IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v23y2009i4p617-634.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

‘Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing’

Author

Listed:
  • Caroline Lloyd

    (SKOPE, Cardiff University, lloydc4@cardiff.ac.uk)

  • Jonathan Payne

    (SKOPE, Cardiff University, paynej3@cardiff.ac.uk)

Abstract

A current theme within debates over interactive service work is that many routine service jobs are ‘skilled’ because they require workers to perform ‘emotion work’ and ‘articulation work’. Drawing upon workers’ views of their skills in two mass market call centres in the UK, the article questions the use and validity of these new skill concepts. It is argued that these concepts overplay the amount of task variation, discretion and control available to workers. Even more problematic is the tendency to equate skill with the ability to cope with badly designed jobs and stressful working conditions.The findings suggest that there is a need for a thorough debate about what is meant by a ‘skilled job’ in an expanding service-based economy.

Suggested Citation

  • Caroline Lloyd & Jonathan Payne, 2009. "‘Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing’," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 23(4), pages 617-634, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:23:y:2009:i:4:p:617-634
    DOI: 10.1177/0950017009344863
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0950017009344863
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0950017009344863?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul Thompson & Chris Warhurst & George Callaghan, 2001. "Ignorant Theory and Knowledgeable Workers: Interrogating the Connections between Knowledge, Skills and Services," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(7), pages 923-942, November.
    2. George Callaghan & Paul Thompson, 2002. "‘We Recruit Attitude’: The Selection and Shaping of Routine Call Centre Labour," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(2), pages 233-254, March.
    3. Paul Thompson & George Callaghan & Diane Broek, 2004. "Keeping Up Appearances: Recruitment, Skills and Normative Control in Call Centres," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Stephen Deery & Nicholas Kinnie (ed.), Call Centres and Human Resource Management, chapter 6, pages 129-152, Palgrave Macmillan.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Shantz, Amanda & Booth, Jonathan E., 2014. "Service employees and self-verification: the roles of occupational stigma consciousness and core self-evaluations," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 65956, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jos Gamble, 2007. "The rhetoric of the consumer and customer control in China," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 21(1), pages 7-25, March.
    2. Phil Taylor & Peter Bain, 2005. "‘India calling to the far away towns’," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 19(2), pages 261-282, June.
    3. Chris Warhurst & Paul Thompson, 2006. "Mapping knowledge in work: proxies or practices?," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 20(4), pages 787-800, December.
    4. Sarah Jenkins & Rick Delbridge & Ashley Roberts, 2010. "Emotional management in a mass customised call centre: examining skill and knowledgeability in interactive service work," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 24(3), pages 546-564, September.
    5. Sharon C. Bolton, 2009. "Getting to the heart of the emotional labour process: a reply to Brook," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 23(3), pages 549-560, September.
    6. Kate Mulholland, 2004. "Workplace resistance in an Irish call centre: slammin’, scammin’ smokin’ an’ leavin’," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 18(4), pages 709-724, December.
    7. Paul Brook, 2009. "In critical defence of ‘emotional labour’," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 23(3), pages 531-548, September.
    8. Stephen Syrett & Leandro Sepulveda, 2011. "Realising the Diversity Dividend: Population Diversity and Urban Economic Development," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 43(2), pages 487-504, February.
    9. Stephen J. Deery & Roderick D. Iverson & Janet T. Walsh, 2010. "Coping Strategies in Call Centres: Work Intensity and the Role of Co‐workers and Supervisors," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 48(1), pages 181-200, March.
    10. Johanna L Waters, 2009. "In Pursuit of Scarcity: Transnational Students, ‘Employability’, and the MBA," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 41(8), pages 1865-1883, August.
    11. Ming Guan, 2021. "Associations Between Perceptions of the Work Environment and Job Burnout Based on MIMIC Models Among 679 Knowledge Workers," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(1), pages 21582440219, March.
    12. Mieczyslaw Morawski, 2019. "The Environment of Professional Activity for the Key Knowledge Workers," Proceedings of the 14th International RAIS Conference, August 19-20, 2019 014MM, Research Association for Interdisciplinary Studies.
    13. Bazin, Yoann, 2013. "Understanding organisational gestures: Technique, aesthetics and embodiment," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 377-393.
    14. John Benson & Michelle Brown, 2007. "Knowledge workers: what keeps them committed; what turns them away," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 21(1), pages 121-141, March.
    15. Sharon C. Bolton & Carol Boyd, 2003. "Trolley Dolly or Skilled Emotion Manager? Moving on from Hochschild's Managed Heart," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 17(2), pages 289-308, June.
    16. Diane Seymour & Peter Sandiford, 2005. "Learning emotion rules in service organizations," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 19(3), pages 547-564, September.
    17. Dossani, Rafiq & Kenney, Martin, 2003. "Went for Cost, Stayed for Quality?: Moving the Back Office to India," UCAIS Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy, Working Paper Series qt0b7764tt, UCAIS Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy, UC Berkeley.
    18. Philippe Chapellier, 2009. "Choix Des Medias Et Efficacite De La Communication : Le Cas De La Relation Entre L'Expert-Comptable Et Le Dirigeant De Petite Entreprise," Post-Print halshs-00459645, HAL.
    19. Sharda, Kirti, 2011. "Back to the Drawing Board: Exploring Gestalts of Work Design in BPO Firms," IIMA Working Papers WP2011-02-04, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Research and Publication Department.
    20. Teresa Carla Oliveira, 2006. "Implicit Logic in Managerial Discourse: A Case Study in Choice of Selection Criteria," Notas Económicas, Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra, issue 23, pages 53-71, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:23:y:2009:i:4:p:617-634. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.