The importance of customer service is widely emphasized in business today. This book offers the first comprehensive analysis of the organization and dynamics of front-line work. The volume is based on a four-year study of over a thousand employees and eight leading companies in the United States, Australia, and Japan. On the Front Line reveals similarities and differences found in work environments—such as variance in authority relations and division of labor—as well as significant contrasts between management approaches used in Japan and those used in the United States and Australia. By examining how work differs among service, sales, and knowledge-based settings, it also shows how bureaucratic, entrepreneurial, and network forms of organization coexist in the informational economy.This seminal analysis of work in the service sector offers both a benchmark for consultants working with customer-contact organizations and valuable information for anyone concerned with the changing nature of work.
Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND license. This book offers a theory of trafficking and modern slavery with implications for policy. Despite economic development, modern slavery persists all around the world. The issue is not only one of crime but the regulation of the economy, better welfare, and social protections. Going beyond polarized debates on the sex trade, an original empirical analysis shows the importance of profit-taking. Although individual experience matters, the root causes lie in intersecting regimes of inequality of gender regimes, capitalism, and the legacies of colonialism. This book shows the importance of coercion and the societal complexities that perpetuate modern slavery.
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. This volume presents contributions from British and German management academics and industrial sociologists based on primary research on call centres in both countries. The contributions cover the genesis and development of call centres as a new form of organization, or indeed a new industry; the rationalization and control strategies of organizations that establish call centres; and the nature of service work and service interactions. The findings of this volume challenge the common public image of call centres and finds that call centre employment is in fact very diverse. So, for example, skilled advising and consulting services are often performed over the phone. Along with the sometimes skilled nature of call centre work, work organization and working conditions vary as well. The text also seeks to contrast the British and German experience of call centre work and employment. In Germany clerical work has traditionally been embedded in the specific traditions of co-operative industrial relations that define the German model. Call centres present a strategic challenge to this model, and the expansion of call centres has been at the forefront of changes aimed at making employment more flexible in Germany. This work offers a choice of country cases, which permit a comparison of service employment within both a liberal capitalist and a socially embedded economy.
This book offers a theory of trafficking and modern slavery with implications for policy. Going beyond polarised debates on the sex trade, this book shows the importance of coercion and the societal complexities that perpetuate modern slavery.
Karen F. Stein University of Rhode Island, Kingston, USA Rachel Carson is the twentieth century’s most significant environmentalist. Her books about the sea blend science and poetry as they invite readers to share her celebration of the ocean’s wonders. Silent Spring, her graphic and compelling exposé of the damage caused by the widespread aerial spraying of persistent organic pesticides such as DDT, opened our eyes to the interconnectedness of all living beings and the ecological systems we inhabit. Carson’s work challenges our belief that science and technology can control the natural world, asks us to recognize our place in the world around us, and inspires us to treat the earth respectfully. She calls us to rekindle our sense of wonder at nature’s power and beauty, and to tread lightly on the earth so that it will continue to sustain us and our descendants. This book guides readers on a journey through Carson’s life and work, considers Carson’s legacies, and points to some of the continuing challenges to sustainability. It provides a listing of resources for reading, learning, or teaching about the environment, about nature writing, and about Carson and the crucial issues she addressed.
SHIFT HAPPENS: A MEMOIR IN SHORT STORIES is a compilation of short, to-the-point essays that take a look at a courageous, creative, and irreverent life. From Karen White: "In most of my stories I find myself humbled and perplexed by the world and my experiences. At times those experiences have got the better of me. Sometimes, though, I've found myself encouraged by the surprises that life sent my way.
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.