Call centres: constructing flexibility

Abstract: "The development of call centres as a flexible interface between firms and their environments has been seen as exemplary or even symptomatic of flexible capitalism (Sennett 1998). We are going to point out that they do not just stand for organisational change but also for changes of institutions towards deregulation. Employers and managers hoped for gains of flexibility, decreasing labour costs, and market gains by an expanded 24-hour-service. Surveillance and control by flexible technology would be based on clearly structured communication work. Low skill requirements would make an easy hiring and firing of employees possible. On the other side, unionists and workers representatives feared the loss of worker participation and co-determination (Mitbestimmung), a decline of working conditions not protected by collective agreements, low payment standards without bonus payment for night work and weekends, and even breaches of health and safety regulations, e.g. for on-screen work. In

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource, 19-41 S.
• Language: Englisch
• Notes: Veröffentlichungsversion ; In: Holtgrewe, Ursula (Hg.), Kerst, Christian (Hg.), Shire, Karen (Hg.): Re-organizing service work: call centres in Germany and Britain. 2002. S. 19-41

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (where): Aldershot
• (who): Ashgate
• (when): 2002
• Creator: Arzbächer, Sandra ; Holtgrewe, Ursula ; Kerst, Christian
• Contributor: Shire, Karen

Further information

• URN: urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-216732
• Rights: Open Access unbekannt; Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 15.08.2025, 7:22 AM CEST