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.