Re-organising Service Work

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.

1: Re-Organising Customer Service Work: An Introduction; 1: Institutions and Contexts: The Making of an Industry?; 2: Call Centres: Constructing Flexibility; 3: Consolidation, 'Cowboys' and the Developing Employment Relationship in British, Dutch and US Call Centres; 4: Call Centres in Germany: Employment, Training and Job Design; 5: Call Centres as Organisational Crystallisation of New Labour Relations, Working Conditions and a New Service Culture?; II: Rationalisation, Skills and Control; 6: Skill Formation in Call Centres; 7: Capitalising on Femininity: Gender and the Utilisation of Social Skills in Telephone Call Centres; 8: Call Centres and the Contradictions of the Flexible Bureaucracy; III: Customer Service Work and Interaction; 9: Call Centre Consumption and the Enchanting Myth of Customer Sovereignty 1; 10: Quality Time and the 'Beautiful Call' 1; 11: Co-Production in Call Centres: The Workers' and Customers' Contribution