Technology and empowerment in Danish insurance companies

Both empowerment and the use of emergent technologies are ways to cope with increasing competition and customer demands on service industries. The relationship between empowerment, technology and behaviour at the service encounter is, however, sparsely documented. This article offers a comparative empirical analysis of the relationships between empowerment in the job enrichment sense and perceived performance based on survey and interview data from the Danish insurance industry. The results indicate that empowerment initiatives in insurance companies, unlike in banks, are insignificantly associated with perceived price competitiveness and profit orientation. None the less, perceived service quality was significantly associated with empowerment, training, rules and guidelines, and technology. Technology in the form of information system support was found to be especially associated with service quality and the price competitiveness. Furthermore, the study indicated that professionals are less sensitive to empowerment initiatives than are clerks.