An Empowerment Model for Sales Managers in the Insurance Industry: The Case of Insurance Sales Representative in Razavi Khorasan Province

The main objective of this research is to identify indices and factors affecting the managers’ empowerment of insurance sales representatives and to develop these factors in the form of a model. In this study, both quantitative and qualitative approaches were used to construct the final model. In doing so, first, initial factors and indices relevant to the concept of empowerment were collected through the review of literature and then the final group consensus was achieved on each element by the modified Delphi technique and Kendall’s coefficient of concordance. The consistency and reliability of the proposed model was carried out by factor analysis and Cronbach’s alpha. The results of the present study indicated that the final model of insurance sales managers’ empowerment consists of five factors: the sense of effectiveness, self-esteem, competence, self-efficacy, and meaning. The structural equation modeling shows that the sense of effectiveness and self-esteem are highly correlated with empowerment at 95 percent confidence level. Thus, insurance representatives can develop empowerment to counteract the continuous changes through the sense of effectiveness, self-esteem, competence, self-efficacy, and meaning.