'We have the values': Customers, control and corporate ideology in call centre operations

Abstract

This article analyses the use of normative control through recruitment, work organisation, social events, and bargaining processes within two Australian telecommunication call centres. Rather than arguing that such control reduced employees to 'self-disciplining subjects', it suggests that these control mechanisms embodied significant levels of managerial coercion and therefore attracted varying levels of resistance. © Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2004.