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Customer Cyberbullying: The Experiences of India’s International-Facing Call Centre Agents

In: Boundary Spanning Elements and the Marketing Function in Organizations

Author

Listed:
  • Premilla D’Cruz

    (IIM Ahmedabad)

  • Ernesto Noronha

    (IIM Ahmedabad)

Abstract

As boundary-spanners performing emotional labour via virtual mode in India’s international-facing call centres, agents often face abuse from their overseas customers. Such misbehaviour goes beyond aversive racism to include economic, dispositional, situational and sexual dimensions. Not only do employer organizations and clients, in pursuit of competitive advantage, adopt service level agreements that constrain employee agency in responding to customer aggression but socioideological controls, performance measures and customer feedback also pose significant limits. Agents are defenceless against these three powerful stakeholders, particularly because of the North-South dynamics within which global production networks operate. Adopting emotion-focused coping strategies to deal with their experiences, agents make pragmatic choices that further their long-term interests while maintaining their value systems. In addition to extending the workplace bullying literature through a focus on extra-organizational/external bullying, employer-driven interventions promoting ethical workplaces are suggested as means to address the issue.

Suggested Citation

  • Premilla D’Cruz & Ernesto Noronha, 2015. "Customer Cyberbullying: The Experiences of India’s International-Facing Call Centre Agents," Springer Books, in: Sunil Sahadev & Keyoor Purani & Neeru Malhotra (ed.), Boundary Spanning Elements and the Marketing Function in Organizations, edition 127, pages 9-32, Springer.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-319-13440-6_2
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-13440-6_2
    as

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