This thesis compares women with disabilities and employers' perspectives on service work in Hamilton, Ontario in order to further understand the experiences of disabled women in contemporary service employment. Positive and negative experiences from the women interviewed are assessed and compared to employers' perspectives on hiring and working with disabled workers in the service sector. With the recent restructuring of the welfare state, more disabled-people are being encouraged to enter the paid workforce by the state. This situation is problematic because there are indications that enduring barriers to employment continue to exist, and the restructuring of the service sector raises questions concerning the types of work people with disabilities are being hired for. Evidence from this thesis suggests that there is often a fundamental disconnect between what many employers are looking for in a worker and what the women interviewed were able to offer while at work. It can be suggested that "} both data sets point to the enduring norms of able-bodiedness in the workplace. This study suggests that the women are not always able to approximate what the employers construct as the ideal worker, however the women have created various coping strategies in order to best approximate the ideal. The type of emotional, embodied work that is required by the majority of the employers in the service sector can be physically and emotionally draining for women with disabilities. This research also suggests that different bodies experience different outcomes in different situations. The women interviewed made it clear that they experience their bodies differently at work than they would at home, because of the demanding nature of service work and the performative, emotional nature of their work. The research conducted in this thesis responds to the absence of studies comparing the perspectives of both women with disabilities experiences and employers perspectives on service work. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

This paper aim to give a new perspective to science about service worker and their difficult situation between the organization and the customer. By using Goffman´s theories about how we act and define ourselves by others I hope to give a new dimension to understand what happens in the meeting between a customer and a service-worker. The essay is based on a category of service-worker called “servicerådgivare”. They are the ones who are between the car owner and the mechanics. Their job is to receive the cars in the morning and inform the customer of what has been done at the end of the day. During this process they are supposed to satisfy the customer while following the instructions from the organization, which leads to a tricky middle position. Theories about how people act and establish different faces are used to understand how the service worker always have to change face to different customers. It also discusses how a person can feel when being told to do one thing (by the company) and morally feel like doing another thing to satisfy the customer. Some researchers claim that this could make them feel bad and that working with customers all day may lead to social exhaustion. Trying to increase the understanding for people working in service work interviews and observations where used to form the material and the basis for my final discussion. Some comments from customers are also used to see what expectations they have on the service worker. The founding’s in this study is that “servicerådgivarna” have a hard time trying to balance between the organizational demands and the customer´s expectations. Many time lacks of resources are the biggest trouble and makes them improvise, which some finds satisfying but most of them are felling stressed and insufficient.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, School of Social Services Administration, June 1999. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

This dissertation examines the intersections of the body, senses, and labor within a Post-Fordist, consumption based economy. Data was collected via ethnographic research of specialty coffee baristas. The concepts of “sense work,” “taste frameworks,” and “minimum wage connoisseurship” are introduced for identifying the social components of sensory experience. The specialty coffee industry serves as one examples of a larger “taste economy.” This research demonstrates how sensory experience can fall under management control and aid in the development of a new, niche “consumer market” (Otis 2011), characteristic of Post-Fordism. Additionally, an examination of the boundary work and identity formation within the specialty coffee industry provides new insights into how the body and the senses are implicated in the production and reproduction of class inequality.

The focus of this study is dignity in low status service work. Using labels such as bad jobs, McJobs and dirty work, these jobs have been described as low-skilled, low-paid, monotonous and physically demanding with lack of voice and no job security. Research on dignity at work is especially relevant in a time when different ambitions for more dignified work, initiated by political parties as well as unions, tend to be forgotten or down-prioritized. This study investigates what conditions are preventing dignity among low status service workers and how they create and maintain dignity for themselves. What briefly has been found is that dignity can be prevented by unreasonable demands, constant control, exposed work and mismanagement. Moreover, customerprerogative can prevent dignity when employees are being mistreated by disrespectful customers. Dignity is also hindered by frightening customers, especially in the case of sexual harassment, threats and violence. In this study theories about working conditions and professional status are brought together to explain experiences of dignity at work. Service workers do not only have managers to deal with, but also customers whose treatment is reflected by the status of the service occupation. Besides, working conditions and professional status are two mechanisms acting together when it comes to experiences of dignity at work and may thus result in double tensions in daily work.   Acts for dignity, meaning different ways in which the service workers create and maintain dignity for themselves, are reactions to the obstacles to dignity at work. Three different categories of acts for dignity can be found. The identity-bolstering acts help the workers maintain their professional identity or self-image when it is threatened by different obstacles to dignity. The justifying acts mean that the workers legitimize different obstacles to dignity. Finally, the compensating acts help the workers to even out different obstacles to dignity. / I denna studie fokuseras värdighet i serviceyrken längst ner i statushierarkin. De anställda behöver här hantera påfrestande arbetsförhållanden och brist på inflytande, men också servicemöten där kunders bemötande bottnar i samhällets nedvärderande syn på lågstatusyrken. Servicearbetarnas upplevelser av värdighet sker i interaktion med såväl chef som kund och i studien sammanförs teorier om både arbetsvillkor och yrkesstatus för att förklara hur värdighet hindras i servicearbete. Trots olika hinder är servicearbetarnas strävan efter värdighet central och genom denna skapar och upprätthåller de värdighet i mötet med chef och kund. I studien presenteras tre kategorier av värdighetshandlingar. Identitetsfrämjande värdighetshandlingar hjälper den anställda att bevara sin bild av sig själv i arbetet när den hotas av olika värdighetshinder. Rättfärdigande värdighetshandlingar innebär istället att den anställda legitimerar eller förnekar olika värdighetshinder medan kompenserande värdighetshandlingar avser att väga upp för värdighetshinder. Annorlunda uttryckt kan värdighetshandlingarna beskrivas genom att de anställda skyddar sig från, omdefinierar respektive strider mot olika hinder för värdighet.

Many studies into emotional labor are constrained by a capitalist paradigm, where emotional labor is performed within corporate organizations with hierarchical divisions of labor. Using the case of Hotel BAUEN, this paper considers emotional labor in different organizational and relational context: a worker-owned and worker-recovered business in Argentina. Drawing on ethnographic observations in Hotel BAUEN, this paper shows how service work is structured in the cooperative hotel. Instead of doing emotional labor in the traditional “service triangle,” worker-owners provide services in a “cooperative dyad” without the oversight of a boss. This structural difference has both organizational and relational implications for the business. First, worker-owners provide a variety of services to a broad set of customers. Second, the processes of autogestión (self-management) rely on workers’ emotional labor to cultivate lateral workplace relations through self-management. Ultimately, within the cooperative service workplace, emotional labor functions differently than the literature would suggest. Rather than reproduce social inequalities, workers use emotional labor to generate capital and sustain an organization that seeks to reduce inequality. / text

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<p> Tidigare forskning har fokuserat på emotionellt arbete i form av bland annat "surface och deep acting", emotionell dissonans och kundinteraktioner. Denna studie ämnade besvara frågeställningen: Har ålder respektive yrkeserfarenhet samband med en SJ AB anställds grad av emotionellt arbete i kundkontakter? Urvalet bestod av 65 anställda från ett flertal SJ Resebutiker i Sverige. Resultat visade att äldre anställda och anställda med längre yrkeserfarenhet hade ett starkare samband med krav och välmående på arbetet. Detta visar att det alltså är de som klarar emotionellt arbete bättre. I denna studie hade rollagerande en stor betydelse för de anställda. En kvalitativ studie skulle eventuellt kunna ge ett annorlunda och mer komplext resultat mot vad denna kvantitativa studie gjort.</p>

Tidigare forskning har fokuserat på emotionellt arbete i form av bland annat "surface och deep acting", emotionell dissonans och kundinteraktioner. Denna studie ämnade besvara frågeställningen: Har ålder respektive yrkeserfarenhet samband med en SJ AB anställds grad av emotionellt arbete i kundkontakter? Urvalet bestod av 65 anställda från ett flertal SJ Resebutiker i Sverige. Resultat visade att äldre anställda och anställda med längre yrkeserfarenhet hade ett starkare samband med krav och välmående på arbetet. Detta visar att det alltså är de som klarar emotionellt arbete bättre. I denna studie hade rollagerande en stor betydelse för de anställda. En kvalitativ studie skulle eventuellt kunna ge ett annorlunda och mer komplext resultat mot vad denna kvantitativa studie gjort.

Apotekssektorn omreglerades 2009 och Apoteket AB miste genom detta ensamrätten till att sälja läkemedel. En ny konkurrens har för Apoteket AB bidragit till en förändrad situation som inneburit att nya krav ställts både på företaget och på dess personal. Denna studie syftar till att undersöka Apoteket ABs verksamhet, efter omregleringen av apotekssektorn, med fokus på företagets personalstyrning. Undersökningen riktar sig mot hur företaget vill att deras anställda ska arbeta för att attrahera och behålla kunder. Vidare har ändamålet varit att ta reda på företagets tillvägagångsätt för att implementera detta arbetssätt i verksamheten, samt att ta reda på hur de kontrollerar att det nya arbetssättet bibehålls. För att undersöka detta har datamaterial från sju intervjuer, tre av Apoteket ABs årsredovisningar samt tjugo rekryteringsannonser analyserats. Studiens teoretiska utgångspunkt är Hochschilds (1983) teori om emotional labor, vilken handlar om hur serviceinriktade organisationer använder sig av medarbetares känslor och emotioner som en resurs. Resultatet i studien visar att Apoteket AB har för avsikt att implementera ett mer kundorienterat arbetssätt, där användningen av emotional labor skulle kunna antas bli alltmer aktuell. Dock tyder delar av datamaterialet på att implementeringen av detta arbetssätt inte har etablerats hos samtliga apotek. / In 2009, the pharmacy sector was re-regulated and through that, Apoteket AB lost their monopoly to sell medicine. The new competition has contributed to a changed situation for Apoteket AB, which has led to new requirements on the company and their employees. This study aims to examine the organization of Apoteket AB, after the re-regulation of the pharmacy sector, focusing on the personnel management of the company. The study concentrates on how the company wants their employees to work to attract and keep customers. The purpose has also been to investigate the company’s approach to implementing this way of working in the organization, and to explore how they control that it is maintained. To examine this, data from seven interviews, three of Apoteket ABs annual reports and twenty recruitment ads have been analyzed. The theoretical base of this study is Hochschilds (1983) theory of emotional labor, which encompasses how service oriented organizations make use of employees’ feelings and emotions as a resource. The result of the study shows that Apoteket AB intends to implement a more customer oriented approach, where the use of emotional labor could be expected to become more relevant. However, parts of the data suggest that the implementation of this way of working has not fully been established at all of the pharmacies.