Re-organising Service Work Call Centres in Germany and Britain

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Synopsis

This title was first published in 2002. Call centres are a type of service work that stand at the interface between corporations and consumers. They exemplify more general tendencies present within service work. They also have a particular public image - being associated in the public mind with low skilled and regimented work. This volume presents contributions from British and German management academics and industrial sociologists based on primary research on call centres in both countries. The contributions cover the genesis and development of call centres as a new form of organization, or indeed a new industry; the rationalization and control strategies of organizations that establish call centres; and the nature of service work and service interactions. The findings of this volume challenge the common public image of call centres and finds that call centre employment is in fact very diverse. So, for example, skilled advising and consulting services are often performed over the phone. Along with the sometimes skilled nature of call centre work, work organization and working conditions vary as well. The text also seeks to contrast the British and German experience of call centre work and employment. In Germany clerical work has traditionally been embedded in the specific traditions of co-operative industrial relations that define the German model. Call centres present a strategic challenge to this model, and the expansion of call centres has been at the forefront of changes aimed at making employment more flexible in Germany. This work offers a choice of country cases, which permit a comparison of service employment within both a liberal capitalist and a socially embedded economy.

Book details

Author:
Karen A. Shire, Ursula Holtgrewe, Christian Kerst
ISBN:
9781351765176
Related ISBNs:
9781138718432, 9781315195810, 9781138718418
Publisher:
Taylor and Francis
Pages:
244
Reading age:
Not specified
Includes images:
No
Date of addition:
2023-10-02
Usage restrictions:
Copyright
Copyright date:
2002
Copyright by:
Ursula Holtgrewe, Christian Kerst and Karen Shire 
Adult content:
No
Language:
English
Categories:
Nonfiction, Social Studies, Sociology