The impact of the Contact Centre workplace upon employee satisfaction or wellness is attracting the attention of researchers across the globe. Over 10 years of research has resulted in recommendations about how Contact Centres should be managed and how the jobs of Contact Centre agents should be designed. There is growing concern that the current practices result in significant psychosocial risk factors which are ultimately harming the Contact Agents and less obviously the bottom line of their organisations through emotional exhaustion, stress, employee absenteeism and turnover. The aim of this study was to explore whether Contact Centre managers were aware of these recommendations, in particular those relating to the design of motivating, satisfying and “healthy” jobs. Using an expanded Job Characteristic Model, this descriptive study explored the level of awareness of New Zealand Contact Centre managers (n=20) regarding the recommendations about the design of jobs, and what changes, if any, have occurred as a result. Where changes have not been forthcoming, the study explored the constraints which were preventing or limiting change. The results of this study indicated that there is a low level of awareness of the research recommendations, that approaches to improving the management and design of Contact Centre agents roles are ad hoc, and that there is a level of resistance in providing agents with autonomy to manage their day to day roles. Some efforts to increase task and skill variety have been made but these are also ad hoc rather than built into the job. As a result of this study, it appears that Contact Centres in New Zealand are still adopting a mass production model of management. This study has implications for Contact Centre managers and senior organisational managers, these are discussed. Limitations of the research, implications for Contact Centre Managements are highlighted and areas for further research are highlighted

The concepts of e-government and e-governance are used interchangeably in most research and there is no single definition of these terms. The objective of this licentiate thesis is to provide a deeper understanding of these concepts through empirical studies in a Swedish context. Further, it aims to analyse whether – and if so in what way – the implementation of local contact centres (CC) affect conditions for local planning. This is reported in three articles. In this thesis e-government is defined to as the use of tools and systems by governmental bodies made possible by ICT that affect the organization of public administration. E-governance is defined as the ICT-based networks of services and administration in New Public Management settings including both public and private actors. Case study methodology is used as research method, including interviews, focus group studies, document studies, and some participatory observations. The analysis is partly built on an inductive methodological approach, since this is a new, emerging field of innovative policy and practice. Based on a theoretical discussion of New Public Management in the digital era, findings show that there is a difference between the concepts of e-government and e-governance from the perspective of e-administration and e-services and that the terms should not be used interchangeably. The study indicates that there are examples of implementation that are referred to the e-governance setting. Further the study indicates that local municipal contact centres may be referred to not only as an implementation of e-government but as a combination of e-governance and e-government. The findings indicate that there is a potential for positive impact on the conditions for local planning through the implementation of municipal contact centres. / <p>QC 20131111</p>