IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v26y2012i2p195-210.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Professional call centres, professional workers and the paradox of the algorithm: the case of telenursing

Author

Listed:
  • Bob Russell

Abstract

Although the professional call centre has been theorized, little empirical work has been carried out on this form of service delivery. The existing literature fails to distinguish adequately between professional call centres and professionals who work in call centres. In this study of telehealth it is shown that a centre which exhibits the features of a professional call centre does not overcome problems associated with this type of labour process. Ambiguities over the use of skill in a system that requires the deployment of computer algorithms gives rise to conflicts over monitoring, performance evaluation and the use of time. Conflict over the appropriation of technique may be exacerbated in professional call centres although this has not been reported upon in the call centre or telehealth literature.

Suggested Citation

  • Bob Russell, 2012. "Professional call centres, professional workers and the paradox of the algorithm: the case of telenursing," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 26(2), pages 195-210, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:26:y:2012:i:2:p:195-210
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://wes.sagepub.com/content/26/2/195.abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    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:26:y:2012:i:2:p:195-210. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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.