IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/regstd/v34y2000i4p357-369.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Taking Calls to Newcastle: The Regional Implications of the Growth in Call Centres

Author

Listed:
  • Ranald Richardson
  • Vicki Belt
  • Neill Marshall

Abstract

RICHARDSON R., BELT V. and MARSHALL N. (2000) Taking calls to Newcastle: the regional implications of the growth in call centres, Reg. Studies 34, 357-369. The growth of white-collar jobs in call centres has been a significant feature of the last decade. Local and regional economic development agencies have sought to attract call centres because they are a source of new jobs, and help to ameliorate the decline in employment, especially in the manufacturing sector. This paper examines the work provided in call centres, based on a case study of North East England. Call centres are characterized by a narrow range of occupations and skills, and the work regime in them is intense. The majority of the jobs are taken by women. An assessment of the long term sustainability of call centre work also highlights threats to employment from technical developments in the industry. Nevertheless, there is some evidence of limited improvements taking place in training and work practices in call centres. RICHARDSON R., BELT V. et MARSHALL N. (2000) Faisant appel ¤ a Newcastle: les retombees regionales de la croissance des centres d'appel, Reg. Studies 34, 357-369. La croissance du nombre des employes de bureau dans les centres d'appel constitue un trait majeur des dernieres dix annees. Les agences de developpement economique locaux et regionaux ont cherche ¤ a seduire les centres d'appel parce qu'elles representent un vivier de nouveaux emplois et aident ¤ a freiner le declin de l'emploi, surtout dans l'industrie. A partir d'une etude de cas realisee dans le nord-est d'Angleterre, cet article examine le travail disponible au sein des centres d'appel. Ces derniers se caracterisent par des categories socio-professionnelles et des competences peu diverses dont les cadences sont soutenues. La plupart des emplois sont occupes par des femmes. Un bilan de la perennite du travail dans les centres d'appel met l'accent sur les menaces pour l'emploi qui resultent des avancees techniques dans cette industrie. Cependant, il y a des preuves qui demontrent que les centres d'appel font des progres limites dans les domaines de la formation et des pratiques sur le lieu de travail. RICHARDSON R., BELT V. und MARSHALL N. (2000) Anruf fur Newcastle: Die Rolle der Anrufzentralen in der regionalen wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung im Nordosten Englands, Reg. Studies 34 , 357-369. Die zunehmende Beschaftigung von Angestellten in Anrufzentralen hat sich als bezeichnender Zug des letzten Jahrzehnts erwiesen. Wirtschaftsentwicklungszentren haben sich am Ort und auf regionaler Ebene bemuht, Anrufszentralen anzulocken, weil sie eine Quelle neuer Arbeitsplatze darstellen, und dazu beitragen, den Ruckgang an Erwerbtsstellen wettzumachen, besonders im herstellenden Sektor. Auf eine Studie des Falles Nordostengland gestutzt, untersucht dieser Aufsatz die Erwerbsstellen, die Anrufzentralen anbieten. Charakteristisch fur Anrufzentralen ist der beschrankte Arbeitsbereich und entsprechend geringe Facherung der Fahigkeiten, wahrend ihre Werksordnung intensive Konzentration verlagen. Stellen werden in der Mehrzahl der Falle an Frauen vergeben. Eine Beurteilung der langfristigen Dauerhaftigkeit der Erwerbsstellen in Anrufzentralen beleuchtet auch ihre Bedrohung durch technische Entwicklung innerhalb der Industrie. Nichtsdestoweniger gibt es Anzeichen, dass in Anrufzentralen begrenzte Verbesserungen in Ausbildung und Arbeitsverfahren stattfinden.

Suggested Citation

  • Ranald Richardson & Vicki Belt & Neill Marshall, 2000. "Taking Calls to Newcastle: The Regional Implications of the Growth in Call Centres," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(4), pages 357-369.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:regstd:v:34:y:2000:i:4:p:357-369
    DOI: 10.1080/00343400050078132
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00343400050078132
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00343400050078132?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. R. Richardson & J. N. MARSHALL, 1999. "Teleservices, Call Centres and Urban and Regional Development," The Service Industries Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(1), pages 96-116, January.
    2. J N Marshall & R Richardson & J Hopkins, 1999. "The Employment Implications of Civil Service Reform in the United Kingdom: National and Regional Evidence from the North East of England," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 31(5), pages 803-817, May.
    3. David Knights & Darren McCabe, 1998. "‘What Happens when the Phone goes Wild?’: Staff, Stress and Spaces for Escape in a BPR Telephone Banking Work Regime," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(2), pages 163-194, March.
    4. Ranald Richardson & Andrew Gillespie, 1996. "Advanced communications and employment creation in rural and peripheral regions: a case study of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 30(1), pages 91-110.
    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. J Howells & B Tether & F Gallouj & F Djellal & C Gallouj & K Blind & J Edler & C Hipp & F Montobbio & N Corrocher & A Macpherson & D Banach, 2004. "Innovation in Services: Issues at Stake and Trends," Working Papers halshs-01113600, HAL.
    2. Paul Bishop & Peter Gripaios & Gillian Bristow, 2003. "Determinants of Call Centre Location: Some Evidence for UK Urban Areas," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 40(13), pages 2751-2768, December.
    3. Vicki Belt & Ranald Richardson, 2005. "Social Labour, Employ ability and Social Exclusion: Pre-employment Training for Call Centre Work," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 42(2), pages 257-270, February.
    4. Thomas Hastings & Danny MacKinnon, 2017. "Re-embedding agency at the workplace scale: Workers and labour control in Glasgow call centres," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(1), pages 104-120, January.
    5. Zeenobiyah Hannif & Felicity Lamm, 2005. "When Non-Standard Work Becomes Precarious: Insights from the New Zealand Call Centre Industry," management revue - Socio-Economic Studies, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 16(3), pages 324-350.

    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. Gillian Bristow & Max Munday & Peter Gripaios, 2000. "Call Centre Growth and Location: Corporate Strategy and the Spatial Division of Labour," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 32(3), pages 519-538, March.
    2. Premilla D'Cruz & Ernesto Noronha, 2007. "Technical Call Centres," Global Business Review, International Management Institute, vol. 8(1), pages 53-67, February.
    3. Nigel Nicholson, 1999. "Seven deadly syndromes of management and organization: the view from evolutionary psychology," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(7-8), pages 411-426.
    4. Hätönen, Jussi, 2009. "Making the locational choice: A case approach to the development of a theory of offshore outsourcing and internationalization," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 61-76, March.
    5. Graf, Michael & Mudambi, Susan M., 2005. "The outsourcing of IT-enabled business processes: A conceptual model of the location decision," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 253-268, June.
    6. Harminder Battu & John Finch, 1998. "Integrating knowledge effects into university impact studies. A case study of Aberdeen University," Working Papers 98-08, Department of Economics, University of Aberdeen.
    7. Daniel Nyberg & Graham Sewell, 2014. "Collaboration, Co-operation or Collusion? Contrasting Employee Responses to Managerial Control in Three Call Centres," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 52(2), pages 308-332, June.
    8. Michael Fisher, 2004. "The Crisis of Civil Service Trade Unionism: A Case Study of Call Centre Development in a Civil Service Agency," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 18(1), pages 157-177, March.
    9. Ebru Seckin, 2011. "Capacity Building Potential Of The Call Center Sector In Turkey," ERSA conference papers ersa10p807, European Regional Science Association.
    10. D Cassidy & J Sutherland, 2008. "Going Absent, Then Just Going? A Case Study Examination of Absence and Quitting," Economic Issues Journal Articles, Economic Issues, vol. 13(2), pages 1-20, September.
    11. Danny MacKinnon, 2001. "Regulating Regional Spaces: State Agencies and the Production of Governance in the Scottish Highlands," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 33(5), pages 823-844, May.
    12. Zeenobiyah Hannif & Felicity Lamm, 2005. "When Non-Standard Work Becomes Precarious: Insights from the New Zealand Call Centre Industry," management revue - Socio-Economic Studies, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 16(3), pages 324-350.
    13. repec:asg:wpaper:1019 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Keith Townsend, 2007. "Who Has Control in Teams without Teamworking?," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 28(4), pages 622-649, November.
    15. van Geenhuizen, Marina, 2000. "Information And Communication Technology (Ict) And Regional Development: Distance Is Still Alive!," ERSA conference papers ersa00p371, European Regional Science Association.
    16. Mohsin Aziz, 2013. "Factors Causing Stress: A Study of Indian Call Centres," Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, Richtmann Publishing Ltd, vol. 2, October.
    17. 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.
    18. Ronald Mcquaid, 2002. "Entrepreneurship and ICT Industries: Support from Regional and Local Policies," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(8), pages 909-919.
    19. repec:asg:wpaper:1025 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Pierre Labardin & Antoine Fabre, 2017. "Dynamiques du contrôle social et pratiques comptables: le cas des bagnes de Guyane (1852-1867)," Post-Print hal-01907537, HAL.
    21. Alfred Kieser, 2001. "Trust as a Change Agent for Capitalism or as Ideology? A Commentary," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 12(2), pages 241-246, April.
    22. Elizabeth A. Mack & Luc Anselin & Tony H. Grubesic, 2011. "The importance of broadband provision to knowledge intensive firm location," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 3(1), pages 17-35, March.

    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:taf:regstd:v:34:y:2000:i:4:p:357-369. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CRES20 .

    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.