Improvisational choreography in teleservice work Export

@article{WhalenWhalenHenderson2002, abstract = {This naturalistic study of the ordinary work practice of sales representatives employed by the call centre of a large office-equipment company focuses on the actions of those sales reps during their calls with customers. We show how this work performance is organized through an improvisational choreography of action involving not only the turn-by-turn interchange with customers on the telephone but also the concurrent utilization of a variety of tools and artefacts. While 'improvise' and 'choreograph' may appear to be conceptually incongruent, our analysis demonstrates that even though these teleservice workers recurrently fabricate their actions out of materials and means that are conveniently on hand, the convenience is often carefully arranged to afford such extemporaneous composition. Finally, we conclude from this analysis that the traditional topics of 'work routines' and 'routinization' need to be respecified in order to take into account how any 'routine' is a contingently produced result (and in this centre, a craft-like performance).}, author = {Whalen, J. and Whalen, M. and Henderson, K.}, citeulike-article-id = {2452248}, journal = {British Journal of Sociology}, keywords = {call, centre, ethnography, sales, teleservice, tml-project, work, workplace}, number = {2}, pages = {239--258}, posted-at = {2008-03-01 16:08:42}, priority = {0}, title = {Improvisational choreography in teleservice work}, volume = {53}, year = {2002} }

TY - JOUR ID - WhalenWhalenHenderson2002 L3 - citeulike-article-id:2452248 N2 - This naturalistic study of the ordinary work practice of sales representatives employed by the call centre of a large office-equipment company focuses on the actions of those sales reps during their calls with customers. We show how this work performance is organized through an improvisational choreography of action involving not only the turn-by-turn interchange with customers on the telephone but also the concurrent utilization of a variety of tools and artefacts. While 'improvise' and 'choreograph' may appear to be conceptually incongruent, our analysis demonstrates that even though these teleservice workers recurrently fabricate their actions out of materials and means that are conveniently on hand, the convenience is often carefully arranged to afford such extemporaneous composition. Finally, we conclude from this analysis that the traditional topics of 'work routines' and 'routinization' need to be respecified in order to take into account how any 'routine' is a contingently produced result (and in this centre, a craft-like performance). IS - 2 JF - British Journal of Sociology EP - 258 TI - Improvisational choreography in teleservice work VL - 53 SP - 239 KW - call KW - centre KW - ethnography KW - sales KW - teleservice KW - tml-project KW - work KW - workplace AU - Whalen, J AU - Whalen, M AU - Henderson, K PY - 2002/// ER -