within a multichannel perspective, and is associated with high commercial performance.