Researching call centres: gathering results and theories

Abstract

"The paper looks at current British and German call centre research in the light of its contributions to the issues of skill and control which are central in labour process theory. What has indeed been learned or can be learned from empirical research? After outlining a rough typology of call centre research, we present an overview of results and theories and show how the diverse and controversial perspectives can be combined in a fruitful way resulting in a description of call centres as hybrids of standardisation and flexibilisation. This offers some explanation but may lead to new confusion. We suggest a contextualised and process-oriented perspective for further research and suggest that the current abundance of case studies be used in a comparative way." (author's abstract)