Emotional management in a mass customised call centre: examining skill and knowledgeability in interactive service work

Abstract

Researchers have demonstrated the variety of interactive service sector work yet relatively little research has focused on the middle ground of ‘mass customised service work’. In particular, the complex character of emotional work in such workplaces remains under investigated. This article applies Bolton’s emotion management framework to a high-commitment mass customised call centre to extend understanding of the skills and content of such work. The findings show how workers produce ‘appropriate’ emotional displays informed by multiple influences beyond management prescription. The article documents the skilled emotional dexterity shown by such workers and elaborates Bolton’s framework in demonstrating the negotiated and interactive nature of emotion management. In so doing, it demonstrates the significance of heretofore largely unacknowledged skills in the work of mass customised service workers.

Employability of offshore service sector workers in the Philippines: opportunities for upward labour mobility or dead-end jobs?

“…Aside from limited attention to the diversity of tasks in the BPO sector, this opinion can be attributed to a lack of understanding of the different types of knowledge and skills needed in the various subsectors. Discussions of skills in service work generally dichotomize between two polarities: high-volume, mass markets with low-skilled and routinized interactive service work at one end and high-value operations which require skilled, professional knowledge workers at the other (Jenkins et al, 2010). The variety of tasks and new service lines emerging require a skills-based perspective towards BPO work that concentrates on the knowledge and skills acquired during employment.…”

“…The returns of career advancement in the BPO sector were the higher-level generic skills acquired during employment. These skills of BPO workers were often unacknowledged (see Jenkins et al, 2010;Lloyd and Payne, 2009) but provided a crucial input for workers' future employability. Upadhya (2009) asserts that high inter-firm mobility and attrition within BPO clusters empowers employees to manoeuvre in a career-minded fashion through this segment of Table 4.…”

Emotion management as struggle in dirty work: the experiences of exotic dancers

“…We do this by integrating dirty work and stigma management strategies with Pratt and Doucet's (2000) emotional responses (or strategies) to ambivalence. Moreover, we build upon Bolton's (2000aBolton's ( , 2000bBolton's ( , 2009) and Jenkins, Delbridge and Roberts' (2010) work on the different and sometimes overlapping types of emotion management to focus in on the contradiction, ambiguity and ambivalence inherent in processes of emotion management. Finally, we contribute to the exotic dancing and more broadly, sex work, literature by looking closer at the cognitive processes underpinning the strategies employed by sex workers as they manage their "spoiled identities" (Goffman, 1963) and the myriad of emotions they experience.…”

Les antécédents de l’expression d’émotions dans un centre d’appels

“…Des marges de manoeuvre existent (Knights et Mc Cake, 1998;Cousin, 2002;Buscatto, 2002), d'autant que, grâce à l'action des syndicats, les salariés savent souvent quand ils sont écoutés par leur manager (Taylor et Bain, 1999;Korczynski, 2003). Les téléconseillers ont une certaine autonomie -valorisée parfois par les dirigeants (Jenkins, Delbridge et Roberts, 2010) -, choisissant selon les situations l'implication ou la distanciation (Grosjean et Ribert-Van de Weerdt, 2005;Marcoux, 2010). Ils peuvent adopter volontairement une attitude positive vis-à-vis des clients, allant au-delà des prescriptions, offrant une attention désintéressée qui donne du sens à leur travail et de l'autonomie (Bolton et Boyd, 2003;Bolton, 2009;Curley et Royle, 2013).…”

“…L'exigence de maîtrise des émotions peut être plus ou moins contraignante selon la structure sociale (Hochschild, 1979). Or, il semble que les normes de comportement diffèrent selon les types de centres d'appels (Pichault et Zune, 2000;Taylor et Bain, 2003;Korczynski, 2003;Jenkins, Delbridge et Roberts, 2010). L'exigence de maîtrise des émotions exprimées par les salariés à l'endroit des clients peut ainsi être plus ou moins contraignante.…”