Bilingual server call centres

Author(s):  
D. Stanford ◽  
W. Grassmann
Keyword(s):  
NanoEthics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamie Woodcock

AbstractDigital technology is playing an increasingly visible role in the organisation of many people’s work—as well as large parts of their lives more broadly. The concerns of emancipatory technology studies, or other critical accounts of technology, are often focused on finding alternative uses of technology. In many workplace contexts—from call centres to platform work—the imperatives of capital are deeply written into these technologies. Yet at the same time, many capitalist technologies are playing a key role facilitating emerging workers’ struggles. For example, in the case study examined here, Deliveroo drivers rely on communication technologies like WhatsApp to organise against algorithmic management. Drawing on an ongoing workers’ inquiry, this paper seeks to consider what a workerist approach to digital technology can add to these debates. The paper outlines the challenges and opportunities for a “digital workers’ inquiry,” considering how this approach combines research with organising. The argument is divided into two main parts: first, the need for inquiries in digital work and the importance of these and second, how the process of inquiry and co-research (and the methods these involve) can be adapted and refined with digital technology. By starting the critique of technology from the workplace, this paper proposes a workerist account of how technologies can be destroyed or re-appropriated, starting from a reading of workers’ struggle.


2001 ◽  
Vol 33 (8) ◽  
pp. 1371-1384 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Willis ◽  
J Neill Marshall ◽  
Ranald Richardson

The authors examine the impact of the remote delivery of financial services on the branch network of British building societies. The current phase of branch-network rationalisation in the financial sector in Europe and North America is argued in the academic literature to be the inevitable consequence of the growth of electronic and telemediated forms of delivery of financial services. In the British building society sector, despite some evidence of branch closure as the use of the Internet and telephone call centres in the delivery of financial services has grown, the picture that emerges is of a dynamic branch network that is responding to changing customer demands and new technological possibilities. Face-to-face advice and discussions between customers and trained ‘experts’ remain an important part of the mortgage transaction. In the savings market, where products have become more commodified, telephone call centres and, more recently, the Internet have become more prominent, but institutions still rely heavily on the branch network to deliver services. The authors suggest that, although there have been changes in the relative importance of different distribution channels as sources of business in the financial sector, it is wrong to view these changes in terms of a simple branch-versus-direct dichotomy. A more complex picture is presented, with most institutions adopting a multichannel approach to the delivery of financial services, and electronic forms of delivery of financial services being developed as an additional delivery channel alongside the branch.


2010 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 181-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen J. Deery ◽  
Roderick D. Iverson ◽  
Janet T. Walsh

2011 ◽  
Vol 64 (10) ◽  
pp. 1291-1319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dora Scholarios ◽  
Phil Taylor
Keyword(s):  

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document