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Book part
Publication date: 15 July 2009

Mirele Cardoso do Bonfim and Sonia Maria Guedes Gondim

This study inquires into emotion work performed by call center operators. Twelve call center operators were interviewed. Qualitative methodological strategies were utilized, where…

Abstract

This study inquires into emotion work performed by call center operators. Twelve call center operators were interviewed. Qualitative methodological strategies were utilized, where the focus of the thematic content analysis was on comprehension of the call center operator's work characteristics, the organization's display rules, and the emotional self-management strategies utilized. Two types of emotional self-management strategies were found: cognitive and behavioral. The organization acknowledged that people are not always able to handle the affective cost in relation to emotion work, offering emotional support and models concerning affective self-management strategies to be used. This organizational assistance strongly influenced the choice of strategies, for the call center operators most frequently used strategies taught by the organization. Emotion work was influenced by variables concerning the work context, factors that either favored or made the work, perceptions, evaluations, and the workers and the customers' affective states problematic. Emotion work was crucial in the call center operators' working routine, whenever the customers became aggressive, and social support made the task of displaying predominantly positive feelings less arduous.

Details

Emotions in Groups, Organizations and Cultures
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84855-655-3

Book part
Publication date: 1 June 2007

Winifred Rebecca Poster

Workplace temporalities are being reshaped under globalization. Some scholars argue that work time is becoming more flexible, de-territorializing, and even disappearing. I provide…

Abstract

Workplace temporalities are being reshaped under globalization. Some scholars argue that work time is becoming more flexible, de-territorializing, and even disappearing. I provide an alternative picture of what is happening to work time by focusing on the customer service call center industry in India. Through case studies of three firms, and interviews with 80 employees, managers, and officials, I show how this industry involves a “reversal” of work time in which organizations and their employees shift their schedules entirely to the night. Rather than liberation from time, workers experience a hyper-management, rigidification, and re-territorialization of temporalities. This temporal order pervades both the physical and virtual tasks of the job, and has consequences for workers’ health, families, future careers, and the wider community of New Delhi. I argue that this trend is prompted by capital mobility within the information economy, expansion of the service sector, and global inequalities of time, and is reflective of an emerging stratification of employment temporalities across lines of the Global North and South.

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Workplace Temporalities
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-7623-1268-9

Book part
Publication date: 3 February 2015

Sean Yarborough and Patrick T. Hester

A discussion of call center agent work selection preferences is presented in the context of what is referred to herein as the accept–avoid decision. In call centers where agents…

Abstract

A discussion of call center agent work selection preferences is presented in the context of what is referred to herein as the accept–avoid decision. In call centers where agents are given autonomy to select calls from a shared queue for work without a standard routing mechanism, it is likely that each agent uses a different set of criteria and has different preferences which influence their decision to accept a call or avoid it. In order to understand such preferences, simple heuristics are developed and implemented into an additive linear model as an example to estimate the derived utility an agent may receive from the decision to accept a call. The game theoretic implications of such decision making by a group or team of agents are also discussed to illustrate the dilemma of the universally avoided call, and how agents may compete for acceptance or avoidance of particular calls.

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Applications of Management Science
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78441-211-1

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 6 September 2019

Gao Niu, Jeyaraj Vadiveloo and Mengnong Xu

In this chapter, we consider the model of call center incoming call forecasting and staffing-level optimization. We first present the structure of the model and how an agent-based…

Abstract

In this chapter, we consider the model of call center incoming call forecasting and staffing-level optimization. We first present the structure of the model and how an agent-based modeling technique could enrich the decision rule and the model. A matrix layout is introduced to present the model so that it can be understood in an efficient way from the perspective of a programmer. The agent-based queuing model will be used in forecasting. We then utilize the bisection method and stepwise method to optimize the staff level to satisfy a target range service-level criteria. Call center management could use the model in practice for their management forecasting and optimization decision-making process in terms of how many agents they need to achieve the target business efficiency goal.

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Advances in Business and Management Forecasting
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78754-290-7

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 12 June 2017

Sarah Jenkins and Rick Delbridge

This study addresses the debate regarding employee discretion and neo-normative forms of control within interactive service work. Discretion is central to core and long-standing…

Abstract

This study addresses the debate regarding employee discretion and neo-normative forms of control within interactive service work. Discretion is central to core and long-standing debates within the sociology of work and organizations such as skill, control and job quality. Yet, despite this, the concept of discretion remains underdeveloped. We contend that changes in the nature of work, specifically in the context of interactive service work, require us to revisit classical theorizations of discretion. The paper elaborates the concept of value discretion; defined as the scope for employees to interpret the meaning of the espoused values of their organization. We illustrate how value discretion provides a foundational basis for further forms of task discretion within a customized service call-centre. The study explores the link between neo-normative forms of control and the labour process by elaborating the concept of value discretion to provide new insights into the relationship between managerial control and employee agency within contemporary service labour processes.

Details

Emerging Conceptions of Work, Management and the Labor Market
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78714-459-0

Keywords

Abstract

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Rutgers Studies in Accounting Analytics: Audit Analytics in the Financial Industry
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78743-086-0

Book part
Publication date: 29 July 2011

Martin G.A. Svensson

This chapter focuses on management of emotions in an emergency setting. More specifically, how do emergency call takers manage double-faced emotional management – i.e., their own…

Abstract

This chapter focuses on management of emotions in an emergency setting. More specifically, how do emergency call takers manage double-faced emotional management – i.e., their own and the caller's emotions – simultaneously? By triangulating interviews, observations, and organizational documentation with theories on emotional management multiple strategies were identified. The range of strategies included hiving (selecting and modifying) calls, elaborating on (by deploying attention and reshaping/reappraising) content of calls, auralizing (by externalizing an emotional barrier) as well as taming emotional expression. The set of emotional management strategies are concluded in a Heat-model. The model is further discussed in terms of performance efficiency; in terms of how emotional aspects may interfere with decision-making capabilities as well as how wellbeing can be maintained for call takers.

Details

What Have We Learned? Ten Years On
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78052-208-1

Book part
Publication date: 13 August 2014

Peter Reilly

This chapter seeks to optimize HR shared services performance by highlighting the potential for service fragmentation that can arise out of in the so-called Ulrich (structure or…

Abstract

Purpose

This chapter seeks to optimize HR shared services performance by highlighting the potential for service fragmentation that can arise out of in the so-called Ulrich (structure or service delivery) model.

Design/methodology/approach

The evidence used in this chapter principally comes from the author’s own work, especially research for the UK’s Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), and draws upon academic literature where possible.

Findings

This chapter argues that HR directors should guard against three sets of fragmentation risks. Firstly, HR shared services should be properly connected to the rest of HR to offer customers an integrated service to avoid the structure’s division of labor inducing incoherence. Second, to guard against this risk, HR directors should exercise care in outsourcing/offshoring beyond individual, discrete services because contractually or spatially separating services risks exacerbating this tendency to fragmentation. Outsourcing/offshoring may focus too much on cost savings and insufficiently on quality. So, third, HR should argue for the distinctiveness of its activities and fight commoditization that is also implied in the creation of cross-functional shared service centers.

Research limitations/implications

The arguments in this chapter could be better supported by academic research. In-depth case studies of management decision making and shared services operation would help support or challenge the chapter’s conclusion, as could quantitative evidence on the benefits/disbenefits of outsourcing/offshoring/cross-functional shared services centers.

Practical implications

We have highlighted a number of reported problems with HR shared services operation, besides the three principal risks noted above, but we have suggested possible solutions that could be adopted by practitioners.

Originality/value

HR managers may find this chapter helpful in designing new HR structures or in assessing the effectiveness of shared services that goes beyond the typical key performance indicator measures.

Details

Shared Services as a New Organizational Form
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78350-536-4

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 26 August 2019

Tiffany M. Nyachae, Mary B. McVee and Fenice B. Boyd

Purpose – This chapter discusses youth participation in a Social Justice Literacy Workshop (SJLW). Participants were predominantly Black youth residing in an urban community with…

Abstract

Purpose – This chapter discusses youth participation in a Social Justice Literacy Workshop (SJLW). Participants were predominantly Black youth residing in an urban community with a rich history and important community resources such as libraries and churches. The SJLW used a variety of print texts, videos, artwork, documents, and other texts to explore the topic of police brutality and other justice-related topics.

Design/Methodology/Approach – This chapter uses the gradual release of responsibility (GRR) model as a lens to revisit the SJLW as designed and implemented by the first author Tiffany Nyachae. Nyachae designed and implemented the SJLW as space to inspire students to engage in critical thinking and analysis of authentic texts, and to use these textual interactions as an impetus for activism in their community. With the help of her co-authors, Nyachae reflects on the SJLW through a GRR lens to describe how students were scaffolded and supported as they moved toward activism.

Findings – Students brought their own understandings of police brutality and awareness of activism to the SJLW. These prior understandings were shaped both by their own lived experiences but also by their awareness of and interaction with social media. During the SJLW, youth read and discussed the novels All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely (2015) and Hush by Jacqueline Woodson (2002). The youth engaged in activities and discussions about how prevalent issues in each novel connected to larger social and political concerns. Students discussed the current events, engaged in reflective writing, read short pieces, and analyzed documents and videos. The SJLW was successful in such a way that all students felt comfortable voicing their opinions, even when opinions differed from their peers. Students demonstrated critical thinking about issues related to justice. All students completed an action plan to address injustice in their community. While applying the GRR to this context and reflecting, first author Nyachae began to consider the other scaffolds for youth that could have been included, particularly one youth, JaQuan, who was skeptical about what his community had done to support him. Nyachae revisits the SJLW to consider how the GRR helped to reveal the need for additional scaffolding that JaQuan or other youth may have needed from leaders in the SJLW. A literature review also revealed that very few literacy practices have brought together the GRR and social justice teaching or learning.

Research Limitations/Implications – This chapter demonstrates that the GRR framework can be effectively applied to a justice-centered teaching and learning context as a reflective tool. Since very little research exists on using the GRR framework with justice-centered teaching, there is a need for additional research in this area as the GRR model offers many affordances for researchers and teachers. There is also a need for literacy researchers to consider elements of justice even when applying the GRR framework to any classroom or out-of-school context with children and youth.

Practical Implications – The GRR can be a useful tool for reflecting the practices of literacy and justice-centered teaching. Just as the GRR can be a useful framework to help teachers think about teaching reading comprehension, it can be an effective tool to help teachers think about supporting students to grow from awareness to activism in justice-centered teaching and learning.

Originality/Value of Paper – This chapter is one of only a handful of published works that brings together a social justice perspective with the GRR.

Details

The Gradual Release of Responsibility in Literacy Research and Practice
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78769-447-7

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