The effect of empowering leadership on job performance among frontline employees: does power distance orientation matter?

PurposeThe objective of this research is to investigate how empowering leadership (EL) could promote employees' knowledge sharing (KS) and innovative work behavior (IWB), which, in turn, improve their job performance (JP). Besides, the moderating role of power distance orientation (PDO) will be considered as well.Design/methodology/approachThis study employed a self-reported questionnaire from 460 frontline employees at Vietnamese commercial banks and the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) via the SmartPLS 3.0 to test the hypotheses.FindingsThe findings showed that there was a positive influence of EL on JP; this was mediated partially through KS and IWB. Additionally, the first research was the one that revealed that employees with high PDO dampened the positive effects of EL on KS and IWB.Practical implicationsThe result of this study suggests that managers should evolve EL to heighten employees' JP.Originality/valueThe findings explored correlations between a system of variables. Besides, the main results of this research also demonstrated that EL played a crucial role in KS, IWB and JP.