IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v24y2010i3p526-545.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Putting the process back in: rethinking service sector skill

Author

Listed:
  • Ian Hampson

    (University of New South Wales, I.Hampson@unsw.edu.au)

  • Anne Junor

    (University of New South Wales, a.junor@unsw.edu.au)

Abstract

Service skill definitions have been over-extended, by equating compliance with skill, and underdeveloped, by not recognising service jobs’ invisible social and organisational aspects. Existing approaches to determining service skill levels draw on occupational qualifications and capacity for labour market closure, on knowledge worker/ knowledgeable emotion worker dichotomies, and on the conceptual conflation of labour process deskilling, unskilled jobs and unskilled workers. The theoretical and empirical basis for a new framework identifying hitherto under-specified ‘work process skills’ is outlined. This framework allows recognition of the integrated use of awareness-shaping, relationship-shaping and coordination skills, at different levels of experience-based complexity, derived from reflexive learning and collective problem-solving in the workplace. Political struggles over the use of combinations and levels of these ‘skills of experience’ may result either in jobs designed to reduce autonomy, or in improved skill recognition and development, enhancing equity and career paths.

Suggested Citation

  • Ian Hampson & Anne Junor, 2010. "Putting the process back in: rethinking service sector skill," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 24(3), pages 526-545, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:24:y:2010:i:3:p:526-545
    DOI: 10.1177/0950017010371664
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0950017010371664
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0950017010371664?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brown, Phillip & Green, Andy & Lauder, Hugh, 2001. "High Skills: Globalization, Competitiveness, and Skill Formation," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199244201.
    2. John Seely Brown & Paul Duguid, 1991. "Organizational Learning and Communities-of-Practice: Toward a Unified View of Working, Learning, and Innovation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 2(1), pages 40-57, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Marta Yáñez San-José, 2014. "Personal and team features in engineering services: a systematic review," Journal of Socioeconomic Engineering, Instituto Universitario de Análisis Económico y Social, issue 1, pages 33-36, June.
    2. repec:uae:soceng:y:2014:i:1:p:35-38 is not listed on IDEAS

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chaudhuri, Sarbajit & Ghosh, Arnab & Banerjee, Dibyendu, 2018. "Can public subsidy on education necessarily improve wage inequality?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 165-177.
    2. Michael Kaethler, 2019. "Curating creative communities of practice: the role of ambiguity," Journal of Organization Design, Springer;Organizational Design Community, vol. 8(1), pages 1-17, December.
    3. Verena Brinks, 2016. "Situated affect and collective meaning: A community perspective on processes of value creation and commercialization in enthusiast-driven fields," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 48(6), pages 1152-1169, June.
    4. Francesco Rullani, 2005. "The Debate and the Community. “Reflexive Identity” in the FLOSS Community," LEM Papers Series 2005/18, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    5. Duniesky Feitó Madrigal & Alejandro Mungaray Lagarda & Michelle Texis Flores, 2016. "Factors associated with learning management in Mexican micro-entrepreneurs," Estudios Gerenciales, Universidad Icesi, vol. 32(141), pages 381-386, December.
    6. Guido Fioretti, 2007. "A connectionist model of the organizational learning curve," Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 1-16, March.
    7. Ankita Tandon & Unnikrishnan K. Nair, 2015. "Enactment of knowledge brokering: Agents, roles, processes and the impact of immersion," Working papers 183, Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode.
    8. Andrea Morrison, 2005. "Inside the Black Box of ‘Industrial Atmosphere’: Knowledge and Information Networks in an Italian wine local system," Working Papers 97, SEMEQ Department - Faculty of Economics - University of Eastern Piedmont.
    9. Emmanuelle Vaast & Geoff Walsham, 2009. "Trans-Situated Learning: Supporting a Network of Practice with an Information Infrastructure," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 20(4), pages 547-564, December.
    10. Weiling Ke & Lele Kang & Chuan-Hoo Tan & Chih-Hung Peng, 2021. "User Competence with Enterprise Systems: The Effects of Work Environment Factors," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 32(3), pages 860-875, September.
    11. Alvesson, Mats & Sveningsson, Stefan, 2011. "Management is the solution: Now what was the problem? On the fragile basis for managerialism," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 349-361.
    12. Cédric Dalmasso & Sebastien Gand & Frederic Garcias, 2017. "Enterprise social networks for the benefit of ambidextrous organisation? The case of a major oil company," Post-Print hal-03698884, HAL.
    13. Dupouet, Olivier & Yildizoglu, Murat, 2006. "Organizational performance in hierarchies and communities of practice," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 61(4), pages 668-690, December.
    14. Wirth, Steffen, 2014. "Communities matter: Institutional preconditions for community renewable energy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 236-246.
    15. Franke, Nikolaus & Shah, Sonali, 2003. "How communities support innovative activities: an exploration of assistance and sharing among end-users," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 157-178, January.
    16. Rajani Naidoo, 2011. "Rethinking Development: Higher Education and the New Imperialism," Chapters, in: Roger King & Simon Marginson & Rajani Naidoo (ed.), Handbook on Globalization and Higher Education, chapter 3, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    17. Levent Yilmaz, 2011. "Toward Multi-Level, Multi-Theoretical Model Portfolios for Scientific Enterprise Workforce Dynamics," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 14(4), pages 1-2.
    18. Sarah Mokaddem & Sinda Mhiri, 2017. "Le Co-working comme alternative émergente pour promouvoir le « bien-être » au travail," Post-Print hal-01867742, HAL.
    19. Frédéric CREPLET, 2004. "Les Portails d’entreprise : une réponse aux dimensions de l’entreprise « processeur de connaissances »," Working Papers of BETA 2004-07, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    20. Schmid, Stefan & Schurig, Andreas, 2003. "The development of critical capabilities in foreign subsidiaries: disentangling the role of the subsidiary's business network," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 12(6), pages 755-782, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:24:y:2010:i:3:p:526-545. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.