This thesis explores and explains customer-service work in contact-centre environments of different national origin} size, and sector in Greece, It has a pragmatist philosophical orientation and stands on a methodologically pluralist position that is framed with a case-study design, Evidence is drawn from six contact-centres in the Greek telecommunications and insurance sectors, Analysis takes places at three levels (country) sector, company) with the aid of a hybrid institutional framework that merges macro and micro theories and concepts of labour management, This is supplemented by within-case analyses and cross-case comparisons, which provide examinations of the ways in which contact-centre work is managed and organised in the case-studies in line with justifications for the observed findings, The research findings extend and challenge some of the existing accounts in the contact-centre literature, The study illuminates the functioning of industrial-employment and work-social relations, It suggests that voice-to-voice work can be visualised in a high-low commitment' management and high discretion rubric under certain circumstances. To this end} the exploratory aim of the thesis induced the descriptive and prescriptive 'neo-professional model' of management and organisation of customer-service work. The explanatory part of the research pointed to three sets of effects (macro; national/pan-national, meso: sector, micro: company) on the management and organisation of contact-centre work. These effects are captured in the 'contact-centre diffusion framework', which derived from a deductive~ inductive analytical reasoning. Macro and meso effects were also found to pose barriers to the forward diffusion of certain policies and practices in the foreign-owned case-studies. In specific, the results stress the significance of the host-country's background and proximate institutions in the transfer of employment, industrial, and work relations in multinational subsidiaries. At theoretical level, the thesis contributes to a number of disciplines, most notably the emerging field of international contact-centre work. At practical level, the study offers an understanding to organisational stakeholders on the management and organisation of customer-service work in one European Mediterranean country, where both cross-border diffusion and contact-centre research is underdeveloped.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:699678 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Koskina, Aikaterini |
| Publisher | Keele University |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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