Decision-making rights, facilitating perception of performance indicators, and psychological empowerment: a quasi-experimental field study with call center operators

Abstract

This study reports on a quasi-experimental field study that examined individual benefits of delegating decision-making rights to call center operators. The experimental group consisted of 25 operators from an after-sales call center, who had their decision-making rights extended; for comparison purposes, we selected 20 operators from another call center of the same company as the control group, who did not change their decision rights. Compared to the control group, the experimental group showed an increase in the facilitating perception of performance indicators and psychological empowerment. In addition, part of the benefit of greater psychological empowerment caused by the higher level of decision-making rights is explained by the higher facilitating perception of performance indicators. The main practical implication of these results is that organizations seeking to increase their employees' sense of psychological empowerment can use management controls as an effective mechanism for this purpose.