Edwards revisited: Technical control in call centres

Call centres represent a new strategy by capital to reduce unit labour costs. While this strategy has been applied to many different types of work, it is particularly successful in cutting costs in routine interactive service encounters. Telebank, the case study research site, is one of four integrated call centres throughout the UK. Data collection includes taped semi-structured interviews with customer service representatives and managers as well as non-participant observation of recruitment, training and the labour process. This article argues that management has developed a new form of structural control. Theoretically this draws heavily on Edwards's concept of technical control, but not only is this shown to be extended and modified, it is also combined with bureaucratic control, which influences the social structure of the workplace. Contrary to Edwards such systems are not distinct; rather they are blended together in the process of institutionalizing control. Part of the rationale for this is to camouflage control, to contain conflict by making control a product of the system rather than involving direct confrontation between management and workers. Despite such attempts the struggle for transforming labour power into profitable labour remains, and the article ends by exploring confrontation between workers and managers and worker agency more generally

Orienting the work-based curriculum towards work process knowledge: a rationale and a German case study

First paragraph: The term 'work process knowledge' refers to the knowledge needed for working in flexible and innovative business environments, including those in which information and communication technologies have been introduced to integrate previously separated production functions. It involves a systems-level understanding of the work process in the organization as a whole, enabling employees to understand how their own actions interconnect with actions being taken elsewhere in the system. Work process knowledge is 'active' knowledge that is used directly in the performance of work, and is typically constructed by employees when they are solving problems in the workplace. It is more than simple know-how because constructing it involves synthesizing knowhow with theoretical understanding. The paper outlines principles for constructing a work-based curriculum when work process knowledge is a desired outcome. These are illustrated by a case study of a vocational curriculum currently being adopted by a leading volume car manufacturer in Germany. The key features of this approach areÐusing a model of the work process as the curriculum framework, co-producing (and co-delivering) the curriculum using integrated teams of staff from the vocational school and the workplace, and fusing the different knowledge resources of the vocational school and the workplace into a single activity system