This article draws on fieldwork conducted with nurses in two sites of NHS Direct, the English tele-nursing service.Theoretically it has two objectives. Firstly to examine a group of professional workers in order to show how the discourse of work transformation associated with the call centre paradigm interacts in a non-mass, non-commercial public sector setting where workers remain attached to their occupational identity and institutional community which mediate call centre values and rationalities. In relation to this objective, the article shows how call centre values inform NHS Direct but do not produce the same outcomes as in commercial settings. Secondly, the article establishes that nurses, as knowledgeable actors, can control, manipulate and create knowledge, without having their autonomy subordinated to the clinical software they are required to use.The article contributes to the labour process approach of call centre working and debates on knowledge management in the workplace.

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Popular images of teleworkers' autonomy, such as 'the electronic cottage', give unrealistic pictures of the control exercised over teleworkers, particularly when these are call centre operators and highly integrated information and communication technology systems facilitate pervasive forms of control. However, this study of Italian home-located call centre operators demonstrates that extensive and multifaceted monitoring practices cannot 'solve' the controversial issue of control. IntroductionThis research draws on both call centres and teleworking literature and attempts to investigate the role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in controlling Italian home-located call centre operators and how these technological devices are complemented with other managerial practices. The study is based on an Italian telecommunication company, which provides directory enquires and has recently introduced teleworking among its call centre operators.The main research questions are: What is the role of electronic monitoring for controlling Italian home-located call-centres operators? Why electronic monitoring cannot be the only device for exercising control? How home-located operators and managers react teleworking? What are the most relevant issues regarding control exercised from a distance?The paper is structured as follows: first, there will be a discussion on relevant literature about call centres and teleworking; this will be followed by a short summary of the background and methodology of the study; after that, there will be a data section which is followed by conclusions and implications.

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to assess whether tele‐nursing in Scotland (NHS24), when compared with traditional face‐to‐face nursing, facilitates greater employee control over working time and therefore a potentially better work‐life balance.Design/methodology/approachThe article draws on evidence from two independent research projects; a survey of 64 ward nurses and midwives, which involved face‐to‐face interviews; and a field study of tele‐nursing in a large site in Scotland, using interviews and observations of 15 nurse advisors or tele‐nurses.FindingsThree elements of work organisation are central in shaping nurses' working hours and their control over the balance between their work and their home life: the management of working hours; the degree of mutual dependency of nurses within teams; and the nature of patient care.Research limitations/implicationsThe two pieces of research reported offer a strong basis for comparative study. However, the two projects were designed independently, though research questions overlapped and one researcher conducted the field work in both settings; there is an imbalance in the number of interviews conducted in each setting; and the nurse advisor interviewees are of the same clinical grade, whereas a variety of grades and clinical areas are represented among the hospital nurse interviewees.Originality/valueThis is the first study of work‐life balance amongst tele‐nurses. The research demonstrates that call centre work has rationalised, depersonalised and yet enabled more “control” by nurses over their work‐life balance, while paradoxically offering less autonomy in their task environment. In conventional work settings professional values make it difficult for nurses to disengage from the workplace.

This paper explores the interpretive negotiation of professional values by nurses working in a large public-sector organisation in the UK, namely the NHS Direct (NHSD). Reported are findings from a number of case studies of NHSD, undertaken inresponse to calls for more research into so-called professional call centre settings.

By applying the lenses of institutional work, this study presents an empirical analysis on how agents create and manage a hybrid virtual organization to provide an innovative solution to the problem of the lack of occupational health (OH) services among small businesses. We specifically focus on how these actors exploit and balance the prescriptions of different logics within this hybrid organization. Our qualitative study showed that the funders manage this virtual social enterprise through two main strategies: ‘commitment to the social mission’ and ‘support for the social mission’. The first strategy shows how the social mission helped a diverse group of funders and employees to work together as a team. The second strategy assists these actors to grant the maintenance and justify the existence of this novel organization, which provides immense societal benefits but could not support itself financially. This article shows how a hybrid organizations’ capacity for innovation and societal advantages depends on the ability to rely on multiple logics and simultaneously to shift the attention on the social mission as a catalytic force for its survival.

Although there have been many studies of low skilled call centre operators, research on professional workers in call centres is less common and cross-national research on such operations even rarer. This article compares the labour process experiences of tele-nurses -registered nurses in call centre settings -across three countries: the UK, Australia and Sweden. Using cross-national, comparative ethnographies, through a system, society and dominance (SSD) approach, the article explores the common problems tele-nurses face as well as distinctive societal differences in the ways in which this branch of e-health care is being established. The outcomes reveal both societal diversity and mounting pressures towards a globalizing conformity between the three countries with regard to the working practices of tele-nursing. The findings have important implications for whether or not a professional project can be developed around tele-health care.

Purpose -This paper aims to explore the introduction of teamwork in two health call centres, NHS Direct and NHS24, and intervenes in the emergent debate over teamwork in call centres. Although within the call centre work environment there is no obvious functional rationale for teamwork, teams can be "accounted for" with reference to other purposes, including performance management, normative control, governmentality and institutional isomorphism/management fads. This research provides additional explanations for the use of teamwork in such an adverse work environment. Design/methodology/approach -The paper is based on qualitative data (interviews and non-participant observations) from NHS Direct and NHS24, the English and Scottish tele-nursing organisations in the UK. Findings -In the two tele-nursing case studies analysed, teamwork was introduced as an expression of managers' aspirations to emulate private sector practices and to reinforce new public management ideals. However, informal teamwork, which cut across organisationally prescribed forms, provided both emotional support and spontaneous knowledge sharing among nurses. Originality/value -This is an innovative study because teamwork has not been thoroughly explored in a health call centre environment.