Another view expressed is by Johnson (2001, p.1435), who states that “the extension of call centre work to professional fields of work like nursing have received much attention in the academic literature”, academics, Smith et al (2008) clearly took notice of this and saw this as a notably testing arena of investigation because to be professional is to have autonomy, not regularly found in call centre work, which is usually characterised with high levels of technical control, routinization, and monitoring (Taylor and Bain, 1999). Thus, the NHS Direct case study shows evidence of autonomy and clinical responsibility retained by nurses. The researchers explained that NHS Direct involves a service sector work, where nurses are the dominant group
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They are able to override technology, as they did not let their autonomy be lowered to the highly routinized and scripted procedures placed by the CDSS, or let their practical knowledge be fragmented and made irrelevant by CAS, which all in all aid the empowerment of nurses as frontline staff in the NHS Direct (Smith et al, 2008). In addition, the case study analysis showed signs of reskilling for nurses as they placed their clinical knowledge in line with call centre technology, in order to utilize the system, and acquire new knowledge from the CDSS, as well as share new skills with their fellow nurses (Smith et al, 2008). Frenkel et al (1998) states that call centre, in general involves service work, and as proposed by Bell (1974), service work can be compared with “knowledge intensive” forms of work. Thus, rather than the nurses being limited to the codified knowledge of CAS, their knowledge and skills continued to expand, and improve in the call centre, which enabled them to reskill, as well as specialise in different tasks (Smith et al, …show more content…
Indeed, many researchers believe that technology exerts a strong influence especially in allocating service work as academics like Taylor and Bain (1999) propose that technology behind call centre work is specifically chosen since they look to enable the attainment of “an assembly line in the head”, relating with machine influenced assembly lines of industrial society, where the machines dictated the staff with highly “Taylorised” labour tasks to monopolise knowledge (Thompson and McHugh, 2009). Bain and Taylor (2000) equally believe that call centre technology represent an “electronic panopticon”, which is viewed as managerial control of the labour process, in which the power of management is made “perfect”, and focuses on quantitative and qualitative control, where the technological mediation of work procedures like call distribution, scripting, and monitoring bring about penurious and highly routinized work (Taylor and Bain, 1999). There is also the other perspective presented by Fernie and Metcalf (1997) that portrays call centre based on the Bentham’s panopticon. This theory accentuates the compelling nature of work setting described as the “electronic sweatshop” or “panoptical wired cage” (Taylor and Bain, 1999). Thus, based on these researchers’ point of views, staff are connected to IT-based services that automatically allocates work, eases
They are able to override technology, as they did not let their autonomy be lowered to the highly routinized and scripted procedures placed by the CDSS, or let their practical knowledge be fragmented and made irrelevant by CAS, which all in all aid the empowerment of nurses as frontline staff in the NHS Direct (Smith et al, 2008). In addition, the case study analysis showed signs of reskilling for nurses as they placed their clinical knowledge in line with call centre technology, in order to utilize the system, and acquire new knowledge from the CDSS, as well as share new skills with their fellow nurses (Smith et al, 2008). Frenkel et al (1998) states that call centre, in general involves service work, and as proposed by Bell (1974), service work can be compared with “knowledge intensive” forms of work. Thus, rather than the nurses being limited to the codified knowledge of CAS, their knowledge and skills continued to expand, and improve in the call centre, which enabled them to reskill, as well as specialise in different tasks (Smith et al, …show more content…
Indeed, many researchers believe that technology exerts a strong influence especially in allocating service work as academics like Taylor and Bain (1999) propose that technology behind call centre work is specifically chosen since they look to enable the attainment of “an assembly line in the head”, relating with machine influenced assembly lines of industrial society, where the machines dictated the staff with highly “Taylorised” labour tasks to monopolise knowledge (Thompson and McHugh, 2009). Bain and Taylor (2000) equally believe that call centre technology represent an “electronic panopticon”, which is viewed as managerial control of the labour process, in which the power of management is made “perfect”, and focuses on quantitative and qualitative control, where the technological mediation of work procedures like call distribution, scripting, and monitoring bring about penurious and highly routinized work (Taylor and Bain, 1999). There is also the other perspective presented by Fernie and Metcalf (1997) that portrays call centre based on the Bentham’s panopticon. This theory accentuates the compelling nature of work setting described as the “electronic sweatshop” or “panoptical wired cage” (Taylor and Bain, 1999). Thus, based on these researchers’ point of views, staff are connected to IT-based services that automatically allocates work, eases