Download or read book Re organising Service Work Call Centres in Germany and Britain written by Karen A. Shire and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-29 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Developments in the Call Centre Industry written by Julia Connell and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-09-27 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past ten years there has been a massive growth in call centres worldwide. These centres are said to represent the most dynamic growth area in white-collar employment internationally since the mid 1990s. Yet the footloose and global nature of the industry means that jobs will always be susceptible to outsourced operations, ICT developments, public sector subsidization of business restructuring and re-location, and cheaper operations elsewhere. This book conducts a thorough analysis of this modern phenomenon.

Download or read book Call Centres and Human Resource Management written by S. Deery and published by Springer. This book was released on 2003-12-09 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book looks at human resource management in call centres from an international perspective and uses research from leading academics in the field. The characteristics and features of working in a call centre are examined, followed by the effects that this type of work has on employees and their responses to it. It also looks at implications for employers and policy makers.

Download or read book Linguistic Ethnography of a Multilingual Call Center written by Johanna Woydack and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-09-24 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents an innovative institutional transpositional ethnography that examines the textual trajectory of “the life of a calling script” from production by corporate management and clients to recontextualization by middle management and finally to application by agents in phone interactions. Drawing on an extensive original research it provides a behind-the-scenes view of a multilingual call center in London and critiques the archetypal modern workplace practices including extensive use of monitoring and standardization and use of low-skilled precariat labor. In doing so, it offers fresh perspectives on contemporary debates about resistance, agency, and compliance in globalized workplaces. This study will provide a valuable resource to students and scholars of management studies, communication, sociolinguistics, and linguistic anthropology.

Download or read book Rethinking Misbehavior and Resistance in Organizations written by Lucy Taksa and published by Emerald Group Publishing. This book was released on 2012-12-05 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume challenges understandings of organizational misbehavior looking beyond traditional conceptions of the nexus between misbehavior and resistance in the workplace. The volume includes a contribution from Stephen Ackroyd and adds to the emerging body of evidence that disturbs assumptions of consensus and conformity in organizations.

Download or read book Globalization Communication and the Workplace written by Gail Forey and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2010-08-26 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: >

Download or read book Rethinking Work written by Mark Hearn and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006-02-13 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This 2006 book is structured around the themes of time, space and discourse as they are applied to our working lives.

Download or read book Understanding Social Inequality written by Tim Butler and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2007-01-19 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This is a book that should be read by anyone interested in class, inequality, poverty and politics. Actually, probably more importantly it should be read by people who think that those things do not matter! It provides a wonderful summation of the huge amount of work on these topics that now exists and it also offers its own distinctive perspectives on a set of issues that are - despite the claims of some influential commentators - still central to the sociological enterprise and, indeed to political life."- Roger Burrows, University of York "A clear and compelling analysis of the dynamics of social and spatial inequality in an era of globalisation. This is an invaluable resource for students and scholars in sociology, human geography and the social sciences more generally."- Gary Bridge, University of Bristol With the declining attention paid to social class in sociology, how can we analyze continuing and pervasive socio-economic inequality? What is the impact of recent developments in sociology on how we should understand disadvantage? Moving beyond the traditional dichotomies of social theory, this book brings the study of social stratification and inequality into the 21st century. Starting with the widely agreed ′fact′ that the world is becoming more unequal, this book brings together the ′identity of displacement′ in sociology and the ′spaces of flow′ of geography to show how place has become an increasingly important focus for understanding new trends in social inquality.

Download or read book Women Identity and India s Call Centre Industry written by J.K. Tina Basi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-06-02 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction : 'a myriad of well-wishing "little sisters"' -- Globalizing India : the rise of the call centre and BPO industries -- Pinking and rethinking professional identities : the construction of women's work identities -- BTMs in BPOs : using sartorial strategies to establish patterns of identification and recognition -- Techs and the city : challenging patriarchal norms through spatial practice -- Conclusion : agency and identity.

Download or read book Gendering the Knowledge Economy written by S. Walby and published by Springer. This book was released on 2006-12-06 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Comparing the UK, US, Germany and Japan, this book draws on innovative concepts of varieties of gender regime as well as varieties of capitalism. The volume re-thinks the processes of de-gendering and re-gendering of working practices in the context of both de-regulation and re-regulation of employment.

Download or read book Engaging Superdiversity written by Karel Arnaut and published by Multilingual Matters. This book was released on 2016-12-09 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the fruition of five years’ work in exploring the idea of superdiversity. The editors argue that sociolinguistic superdiversity could be a source of inspiration to a wide range of post-structuralist, post-colonial and neo-Marxist interdisciplinary research into the potential and the limits of human cultural creativity and societal renewal under conditions of increasing and complexifying global connectivity. Through case studies of language practices in spaces understood as inherently translocal and multi-layered (classrooms and schools, youth spaces, mercantile spaces and nation-states), this book explores the relevance of superdiversity for the social and human sciences and positions it as a research perspective in sociolinguistics and beyond.

Download or read book Smiling Down the Line written by Bob Russell and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2009-01-01 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Smiling Down the Line theorizes call centre work as info-service employment and looks at the effects of ever-changing technologies on service work, its associated skills, and the ways in which it is managed.

Download or read book Crisis Movement Management Globalising Dynamics written by James Goodman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-23 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Globalised neo-liberalism has produced multiple crises – social, ecological, political. In the past, crises of global order have generated large-scale social transformations, and the current crises likewise hold a transformative promise. Social movements become a crucial barometer, in signalling both the demise and rise of political formations and programs. Elite strategies, framed as crisis management, create their own disordering side-effects. Experiments in movement strategy gain greater significance, as do contending elite efforts at repressing, managing or displacing the fall-out. In this book we investigate both movements and management in the face of crisis, taking crisis and unanticipated consequences as a normal state-of-play. The book enquires into the winners and losers from crisis, and investigates the movement-management nexus as it unfolds in particular localities as well as in broader contexts. The book deals with some of the most pressing conflicts of our time, and produces a range of theoretical insights: the ubiquity of crisis is seen as not only a hallmark of social life, but a way into a different kind of social analysis. This book was published as a special issue of Globalizations.

Download or read book Disintegrating Democracy at Work written by Virginia Doellgast and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2012-02-15 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The shift from manufacturing- to service-based economies has often been accompanied by the expansion of low-wage and insecure employment. Many consider the effects of this shift inevitable. In Disintegrating Democracy at Work, Virginia Doellgast contends that high pay and good working conditions are possible even for marginal service jobs. This outcome, however, depends on strong unions and encompassing collective bargaining institutions, which are necessary to give workers a voice in the decisions that affect the design of their jobs and the distribution of productivity gains. Doellgast’s conclusions are based on a comparative study of the changes that occurred in the organization of call center jobs in the United States and Germany following the liberalization of telecommunications markets. Based on survey data and interviews with workers, managers, and union representatives, she found that German managers more often took the "high road" than those in the United States, investing in skills and giving employees more control over their work. Doellgast traces the difference to stronger institutional supports for workplace democracy in Germany. However, these democratic structures were increasingly precarious, as managers in both countries used outsourcing strategies to move jobs to workplaces with lower pay and weaker or no union representation. Doellgast’s comparative findings show the importance of policy choices in closing off these escape routes, promoting broad access to good jobs in expanding service industries.

Download or read book New Technology Work written by Paul Boreham and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007-12-11 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New computer and communications technologies have acted as the catalyst for a revolution in the way goods are produced and services delivered, leading to profound changes in the way work is organized and the way jobs are designed. This important book examines the nature, setting and impact of new technologies on work, organization and management. Conventional debates about new technology often invoke optimistic visions of enhanced democracy, rising skills and economic abundance; others predict darker scenarios such as the destruction of jobs through labour-eliminating devices. This book proposes an alternative perspective, arguing that technology can be powerful, but in and of itself has no independent causal powers. It considers the impact of new technologies on manufacturing, clerical, administrative and call centre employment, in both managerial and professional arenas, and introduces the growing phenomena of telework. The book also assesses the important political and economic forces that restrict or facilitate the flow of new technologies on national and global levels. New Technology @ Work is an illuminating and thought-provoking text that will prove invaluable to all serious students of business, management and technology.

Download or read book Cases in Call Center Management written by Richard Feinberg and published by Purdue University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by authorities on the call center industry, this book brings to light the strategic importance of call centers in today's business world. As interactions with customers move away from person-to-person the call center is becoming a vital force for corporate marketing and communication.

Download or read book Global Call Center Employees in India written by Mayank Kumar Golpelwar and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-10-23 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mayank Kumar Golpelwar analyses why Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) units and their young employees found themselves to be the target of severe criticism from India’s middle classes. Using social and organizational psychological frameworks as well as ethnographic and variance analytic research, the author takes a look at the validity of the criticism against the BPO industry. He uses the framework of cultural theories to analyze and present the gap between the mainstream Indian culture and its rapidly emerging and globalized BPO sub-culture.