The paper seeks to show the contextualisation of call centres as a work‐specific ethnographically and culturally based community, which, in turn, influences pedagogical practices…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper seeks to show the contextualisation of call centres as a work‐specific ethnographically and culturally based community, which, in turn, influences pedagogical practices through the encoding and decoding of cultural texts in relation to two logics: cost‐efficiency and customer‐orientation.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper includes a qualitative, interpretive research‐based case study involving three Australian incoming customer service call centres and seven call centre managers.
Findings
The paper finds cultural texts with high management structure and control and low workplace socialisation and semiotic literacy favour constructions of meaning which prioritise qualitative (customer‐orientated logic) performance by a customer service representative (CSR) at early cultural junctures. This position subsequently transitions to favour the prioritisation of quantitative (cost‐efficient logic) performance as the CSR progresses. The shift occurs through a process of relayered knowledge constructs wherein a corresponding reduction in management control and structure of the texts is counter‐balanced by an increase in workplace socialisation and semiotic literacy.
Practical implications
The paper includes enriched understandings of call centre contextuality and shows that fresh perspectives on contextually influenced pedagogical practices have the potential to direct and harness more informed approaches to call centre teaching and learning, particularly in relation to the logics of cost‐efficiency and customer‐orientation.
Originality/value
A thought‐provoking paper for call centre managers and human resource learning and development professionals which foregrounds the concepts of work‐specific ethnographic community, cultural texts, encoding and decoding, socialisation and semiotic literacy as influential workplace teaching and learning conduits.
Details
Keywords
Lalita A. Manrai, Ajay K. Manrai and Stefanie Friedeborn
The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of the literature and develop a model of the determinants, indicators and effects of destination competitiveness…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of the literature and develop a model of the determinants, indicators and effects of destination competitiveness (DC), as well as several propositions.
Design/methodology/approach
This study thoroughly reviewed extant literature to develop a conceptual model and propositions.
Findings
Two key findings are listed below. First, 12 different environmental factors are identified and 12 propositions are developed linking these environmental factors to DC. Second, a new indicator of DC is developed, namely, Tourism Attractions-Basics-Context (TABC) model. The TABC model is simple and directly taps into the benefits tourists seek in a destination.
Research limitations/implications
Directions for future research are discussed in detail in the paper.
Practical implications
Managerial implications are discussed in detail in the paper.
Originality/value
The extant research on the topic of DC has been rather fragmented and incomplete in scope. The research presented in this paper addresses these limitations.
Details
Keywords
Patricia Fosh, Huw Morris, Roderick Martin, Paul Smith and Roger Undy
Since 1979, the Conservative government in the UK has introducedwide‐ranging and detailed regulations for the conduct of union internalaffairs; a number of other Western…
Abstract
Since 1979, the Conservative government in the UK has introduced wide‐ranging and detailed regulations for the conduct of union internal affairs; a number of other Western industrialized countries have not done so (or have not done so to the same extent) but have continued their tradition of relying on unions themselves to establish democratic procedures. Alternative views of the role of the state in industrial relations underlie these differences. A second, linked article, appearing in Employee Relations (Vol. 15 No. 4), examines state approaches to union autonomy in the context of attitudes towards other controls on union activities and attempts to explain the successive shifts in British policy in the UK since the 1960s.
Details
Keywords
This chapter engages cosmopolitan and feminist paradigms of knowledge production through their shared ethics of social justice, equality, and diversity, promoting integration into…
Abstract
This chapter engages cosmopolitan and feminist paradigms of knowledge production through their shared ethics of social justice, equality, and diversity, promoting integration into an emerging postdisciplinary focus on embodied cosmopolitanism(s) as a promising way forward in tourism studies. Cosmopolitan paradigms theorize the dialectics of cultural diversity and universal rights, while feminist cosmopolitanism focuses on gender and sexuality equality and difference within this intersection. An embodied approach combines work on “the body” and “situated embodiment” with the cosmopolitan to embrace all human differences and acknowledge that the researchers’ own embodied cosmopolitanism affects research questions, ethics, and praxis toward transformation in research communities and the academy.
Details
Keywords
Amber Gove and Margaret M. Dubeck
In the more than quarter century since commitments were made under Education for All, low- and middle-income countries have made considerable progress in ensuring that more…
Abstract
In the more than quarter century since commitments were made under Education for All, low- and middle-income countries have made considerable progress in ensuring that more students are enrolled in and completing primary schooling. However, despite lofty promises to improve literacy and numeracy for all, UNESCO estimates that more than 250 million children are not learning the basics. Currently, a limited number of practitioners and policy makers have access to information on how well students are learning to read and perform basic math. As access to technology and globalization continues to expand, we expect increased demand for and democratization of information on student learning, particularly in the Global South.
This chapter describes the influence of reading assessments at the child level on the focus on quality education in low-resourced contexts. Over the past decade, child-level assessment data have contributed to modifications in classroom instruction, teacher support, community engagement, and language policy. These data have led to the refinement of additional child-level and classroom-based assessments to inform and reflect context. Ultimately, the initial questions about child-level learning have facilitated successive improvements in understanding and bettering the results. This chapter suggests a prospective direction that the international education community should take to continue improving child outcomes.
Details
Keywords
This paper focuses on the strategic role of elites in managing institutional and organizational change within English public services, framed by the wider ideological and…
Abstract
This paper focuses on the strategic role of elites in managing institutional and organizational change within English public services, framed by the wider ideological and political context of neo-liberalism and its pervasive impact on the social and economic order over recent decades. It also highlights the unintended consequences of this elite-driven programme of institutional reform as realized in the emergence of hybridized regimes of ‘polyarchic governance’ and the innovative discursive and organizational technologies on which they depend. Within the latter, ‘leaderism’ is identified as a hegemonic ‘discursive imaginary’ that has the potential to connect selected marketization and market control elements of new public management (NPM), network governance, and visionary and shared leadership practices that ‘make the hybrid happen’ in public services reform.