Call Centre Work: Smile by Wire: Special Issue of the European Journal of Work and Organisational Psychology, Vol. 12 Issue 4 (European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology)

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WORK AND ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

Editor Fred Zijlstra, Department of Psychology, School of Human Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey GU2 5XH, UK. Email: [email protected] Associate Editors Christian Dormann, Institut für Psychologie, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Germany José Maria Peiró, Faculdad de Psicología, Universidad de Valencia, Spain Michael West, Aston Business School, Aston University, Birmingham, UK Book Reviews Editor Robert A.Roe, Universiteit Maastricht, Department of Organization Studies, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands Editorial Board

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European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 2003, 12 (4), 305–310

Call centres: High on technology—high on emotions Christian Dormann Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany Fred R.H.Zijlstra University of Surrey, Guildford, UK In our current “service economy” delivery of services is a major task for industry. Many organizations are now involved in delivering services of a kind, and like to think of themselves as being “client-oriented”, or “client-centred”. As part of their company policy these organizations regard contact with their clients as a key feature of their company philosophy. Technological developments, such as information technology, have boosted this option. The internet offers appealing options in this respect since all kinds of information concerning the companies’ products or services can be provided via a website on the internet. These products and services can often also be bought via the internet. Nevertheless, customers may want to contact the organization and talk to a customer representative, either to order the product or service, or to ask additional and specific questions. Therefore organizations are looking for ways to be accessible to their costumers, to be able to promptly answer questions customers may have, or to provide reliable and up-to-date information. In particular when the company sells products that are complex and entail all kind of technical features, customers may have all sorts of questions. Therefore, organizations see the necessity to set up a “helpdesk” where customers can get answers to their queries without having to come to the shop again. And as a result of enlargement of scale, many organizations have their customers spread around the country, in Europe often across multiple countries, and therefore have a large area to cover. This evidently implies a huge number of contacts, and organizations are looking for efficient ways to organize these contacts. The process of rationalization often results, according to Tayloristic tradition, in the decision to specialize the delivery of services. This has resulted in the creation of specialized departments for customer contacts: the call centre.

Correspondence should be addressed to C.Dormann, Johann Wolfgang GoetheUniversity Frankfurt, Dept. of Psychology, Mertonstr. 17, D-60054, Frankfurt a.M., Germany. Email: [email protected]

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Call centres are organizations or departments that are specifically dedicated to contacting clients and customers. This can either be the helpdesk, or client service department of an organization, but companies may also have outsourced this to a dedicated call centre, which handles all client contacts for a variety of organizations. Different types of call centres can be distinguished: (1) Inbound call centres mainly respond to incoming calls and primarily deal with questions and complaints that costumers may have. Clients’ questions are frequently straightforward and simple requiring standard answers, but sometimes clients have complex requests for help requiring non-standard answers. (2) Outbound call centres are mainly for contacts that are initiated by the organization, they are primarily for attempts to sell a product or service. This also implies that call centres can harbour jobs of different levels of qualification, ranging from unskilled people who are providing standard information (sometimes even reading from prescribed scripts) to frequently asked questions, to highly qualified personnel who deal with unique complex problems (i.e., technology helpdesks). This means that the popular claim that call centres are the nowadays Tayloristic “sweat shops” is an unjustified generalization and oversimplification of the issue. Call centres indeed are the result of a modern rationalization process, but that does not mean that all people working in call centres have little variety and no control over their work (although it certainly is true for particular groups). Moreover, call centre employees have to have a deep understanding of their “matter”. As will become clear from this special issue, a particular requirement for customer service representatives in call centres is that they need to have an emotional understanding of clients’ needs requiring a considerable level of empathy. Call centres are a relatively new type of organization; they are a typical product of the service economy, and closely related to technological developments. There are numerous estimates of the growth rate of the number of call centres. Although these estimates vary considerably, they are unanimously high. It is clear, though, that the introduction of call centres represents a global development and they have the interest of researchers from all around the world; this special issue demonstrates this with contributions from Europe, Australia, and Asia. Two major reasons are frequently given for the rapid increase in number of call centres. First of all, technological developments had a great impact. It has been noted before that technology has led to a disentanglement of “time” and “place” (cf. Roe, van den Berg, Zijlstra, Schalk, Taillieu, & van der Wielen, 1994). With the help of technology, activities are no longer confined to a particular place or a particular time. This applies both to individuals (tele- or home working) and organizations. Call centres are clear illustrations of this phenomenon. Companies can concentrate their customer information desk in a particular country, and automatically route calls from a number of countries to this centre, without the customer having to know that he or she is actually calling long distance or internationally. This offers companies an opportunity to move some of their labour intensive operations to low wage countries. The contribution by Shah and Bandi in this issue illustrates that high skilled service employees (as in the IT sector) can be hired anywhere in the world.

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Secondly, call centres are believed to be a cost effective way of achieving increased service orientation and customer satisfaction. Major facets of service quality focus on reliability (e.g., fixing a problem as soon as it occurs), responsiveness (e.g., to be accessible), assurance (e.g., creating the belief that the service involves high quality equipment), tangibles (e.g., appearance of communication materials), and empathy (e.g., the individualized attention that an organization provides to its customers; Parasuraman, Berry, & Zeithaml, 1991; cf. Dormann & Kaiser, 2002). In many ways, call centres are obviously likely to confirm such requirements. Thus, not only anticipated cost reduction but also increases in profits via customer satisfaction have triggered the development of call centres. Call centres, to some extent, are also a reflection of the current Zeitgeist phenomenon; they are thought of being: clean, fast, precise, nice-to-have, and “always there” for us. However, behind the scenes, researchers and practitioners have detected fault lines in the smooth surface. Undoubtedly there have been economic advantages associated with the introduction of call centres; however, downsizing and closing of call centres have become a new reality. Similarly, the promised benefits for customers have frequently not shown up as they were expected. Many of us are more likely to remember discomfort, frustration, and anger rather than joy and pleasure when thinking about past experiences with call centres. Actually, although cost reduction and customer care are both cited as common reasons for the introduction of call centres, they are partially incompatible with each other. At least in parts, some of the current problems associated with call centres are founded on the ongoing neglect of organizations as socio-technical systems. In case of call centres, the development of the technical systems has typically dominated the development of the social system, with sometimes detrimental effects on call centre employees. The present issue of the European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology presents evidence that working in call centres does put specific demands upon employees, which makes working in a call centre different from other jobs. The technological and contextual circumstances have a great impact on call centre jobs. However, the traditional sociotechnical systems approach is not sufficient to describe all the problems. In fact, call centres, like most service organizations, should be better viewed as socio-sociotechnical systems. Focus on social systems is too frequently limited to selection and training of employees and their attitudes, values, and behaviours; the social customer system, including their wishes, desires, aims, and behaviours, and its impact on the employee system are frequently overlooked. Similarly, a focus on technical systems, such as monitoring the input-output flow or making technology flexible with the product mix, often ignores the customer system, too. For instance, although consideration of the potential negative impact of performance monitoring practices on employees represents a sound socio-technical perspective, it should also be taken into account that monitoring practices may impact on the customer system, too. Customers are usually informed that their calls are monitored, and they may feel observed and controlled, which may lead to a wide range of negative consequences such as dissatisfaction or verbal aggression. Thus an integrated strategy of organizational development should simultaneously consider employees (e.g., human

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resources departments), technology (e.g., IT departments), and customers (e.g., marketing departments). Obviously, this is not a trivial task because services are dynamic and cannot be readily planned, created, stored, and sold on demand. One way to fit the social employee system to the social customer systems is emotional labour or emotion work. Employees are paid by organizations to display (usually positive) emotions towards customers irrespective of their current feelings. Call centre employees should make customers feel as if they are really interested in the customers’ problems, and be friendly as if they are happy to talk to them. Empirical evidence for the beneficial effects of emotion work on customers does not yet exist, but its detrimental effects on call centre agents’ health is clearly demonstrated by Lewig and Dollard (this issue) and Grebner, Semmer, Faso, Gut, Kälin, and Elfering (this issue). Since employee ill-health is negatively related to customer satisfaction (Leiter, Harvie, & Frizell, 1998) one can doubt whether emotion work is worth its effort in terms of revenues due to customer satisfaction or the like. Various studies have shown that turnover rates are particularly high in call centres (e.g., Michel, 2001), illustrating that working in call centres is not always as nice as people would think. Moreover, it undermines the strategic goal of cost reduction because expenditures for training new employees increase. It is not the workload, pressure, and stress that make call centre jobs problematic. Rather, results (Bakker, Demerouti, & Schaufeli, this issue; Grebner et al., this issue) point in the direction that, in order to overcome problems with turnover, call centre jobs should be enriched with complexity, control, and variety. At a first glance, this seems to be incompatible with the establishment of low and semiskilled jobs, but most contributors to this Special Issue offer some useful practical guidance. Most articles compiled in this Special Issue were concerned with the working conditions at call centres. Zapf, Isic, Bechtoldt, and Blau report results of a comparison of a variety of variables between call centres and different kinds of jobs (service jobs, nonservice jobs). One important question is whether these differences lead to consequences such as impaired health or decreased performance. Bakker et al. argue that different kinds of working conditions have different kinds of effects; whilst job demands affect absenteeism via health problems, job resources affect turnover via involvement. They found good support for their model, which is useful because most authors acknowledge the particular relevance of absenteeism and turnover in call centres. A more differentiated picture with regard to health-related outcomes is provided by Grebner et al. They show how a great variety of resources and stressors including aspects of emotion work, which Zapf et al. identified as particularly high in call centre jobs, are related to health outcomes in call centres. Lewig and Dollard found similar results in Australian call centres, showing that the effects are similar across countries and cultures. Their findings stress that the imbalance between rewards on the one hand and emotional demands on the other causes health problems in call centre agents. Finally, Shah and Bandi present a case study, in which the demand for personnel development in high-knowledge customer-contactcentres is vividly described. Their study explicitly shows that there is no technological determinism since the work of the agents in their study is relatively enriched. Although

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this may be an extreme case, it reflects the conclusions of many authors that call centres are not a bad place to work per se—it depends. Since, from an employer’s perspective, call centres represent an efficient means to improve organizations’ economic performance, the relative number of job in call centres (or customer-contact centres) will continue to rise for years. However, almost all authors acknowledge that much has to be done until such jobs become attractive and motivating, with no or little effects on ill-health, with development opportunities, and with good performance from the viewpoint of the customer. REFERENCES Bakker, A.B., Demerouti, E., & Schaufeli, W.B. (2003). Dual processes at work in a call centre: An application of the job demands-resources model. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 12(4), 393–417. Dormann, C, & Kaiser, D. (2002). Job conditions and customer satisfaction. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 11, 257– 283. Grebner, S., Semmer, N.K., Faso, L.L., Gut, S., Kälin, W., & Elfering, A. (2003). Working conditions, well-being, and job-related attitudes among call centre agents. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 12(4), 341–365. Leiter, M.P., Harvie, P., & Frizell, C. (1998). The correspondence of patient satisfaction and nurse burnout. Social Science and Medicine, 47, 1611–1617. Lewig, K.A., & Dollard, M.F. (2003). Emotional dissonance, emotional exhaustion, and job satisfaction in call centre workers. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 12(4), 366–392. Michel, L.P. (2001). Call centres in Germany: Employment market and qualification requirements. Economic and Industrial Democracy, 22, 143–153. Parasuraman, A., Berry, L.L., & Zeithaml, V.A. (1991). Refinement and reassessment of the SERVQUAL scale. Journal of Retailing, 67, 420–450. Roe, R.A., van den Berg, P.T., Zijlstra, F.R.H., Schalk, M.J.D., Taillieu, T.C.B., & van der Wielen, J.M.M. (1994). New concepts for a new age: Information service organizations and mental information work. The European Work and Organizational Psychologist, 3, 177– 192. Shah, V., & Bandi, R.K. (2003). Capability development in knowledge intensive IT enabled services. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 12(4), 418–427. Zapf, D., Isic, A., Bechtoldt, M., & Blau, P. (2003). What is typical for call centre jobs? Job characteristics and service interactions in different call centres. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 12(4), 311–340.

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What is typical for call centre jobs? Job characteristics, and service interactions in different call centres Dieter Zapf, Amela Isic, Myriam Bechtoldt, and Patricia Blau J.W.Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany

Call centres have been one of the few booming branches in recent years. The main task of call centre operators is to interact with customers by telephone, usually supported by computer systems. It has been argued that call centre work is a modern form of “Taylorism”, because it is characterized by routine tasks, and low level of control for the employees. Moreover, it has been suggested that there is a high level of stress at work, both with regard to the work tasks and to the interactions with customers. In the present study a sample of 375 call centre employees from eight different call centres was compared with a sample of noncall centre workers (N = 405) in terms of job characteristics, job stressors, and emotional labour (emotion work). The results showed that call centre workers had worse job characteristics, but were better off with regard to most job stressors compared to representative comparison groups of no-service workers, service workers, and workers in human services respectively. Moreover, compared to the other groups,

Correspondence should be addressed to D.Zapf, Department of Psychology, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University Frankfurt, Mertonstr. 17, D-60054 Frankfurt, Germany. Email: [email protected] earlier version of this article was presented as a poster at the 25th International Congress of Applied Psychology, 7–12 July 2002, Singapore. The present study was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Work and Social Affairs. Overall coordination of participating projects: Verwaltungsberufsgenossenschaft VBG. Project organization of the present study: Rationalisierungskuratorium der Deutschen Wirtschaft RKW, Eschborn. The support of the project organizers is gratefully acknowledged.

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customer service representatives (CSRs) had to express less negative emotions, but were most frequently exposed to states of emotional dissonance. A comparison of the working conditions of the eight call centres revealed that in most call centres the working conditions could be substantially improved. In addition, various call centre parameters such as inbound vs. outbound, or inhouse vs. external service centres were examined. The strongest effects were found for the percentage of time spent on the telephone. With some exceptions, the results support the view that the majority of call centres have been established to organize mass service for customers, that the work in the call centres is characterized by routine work and low task control, and that call centre employees are required to suggest a “friendly smile” when they are on the phone. No prospering without customers—a fact of prominent importance for service-oriented economies worldwide. Competing for customers has inspired companies to invent new ways of service. One of these ways is a call centre. As the name suggests, call centres are offices assigned to telephonic contact with customers. An official definition says: Call centres are “tools for organising communication with customers…with the help of telecommunication” (Henn, Kruse, & Strawe, 1996, p. 14). Call centres may either be part of the company (“inhouse” call centres) or be external services (“service bureaux”) usually working on behalf of several companies. The ways call centres get in contact with customers may differ. Whereas inbound call centres are restricted to a passive role (i.e., being called up exclusively by customers having any questions or complaints concerning a product), outbound call centres actively engage in phoning people up, e.g., telemarketing call centres. However, there are also call centres with both inbound and outbound activities. Basically, with the help of call centres companies aim to demonstrate their customer orientation, and try to ensure their clients’ satisfaction and commitment. From the companies’ point of view, the advantages are manifold: lower costs in the area of field work because even sophisticated services may be rendered by phone; more satisfied customers because, ideally, the call centre can be contacted 7 days a week, 24 hours a day (Henn et al., 1996; Holman, 2003). To do his job, the customer service representative (CSR) of a call centre usually sits at a table in front of a computer, wearing a headset for communicating with the customer, leaving his/her hands free in order to input data into the computer if necessary. Depending on the business, a CSR talks to between 60 and 250 clients per 8 hour shift (Dieckhoff, Freigang-Bauer, Schröter, & Viereck, 2002; Henn et al., 1996). The more customers are talked to, the less time is available for each of them and the more routine (and boring) these conversations may become for the CSR. The high rate of turnover and absenteeism in many call centres suggests that working in call centres is a stressful experience (e.g., Baumgart et al., 2002; Deery, Iverson, & Walsh, 2002; Holman, 2002, 2003). Although some studies seem to suggest that working in call centres can be interesting (Batt, 2002), there are still too few studies to give a definite answer here. Therefore, it is interesting to analyse the profile of CSRs’ jobs from a work psychology point of view.

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Recent studies suggest that most jobs in call centres can be characterized as unskilled work, which some authors (e.g., Knights & McCabe, 1998) called an advanced form of Taylorism (see also Dieckhoff et al., 2002). Relatively short-cycle routine interactions with customers mostly controlled by automatic call distribution systems and supported by networked information technologies allow little control of when and whom to speak to (e.g., Holman, 2003). Moreover, CSRs are expected to be always friendly (as if they are “smiling”) on the telephone (Holman, 2003; Schuler, 2000)—a fact described in literature as imposing emotional demands on the CSRs. Thus the main research question of this article is: Can call centres be characterized as low skilled routine jobs with little control, high job stressors, and high emotional demands to be customer-friendly due to organizational rules? Several studies (e.g., Richter & Schulze, 2001; Wieland, Metz, & Richter, 2001) showed that CSRs have low levels of job control. Isic, Dormann, and Zapf (1999) compared the working conditions of 250 call centre employees to those in banks and administrative offices. While call centres did not stand out in terms of job stressors such as uncertainty, organizational problems, and time pressure, they were distinguished by very low task control and timing control. According to that, CSRs suffered significantly more from psychosomatic complaints than employees in banks and administrative offices. Gerlmaier, Böcker, and Kastner (2001), and Richter and Schulze (2001) reported similar results. Metz, Rothe, and Degener (2001) analysed 37 CSR jobs with the help of experts. The experts criticized the poor decision latitude as well as the low complexity and high division of the work: CSRs continuously had to repeat the same activities thereby scarcely having the opportunity to make use of their professional know-how. Most call centre employees working in the front office do not complete a professional training for their telephone work (Baumgart et al., 2002; Isic et al., 1999). Therefore, to prevent inexperienced CSRs from making mistakes, complexity of work is often massively restricted. For example, with the help of standardized computer programs, employees in call centres of banks book orders for bonds even without any comprehensive knowledge of the matter (cf. Holman, 2003; Holman, Chissic, & Totterdell, 2002). More complicated enquiries are diverted to the few specialists who work in the back office (Henn et al., 1996). Following Bowen and Schneider (1988) and Batt (2002), Holman (2003) differentiated between two call centre models: the “mass service” and the “high commitment service” model. The mass service model aims at a high market volume and low added value. Cost minimization is the primary goal here. The jobs are characterized by routine work (low complexity) and low control. Employees are often required to follow a scripted dialogue when interacting with customers and follow highly detailed instructions (Deery et al., 2002). Frenkel, Tam, Korczynski, and Shire (1998) argued that despite the rhetoric of service quality, management appears to place a greater emphasis on the quantity of calls, thus showing preference for the mass service model (see also Dieckhoff et al., 2002). This contrasts the high commitment service. In this case, the market volume is low but the added value is high. Jobs are empowered, i.e., tasks are complex and there is high control for the service providers. The interactions with customers correspond to the relationship

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model (see below). Moreover, there are human resource incentives such as ongoing investment in training, employment security and relatively high pay (Batt, 2002). In this study we compare employees from several call centres with a representative sample of employees not working in call centres. This sample consisted of three groups: employees doing manufacturing or administrative work (the “no-service group”), people working in the service sector (e.g., sales or banks), and people working in the human services (e.g., nurses). In order to analyse typical profiles of call centre work, we first analysed whether call centre work is specific in the way that it differs significantly from the three groups of the representative sample (Hypothesis 1). Based on the existing studies cited above we expected most call centres to follow the mass service model, i.e., jobs will be characterized by lower complexity and control (task and timing control, participation) in comparison to the comparison samples (Hypothesis la). Moreover, in these types of call centres employees are supposed to handle as many call as possible. This is assumed to lead to high time pressure and requiring considerable attention and concentration. Therefore it was hypothesized that call centre jobs are characterized by higher task-related and organizational job stressors than the comparison samples (Hypothesis 1b). So far, we have discussed organizational and task aspects of call centre jobs focusing on cognitive aspects of internal information processing. Another aspect is the CSRs’ social interaction with the customer. As in any social interaction, the regulation of emotions plays a central role here. Hochschild (1983) coined the term “emotional labour” for this kind of job requirement occurring in service interactions. Emotional labour or emotion work (Zapf, 2002) refers to the quality of interactions between employees and clients. “Client” refers to any person who interacts with an employee, for example, patients, children, customers, passengers, or guests. Expressing appropriate emotions during faceto-face or voice-to-voice interactions is a job demand for many employees in the service industry, particularly in call centre jobs. Hochschild drew upon the work of Goffman (1959) to argue that while interacting, people nearly always tend to play roles and try to create certain impressions. Impressions include the display of normatively appropriate emotions following certain display rules. This general social phenomenon also applies to interactions between CSRs and their customers or clients. Certainly, CSRs cannot be assumed to be always in a good mood. Rather, they frequently encounter situations where anger is likely to be the dominant emotion (Deery et al., 2002; Grandey, Dickter, & Sin, 2002). Emotion work as part of the job, however, implies the display of organizationally desired emotions even in such unpleasant situations. Accordingly, emotion work can be defined as the psychological processes necessary to regulate organizationally desired emotions as part of one’s job (Grandey, 2000; Zapf, 2002). In the service sector, customer orientation is a label for such norms, rules, and standards of behaviour in service interactions that require to regulate emotions (Zeithaml & Bitner, 2000). In the case of a call centre where employees interact with customers by telephone, there may be rules such as: talking to customers should not exceed 5 minutes; customers should be addressed by their names; or customers should be talked to in a friendly tone throughout the interaction which means to display certain (usually positive) emotions towards clients.

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Recent studies have differentiated various dimensions of emotion work. Most of them comprise the frequency of emotion expression and emotional dissonance (e.g., Brotheridge & Grandey, 2002; Büssing & Glaser, 1999; Grandey, 2000; Morris & Feldman, 1996; Schaubroeck & Jones, 2000). This also applies to the concept used in the present study. Zapf, Vogt, Seifert, Mertini, and Isic (1999) differentiated the following aspects of emotion work: (1) the requirement to display positive emotions (abbreviated as “positive emotions”), (2) the requirement to display and handle negative emotions, which also implies a high variety of emotions (“negative emotions”), (3) the requirement to sense the interaction partner’s emotions (“sensitivity requirements”), and (4) the dissonance between felt and displayed emotions (“emotional dissonance”). In line with most empirical studies (e.g., Adelmann, 1995; Brotheridge & Lee, 2003; Morris & Feldman, 1997) the frequency of emotional display is considered to be an important aspect of emotion work. Factor analyses (Zapf et al., 1999) demonstrated the necessity of distinguishing between showing positive and showing negative emotions. Having to display positive and negative emotions usually implies demonstrating a high variety of emotions because positive emotions have to be shown in most of the jobs. Therefore, the requirement to display negative emotions comes close to the concept of variety of emotion display suggested by Morris and Feldman (1996). The expression of organizationally desired emotions is not an end in itself. Emotions are shown to have an influence on clients (Kruml & Geddes, 2000). Expressing emotions is one possible way to influence the clients’ emotions. To be able to do so, their accurate perception is an important prerequisite. Therefore, sensitivity requirements as the necessity to be sensitive and to consider the clients’ emotions is another aspect of the emotion work concept (Zapf et al., 1999). Finally, as most of the other studies of emotion work, we included the concept of emotional dissonance (e.g., Brotheridge & Lee, 2003; Büssing & Glaser, 1999; Kruml & Geddes, 2000; Morris & Feldman, 1996, 1997; Nerdinger & Röper, 1999; Zapf et al., 1999). Emotional dissonance occurs when an employee is required to express emotions that are not genuinely felt in the particular situation. A person may feel neutral while required to display a particular emotion, or alternatively the display rule may require the suppression of undesired emotions and the expression of neutrality or a positive emotion instead of a negative one. Studies on emotional dissonance consistently found correlations with emotional exhaustion (e.g., Morris & Feldman, 1997; Nerdinger & Röper, 1999; Schaubroeck & Jones, 2000). Based on Gutek (1997), Holman (2003) classified customer-employee interactions in call centres as “relationships” and “encounters”. Encounters involve single short interactions between strangers and are standardized with little room for authentic emotional expression. Contrary to that, persons in relationships know each other and share a common history. Trust and loyalty are important elements of these relationships. Applying the concept of emotion work, it can be assumed that the expression of positive emotions (the friendly “smile”) is the predominant requirement in the encounter. Since encounters involve short interactions between strangers having no shared history in common, requirements to express negative emotions are unlikely. Of course, both interaction partners may have negative feelings; for example, the CSR might feel impatient,

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the customer dissatisfied or angry at the quality of service. However, the CSR is always expected to react in a positive manner and to “appear happy, nice and glad to serve the customer” (Erickson & Wharton, 1997, p. 188). This may lead to a high level of emotional dissonance, which is the discrepancy between expressed and felt emotions. Gutek (1997) argued that relationships serve as a model for encounters because of their positive features and that organizations try to emulate some of the qualities of relationships by developing “pseudo-relationships”. By showing interest and concern, CSRs may create the impression of a trusting relationship to customize the service. This may be supported by customer-relationship systems that track customers’ interaction with the organization (Holman, 2003) and provide information about the customers’ service histories and their needs. Thus there may be relatively high requirements to be sensitive to the needs and emotions of customers compared to what one would normally expect from impersonal short-cycle encounters. With regard to our study we expected that most call centres follow the encounter model implying a high requirement to express positive emotions (Hypothesis 1c), but a low requirement to express negative emotions (Hypothesis 1d). Expectations for sensitivity requirements were unclear; however, emotional dissonance was expected to be high (Hypothesis 1e). The reason for this is that in the encounter model the interaction is only superficial and comprises just a few cues to elicit the expected positive emotion. The room for authenticity is assumed to be limited in these interactions, i.e., adequate negative emotion may hardly be expressed. Being strictly required to show positive emotions in situations where one would normally show negative ones leads to emotional dissonance. Moreover, to further analyse what is typical for call centres, we were interested in comparing the various call centres under study. Although it is likely that most of the call centres follow the mass service model, there may be some call centres following the customer relationship service model or some hybrid model. Therefore, we expected diversity among the call centres with regard to complexity and control. That is, although the majority of call centres may be characterized by unskilled work, there may be a few call centres with complex tasks and high control (Hypothesis 2a). Moreover, we expected no or only minor differences among the call centres with regard to the emotion work variables because the various call centres claimed to have similar degrees of customer orientation and numbers of CSR-customer interactions (Hypothesis 2b). We were also interested in explaining the differences among the call centres. Therefore we looked at various organizational variables that were hypothesized to cause such differences. We compared inhouse call centres vs. service bureaux, providing simple information vs. simple counselling vs. complex counselling, percentage of frontline work, inbound vs. outbound vs. both, leadership responsibilities, mean call time, and number of customers per hour as covariates. If these covariates reduced the variance between the call centres then the differences could be mainly attributed to these variables. Finally, we were interested to compare call centre jobs with regard to the organizational call centre variables. First, we expected differences between inhouse call centres and service bureaux. We assumed inhouse CSRs to be better off while they could have the opportunity to combine telephone work with other, more challenging, work. In service bureaux such work might often be not available. Apart from that, the CSRs may

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have worked in other departments of the organization and may, therefore, be familiar with a variety of these tasks. Service bureaux usually work for different clients, which would probably not be effective if the tasks they take over are very complex, because that would require high training efforts. Therefore, complexity and control should be higher in inhouse call centres compared to service bureaux (Hypothesis 3a). Moreover, the studies of Bongard and al’Absi (2003) suggest that emotional display rules are less rigid the more familiar the situation is. Therefore, we expected that service bureaux were more rigid with regard to their display rules, whereas CSRs dealing with customers of their own company may be allowed to be somewhat more authentic. This usually implies that they are allowed to express negative emotions in certain situations, e.g., if the customer shows negative behaviours. Agents in service bureaux, in contrast, are required to express positive emotions even in such situations. Therefore, we expected that the requirement to express negative emotions was higher in inhouse call centres compared to service bureaux (Hypothesis 3b). As a consequence emotional dissonance was expected to be higher in service bureaux (Hypothesis 3c). The nature of the tasks in the call centre is believed to affect the working conditions of the CSRs. CSRs whose main task is to pass on simple information and to book orders as well as to do simple counselling were expected to have jobs of low complexity and control (Hypothesis 4a). However, they were also expected to have less job stressors, because it is a typical finding that high task complexity goes along with more job stressors (e.g., Dormann, Zapf, & Isic, 2002; Zapf, 1993, Zapf et al., in press) (Hypothesis 4b). Also as for inhouse call centres we expected less strict display rules and more possibilities to be authentic for CSRs with complex counselling tasks. Displaying of negative emotions was, therefore, expected to be higher for CSRs with complex counselling tasks (Hypothesis 4c) and emotional dissonance was expected to be lower (Hypothesis 4d). We also compared participants with leadership responsibilities (team leaders) vs. CSRs who had no leadership role. Team leaders were expected to be confronted with more complex tasks and to have more control (Hypothesis 5a). In addition, we also expected that they would be more exposed to job stressors, since they were supposed to be in charge for all the unusual tasks that lack clear procedures how to be handled and that are unpredictable with respect to outcomes and time required (Hypothesis 5b). Because team leaders were hypothesized to have more other tasks than interacting with customers, they were supposed to be less involved in emotion work (Hypothesis 5c). Next, we asked for the percentage of telephone work (frontline work in comparison to backstage work). In the study by Metz et al. (2001), working conditions in the back office were rated more favourably because people working there are dealing with specialist, administrative, and managerial tasks that are much more challenging and less restricted. These employees do not interact with customers, so they are not directly controlled by them. Consequently they had more timing and task control and the tasks were in average more complex. Also people in the back office are believed to have more control because the affairs they are dealing with can hardly be managed within a few minutes—the time employees in the front office have available. Similar results were reported by Baumgart et al. (2002). Therefore, we hypothesized that less telephone work should imply higher

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complexity and control (Hypothesis 6a). With less interactions with customers, there should be less emotion work, too (Hypothesis 6b). Finally, we also compared inbound and outbound activities. In the inbound service customers are making the call, which means that the CSRs are in control neither of time nor action (timing control and task control, see Method section)—they have no choice but to accept the call. We, therefore, expected that inbound activities would be characterized by the lowest job control (Hypothesis 7). METHOD Sample A sample of employees working in different call centres was compared with a random sample of employees of two German cities. A variety of call centres were contacted, e.g., both inhouse call centres and external service bureaux, call centres with inbound and outbound activities, etc. The majority of the call centre sample was located in Hessen (a federal state of Germany). In total, nine call centres agreed to take part in this study. From the 506 questionnaires that were distributed, 375 questionnaires were returned. The response rate was 71%. From one call centre only very few questionnaires were returned; this call centre was left out of the comparison of call centres. The data was included in other analyses. Eight call centres, representing different types of call centres, could therefore be compared. Participation was voluntary and anonymity was guaranteed. Two thirds of the sample (66.8%) was women. Mean age was 31.9 years, ranging from 18 to 59 years. There were 44.1% who had some kind of high school degree, 37.3% who had attended modern secondary school (middle stream school-leaving certificate), and 16.6% having a lower stream school-leaving certificate. Only 8% were in possession of some kind of university degree. There were 59.6% persons reporting to have completed a professional training, while 25.4% had not. However, more than half (50.9%) of the persons with professional training had no specific training concerning working in call centres. Instead, they had changed their vocation and started working as CSRs without special experience. On average, persons had more than 5 years but no longer than 10 years work experience, but they had not been employed for longer than 6–12 months by their current call centre at the time of study. The jobs of the call centre employees consisted of providing information on the phone (33.2%) or simple counselling (46%); 19.5% were specialists responsible for complex counselling. Eighty-five per cent of the persons worked as CSRs without leadership responsibilities, 10.5% were head of a team. Sixty-six per cent of the sample worked in service bureaux, the rest in inhouse call centres. More than half (54.8%) of the persons did inbound calls only, 12.3% outbound calls only, and 32.6% were engaged in both. Call centre 1 was a telemarketing call centre with outbound activities only. In Call centres 4 and 6, only inbound activities were carried out, whereas all the other call centres combined both inbound and outbound activities. Call centres 2, 5, and 6 were inhouse call centres; the others were external service bureaux. On average the participants

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reported a single call to last between 3 and 5 minutes (range: 1 to more than 15 minutes). Per hour, they talked to 6–10 clients, ranging from 1 to more than 20. The comparison sample was a random sample of persons from two large German cities who worked for at least 30 hours a week, who were not self-employed, and whose German was reasonably good so that they were able to fill in the questionnaire. Participants were randomly chosen from a citizen database. They received a letter inviting them to participate. After some days the potential participants were contacted by telephone. Many people were excluded because they did not fulfil the criteria mentioned above. We contacted 767 persons who met the criteria for participation, and 405 persons returned the questionnaire (anonymously), which corresponds to a response rate of 52.8%. This estimation is the lower bound of the response rate, because among the 767 persons contacted some refused to take part in the study and finished the telephone call before the researchers received all information to decide whether the person would have fulfilled all criteria to participate. The mean age of the control sample was 40.9 years, ranging from 19 to 73 years; 37.8% were women. There were 55.9% who had some kind of high school degree, 23% who had attended modern secondary school, and 19.8% had a lower stream schoolleaving certificate. Few (1.8%) had no certificate at all, and 35.6% had some kind of university degree. Seventy-nine per cent of the persons reported to have completed a professional training relevant for their current job. On average (median category), persons had worked for 15–20 years, of which 2–5 years were in their current job. For some of the analyses the comparison sample was divided into subsamples: service employees not working in the service sector (N = 217, e.g., manufacturing, repair, administrative work), employees working in the service sector (N = 131, e.g., sales, banks, insurance, transportation, hotels and restaurants), and human service workers (N = 52, e.g., nurses, physicians, teachers, social workers). Instruments The items used in the present study were part of a more wide-ranging questionnaire. Time to fill in the whole questionnaire took from 45 to 90 minutes. The Instrument of Stress Oriented Job-Analysis (ISTA 6.0; Semmer, Zapf, & Dunckel, 1995, 1998, 1999) was used to examine differences concerning complexity, control, and job stressors. All ISTA scales, except the one measuring “participation”, consisted of five items and used various response formats ranging from 1 to 5, with 1 = “very seldom/ never” to 5=“very often”. Some items required a response on a 5-point scale that ranged from 1 = “very few” to 5 = “very much”. For some items we used the “A vs. B”-format (e.g., “‘A’ has documents and information that are always correct and up to date—‘B’ has documents and information that are often incomplete and out of date. What is your job like?”). Items using the “A vs. B” format required a response on a 5-point scale from 1 = “exactly like ‘A’” to 5 = “exactly like ‘B’”. The aspects considered were as follows. Complexity. This assessed the complexity of decisions and planning processes required to fulfil the task, how often difficult tasks have to be accomplished, and if the job offers the

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chance for enlarging one’s professional know-how. An example item is: “Colleague A has to plan in detail how the task can be solved. Colleague B’s tasks do not require any planning processes. Which job is more similar to yours?” Task control. This referred to the number and kind of decision possibilities concerning the tasks (e.g., “Is it possible in your job to make one’s own decisions how to carry out the tasks?”). Timing control. This referred to decision possibilities with regard to time aspects of the task, for example, if the person is allowed to choose his or her own pace and take a break when feeling for it (e.g., “To what extent can you decide how long to work on a certain task?”). Participation. This referred to more general decision possibilities with regard to planning vacations or shifts, employing new staff, or composition of the team. The scale consisted of seven items and asked to what extent the person may take part in these decisions. Organizational problems. This asked about problems in the work organization that typically cause additional effort to perform the tasks (e.g., “‘A’ has to use tricks to be able to fulfil his/her work. ‘B’ is equipped in such a way that he/she can manage without additional effort. Which job is similar to yours?”). This scale bears resemblance to the constraints scale of Spector and Jex (1998). Uncertainty. This aimed at unclear or contradictory goals, conditions, or outcomes of actions and included contradictory or unclear external tasks of the organization (e.g., “How often do you get contradictory orders?”). Time pressure. This described quantitative aspects of the job and referred to problems caused by speed and quantity of information processing so that tasks cannot be executed within a given time frame (e.g., “How often do you have to work during your break because there is so much work?”). Concentration demands. This referred to the problem of informational overload of the working memory during action execution. In this case, too much concurrent information is required to be available in the working memory to accomplish the task (e.g., “Do you have to make mental notes of things that are difficult to remember (number of units, names, addresses, codes, file names, folders, etc.)?”). Cooperation demands. The necessity of cooperating with other persons to accomplish one’s tasks may cause stress if these persons cannot be relied on. This is why proximity of cooperation was considered to be a potential job stressor. The scale asked if one’s process of work is hindered by colleagues or team members.

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Emotion work or emotional labour. This was measured using the Frankfurt Emotion Work Scales (FEWS 4.0; Zapf, Mertini, Seifert, Vogt, Isic, & Fischbach, 2000; Zapf et al., 1999). Response formats corresponded to those of the ISTA instrument. Positive emotions. This scale referred to the requirement to display pleasant emotions (e.g., “In your job how often does it occur that you have to display pleasant emotions towards your clients?”). Negative emotions. This asked for the necessity of displaying and dealing with unpleasant emotions (e.g., “How often does it occur in your job that you have to display unpleasant emotions towards your clients?”). Sensitivity requirements. This examined whether empathy or knowledge about clients’ current feelings are required by the job (e.g., “Does your job require paying attention to the feelings of your clients?”). Emotional dissonance. This referred to the display of unfelt emotions and to the suppression of felt but (from an organizational perspective) undesired emotions (e.g., “How often does it occur in your job that one has to display positive emotions that do not correspond to what you feel in this situation?”) Moreover, we used single items to measure characteristics of the call centres. We asked whether the participants worked in inhouse call centres or in service bureaux, whether they worked inbound, outbound, or both, whether their main task was to give information or to do simple order bookings, simple counselling, or complex counselling, whether they had managerial responsibility, and the percentage of time spent at the telephone. Means and standard deviations of the above-mentioned scales are presented in Table 1; the intercorrelations are presented in Table 2. RESULTS First, we analysed whether the overall call centre sample significantly differed from the three groups of the comparison sample. Corresponding analyses are presented in Table 3. The call centre sample was characterized by significantly less complexity, task control, timing control, and participation than all other groups. This result was in line with previous studies and supported Hypothesis 1a. As far as job stressors are concerned, no differences were found for “uncertainty”. For all other job stressors, the call centres scored better, although there was no significant difference with the human services group regarding the “cooperation demands”. Thus, Hypothesis 1b that job stressors would be higher in call centres compared to other organizations was rejected. Third, we investigated the emotion work variables. Again, substantial differences occurred across groups. With regard to the requirement to express positive emotions, all groups differed significantly from each other. They were lowest for the “no-service” group followed by the service, call centre, and human service groups, thus partly supporting Hypothesis 1c. The same result was found for sensitivity requirements. In line with Hypothesis 1d, the

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TABLE 1 Psychometric data of study variables

Gender: female = 1, male = 2.

call centre group was significantly less required to express negative emotions than all other groups. Finally, the “no-service” group experienced the least emotional dissonance, whereas the call centre sample reported the highest emotional dissonance. Although the call centre scores were not statistically different from the human service group, this finding is in line with Hypothesis 1e. Next, we compared the eight call centre samples with the comparison samples (Figures 1–3). Differences were tested with analyses of variance (with post hoc Bonferroni tests; see Table 4). As can be seen in Figure 1, complexity and control were generally lower for call centres than for the comparison groups. However, there were exceptions. Call centre 5, a computer hotline for technical assistance, was comparable to the comparison groups except for participation. In all, 11 of 28 possible mean differences among the call centres were significant for complexity, 9 for task control, 8 for timing control, and 2 for participation (cf. Table 4). Thus Hypothesis 2a was partly supported. With regard to job stressors, no significant differences were found for “uncertainty” (therefore not displayed in Figure 2). Two call centres differed from the human service group with regard to organizational problems, but not from the service group (Table 4 and Figure 2). Moreover, the eight call centres were not significantly different from each other. In contrast, time pressure was significantly lower in Call centre 1 (the only outbound call centre) than in the other call centres and significantly higher in Call centre

Cronbach’s α (total sample) = diagnonal (in parentheses); call centres (n=375) = lower triangle; control groups (n = 405) = upper triangle; *p < .05; **p < .01. Gender: female = 1, male = 2.

Intercorrelation of study variables

TABLE 2

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TABLE 3 Comparison of the total call centre sample with comparison groups

**p < .01; n.s.: not significant; variance analyses with Bonferroni post hoc analyses; groups with different letters are significantly different (p < .05).

Figure 1. Comparison of means of eight call centres and comparison groups of job characteristics.

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Figure 2. Comparison of means of eight call centres and comparison groups of job stressors.

Figure 3. Comparison of means of eight call centres and comparison groups of emotion work variables.

**p < .01; variance analyses with Bonferroni post hoc analyses; groups with different letters are significantly different (p < .05).

Comparison of eight call centres with comparison groups

TABLE 4

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5 than in the other call centres. In half of the call centres time pressure was lower than in the service and human service group. Similar but less pronounced results were found for concentration and cooperation demands. In all, there were no significant differences among call centres for uncertainty and organizational problems, but 12 significant differences for time pressure, 7 for concentration demands and 5 for cooperation demands (see Table 4: Group means with different letters are significantly different). With regard to the emotion work variables (Figure 3) differences occurred for the requirements to express positive emotions which might be attributed to varying degrees of customer contacts. Similar results were found for sensitivity requirements. In contrast, all call centres were characterized by lower requirements to express negative emotions, whereas they featured a higher level of emotional dissonance at the same time— although not statistically different from the service and human service group. Among the call centres, there were five significant differences for the expression of positive emotions, and two for sensitivity requirements. No significant differences were found for the expression of negative emotions and emotional dissonance. Thus there was support for Hypothesis 2b only with regard to negative emotions and emotional dissonance. Next we were interested in how far some of the organizational call centre variables were able to explain the differences described in Figures 1–3. In Table 5, results of covariance analyses with call centres as the independent variable, stressors, resources, and emotion work as the dependent variables and the organizational call centre variables as covariates are shown. η2 refers to the variance between call centres and Δη2 refers to the variance between call centres after controlling for the organizational call centre variables inhouse vs. external services, percentage of telephone work, leadership responsibilities, task type, inbound vs. outbound, call time, and number of customers per hour. As can be seen from Table 5, the variance between call centres was significantly reduced for complexity and control, most substantially for task control. Similar results were found for time pressure, concentration, and cooperation demands, whereas the stressors uncertainty and organizational problems were not or only little affected. The covariates reduced the variance between call centres by 50% for positive emotions, but had little effect on the other variables. In all cases, the percentage of telephone time was the most influential variable. Complexity and task control were higher in inhouse call centres, thus partly supporting Hypothesis 3a (Table 6). No differences were found for timing control and participation. Time pressure, concentration demands, and cooperation demands were also higher in inhouse call centres. Moreover, in line with Hypothesis 3b, CSRs in external service bureaux were more frequently required to show positive emotions and less frequently to show negative emotions. However, no differences were found for sensitivity requirements and emotional dissonance, thus partly rejecting Hypothesis 3b. Not surprisingly, CSRs reporting to do complex counselling also reported higher complexity and control (Hypothesis 4a) as well as job stressors except uncertainty (Hypothesis 4b). Positive emotions and sensitivity requirements were highest and negative emotions were lowest for simple counselling (Hypothesis 4c), whereas no differences occurred for emotional dissonance. Thus, Hypothesis 4d was rejected.

**p < .01; *p < .05; ap = .06. η2: variance between call centres; Δη2: variance between call centres after controlling for organizational call centre variables; columns 3–11, line 1: results of multiple regressions: betas with stressors and resources as dependent variables; line 2, numbers in parentheses: zero order correlations; column 12: explained variance; columns 4–8: dummy coded variables (cf. Table 6).

Job stressors and resources and characteristics of call centres

TABLE 5

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**p < .01; *p < .05; variance analyses with Bonferroni post hoc analyses: line 1: means; SD in parentheses;a and b: groups with different letters are significantly different (p < .05); cimhomogeneous variance, T-test for pooled variances used.

Job stressors and resources and characteristics of call centres: Comparison of means

TABLE 6

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Also in line with expectations, team leaders reported higher complexity and control (Hypothesis 5a) as well as time pressure, concentration demands, and cooperation demands (Hypothesis 5b). No differences were detected for the other stressors and emotion work (Hypothesis 5c). Thus Hypothesis 5a was fully supported, Hypothesis 5b was partly supported, whereas Hypothesis 5c was rejected. The effects for task and timing control, however, disappeared when controlling for the other organizational call centre variables, primarily due to the percentage of telephone time (Table 6). Thus, the data suggest that team leaders have more task control and timing control which might be explained by the fact that they spend less time interacting with customers on the phone. Table 5 also shows correlations between the percentage of time working on the telephone. As expected there were substantial negative correlations between complexity and control and telephone time, with the highest correlation for timing control (hypothesis 6a). Negative correlations were also found for time pressure, concentration, and cooperation demands. As expected, there was a positive correlation with positive emotions; however, contrary to expectations, a negative correlation with the frequency to express negative emotions occurred and no correlation was detectable for sensitivity requirements and emotional dissonance. Thus Hypothesis 6b could only be supported for one of the four emotion work variables. With regard to inbound vs. outbound activities, those jobs with both inbound and outbound activities were distinguished by the highest complexity and control, whereas inbound calls only and outbound calls only were not statistically different (Hypothesis 7). Outbound activities were characterized by less job stressors than inbound activities as well as the combination of both. Only for uncertainty no differences were found. Finally, positive emotions were higher for outbound activities but no differences were realized for the other emotion work variables. In addition, Table 5 also reports results of multiple regressions with resources, job stressors, and emotion work as the dependent variables and the organizational call centre variables as the independent variables. The table shows that the call centre variables explain considerable variance for complexity and job control and they explain least variance for the emotion work variables. The most important independent variable in these analyses is percentage of telephone time, which significantly contributes to complexity and all control variables, concentration and cooperation demands, and the requirement to display positive emotions. All other call centre variables are only occasionally significant in these analyses. DISCUSSION Call centres are among the few booming operations in recent years. The main task in call centres is to interact with customers by telephone, usually supported by computer systems used to organize and automate parts of the job. In this article we compared complexity, control, job stressors, and emotion work in a sample of call centre employees and in a comparison group consisting of service workers, human service workers, and workers who had no service jobs (mainly blue collar jobs and administrative jobs). We found that jobs in call centres were characterized by lower complexity and control, but call

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centre workers were better off with regard to most job stressors compared to the comparison groups. These effects become even stronger when CSRs without leadership responsibilities are considered only (cf. Table 6, column 9). Moreover, CSRs had to express less negative emotions but were most frequently exposed to emotional dissonance although the statistical differences were not all significant for the single call centres. Concerning requirements to express positive emotions and to demonstrate sensitivity they were between other service workers, the group they are most comparable with, and human service workers. Looking at the differentiated results of eight call centres revealed job-related deficits in most but not all call centres. Mixed results arose from the analysis of job stressors. The percentage of time working with customers on the telephone explained a substantial part of the differences among call centres. The percentage of telephone time was negatively correlated with complexity and control as well as with some of the job stressors and it was positively correlated with the requirement to display positive emotions. The present results support the view that the majority of call centres— that is both inbound and outbound call centres with relatively simple tasks—have been established to organize customer mass service (Holman, 2003). However, there are also call centres in our study that belong to the “customer relationship” type, at least with regard to complexity and control. This applies for Call centre 5, which is a hotline for technical questions where people perform relatively complex tasks. Similar but less pronounced results were found for Call centre 2, which is an inhouse call centre in the tourism sector. Contrary to many expectations, the job stressors in some call centres were lower than in the comparison groups. This was especially so in Call centre 1, the only outbound call centre. Looking at the various call centres substantial differences between the call centres were revealed. Workers in Call centre 5 scored maximally with regard to time pressure and concentration demands, as did people in human service work. Again, similar, but less pronounced results were found for Call centre 2. On the other hand, three call centres had significantly less organizational problems and two call centres had significantly lower cooperation demands than all comparison groups. Our results do not support the conclusion that call centre jobs are generally more stressful with regard to job stressors. The results for job complexity, control, and job stressors support the findings of an earlier study (Isic et al., 1999). Call centres seem to be well organized as indicated by the low levels of uncertainty and organizational problems, certainly in comparison with many other service organizations. This may be the result of relying heavily on information technology supporting the distribution of calls and directing the course of CSR-customer interactions. However, the data also show that this leads to lower control and participation by the CSRs. Thus it can be concluded that the problem in many call centres is not the high level of job stressors but the low level of resources that could help to buffer the negative effects of stressors (Hobfoll, 2001; Lazarus, 1999; Zapf & Semmer, in press). This conclusion has to be validated, however, because although we measured a variety of stressors, we were not able to measure all stressful aspects of the job. For example, we did not check whether performance was monitored electronically, which appeared to be a stressor in the study by Holman (2002). With regard to emotion work, there usually are strict display rules. Observing these rules is often enforced by electronic performance monitoring in many call centres

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(Baumgartner, Good, & Udris, 2002; Holman, 2003; Schuler, 2000). The frequency of customer contacts in call centres is generally higher than in other service jobs. This could explain the fact that CSRs are more often required to express positive emotions in comparison to other comparable service professions. However, the absence of having to display negative emotions seems to be specific for all call centres. Indeed, CSRs’ tasks do not seem to include the demonstration of negative emotions (the mean is between “almost never” and “once a month”). This is in contrast to the jobs of human service workers. A social worker, for example, sometimes has to express negative emotions to reach certain goals. Being allowed to display a variety of emotions may sometimes alleviate the task for human service workers (Zapf, Seifert, Schmutte, Mertini, & Holz, 2001). The display rules for human service workers are much less restrictive. In most call centres CSRs are expected to display friendliness and politeness (see, e.g., the study of Deery et al., 2002). The organizational display rules do not allow the display of any negative emotion. This could explain why emotion work in human services jobs seems to be more frequent and more intensive compared to work in call centres, although emotional dissonance seems to be higher in call centres. The organizational call centre variables have relatively little effect on emotion work. Only a few relations were significant, supporting the view that a high level of the requirement to express positive emotions, a very low level to express negative emotions, and a relatively high level of emotional dissonance resulting from both seem to be typical for call centres in general, almost independent of the specific call centre organization. When considering organizational and task characteristics of the call centres, it turns out that the percentage of time spent at the telephone interacting with customers is one of the key variables. The more time CSRs spend on the telephone the less complex the tasks are and the less control they have. However, there is also an increase of time pressure, concentration requirements, and cooperation demands. It is a frequent finding in our studies that more complex jobs are also more stressful (e.g., Dormann et al., 2002). So interacting by telephone in call centres is not necessarily related to high task-related job stressors. This contradicts findings that indicators of emotion work, such as frequency of interactions, are usually positively correlated with time pressure and concentration demands (Zapf et al., 2001). One speculative explanation could be that in many call centres only the time spent at the telephone is seen as productive (see the discussion on electronic monitoring in Holman, 2003). This might enhance the pressure on other tasks to be carried out as fast as possible. Although there is a pressure in many call centres to increase the number of calls, which could be hypothesized to go along with an heightened level of job stressors, there is, on the other hand, some evidence that call centres are better organized than other organizations or other organizational units. Most call centres have invested heavily in modern information technology to support the CSRs (Holman, 2003; Schuler, 2000). Therefore, organizational problems, time pressure, concentration requirements, and cooperation demands are relatively low compared to the comparison groups. In the present study, inhouse call centres differ in several respects from external service bureaux. When controlling for other organizational call centre variables, external service bureaux are still characterized by less complexity and a higher requirement to express

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positive emotions. Differences with regard to job stressors and control disappear. They are explained by the more complex tasks carried out in in-house call centres. Contrary to expectations, outbound activities compared to inbound activities are related to less complexity, control, and job stressors. Obviously, the low task complexity in outbound call centres offers little substantial control for the CSRs. An example is Call centre 1, the only outbound call centre in the study. Not surprisingly, team leaders report higher complexity and control, but also more job stressors except for uncertainty. Whereas the higher extent of complexity and participation can be attributed to their organizational role, task control and timing control can obviously be explained by the less time the team leaders spend at the telephone. Obviously, when interacting with customers on the telephone, they do not have more control over the situation than the CSRs without leadership responsibilities. In summary, the results of this study suggest that low complexity, low resources, and a relatively high level of emotional dissonance are the prevailing problems of working in call centres. CSRs are strongly controlled by customers. They often have to adhere to clear rules about how to interact with customers both on the task level (with scripts on how to proceed) as well as on the interaction level (display rules to be positive and friendly), thereby being limited in their possibilities to cope with stressors. Practical conclusions to be drawn from the present study would include job enrichment strategies, especially for inhouse call centres. A mixture of customer-related interaction work and administrative work, and other backstage work as well, such as taking over tasks from other departments of the company, could offer possibilities to improve jobs. However, these kinds of improvement would probably be hard to introduce in specialized call centres carrying out mass services. In this type of call centre it may be difficult to find a substantial amount of nonroutine work, making the implementation of job enrichment strategies almost impossible. Countries like Germany, which relocated a substantial part of its production to low salary countries, are characterized by a shortage of unskilled work and low salaried jobs. A look at the sociodemographic data of call centre staff shows that although the percentage of employees with a university degree is very low, only 17% are in possession of a lower stream school-leaving certificate and there is nobody without such a level of education. This reflects that most call centres recruit staff with some level of qualifications, like good or very good communication skills, a friendly voice, verbal fluency, and no accent (Baumgart et al., 2002; Baumgartner et al., 2002; Dieckhoff et al., 2002). These skills are difficult to find among unskilled workers. Therefore, candidates with higher education are usually preferred. Because of their high basic education, many of these employees find call centre work too undemanding after a while. This may contribute to the high turnover rate frequently found in call centres (Holman, 2003; Schuler, 2000). The present study has strengths and limitations. One of its strengths is the reasonable sample size and the comparison group design with a randomly drawn sample, which may, however, have a bias towards academic professions. A limitation is that the call centres were not randomly drawn. However, because the present results are very similar to other studies (Baumgart et al., 2002; Baumgartner et al., 2002; Dormann et al., 2002; Isic et al., 1999), especially with regard to sociodemographic variables, we assume that

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the call centres are not untypical. Despite the fact that the data are all self-reported, in most analyses, the independent variable can be assumed to be bias free (e.g., call centre sample vs. comparison samples, inbound vs. outbound, inhouse vs. service bureaux, team leader responsibilities). Therefore, an overestimation of relations or differences of results due to measurement artifacts is unlikely in this article. Whereas the study replicates previous findings suggesting that job design could be considerable improved in call centres, it clearly shows that call centre workers are not generally exposed to higher levels of job stressors. One of the strengths of this study is that it provides a more differentiated picture of the positive and negative implications of CSR—customer interactions. The relatively high level of emotional dissonance which has been shown to be an important stressor in service work (Zapf, 2002) questions the application of too strict display rules and the electronic performance monitoring techniques to enforce these rules. Although strict scripts and display rules may have a protective function because they are reassuring with regard to the behaviour preferred by the organization, they often inhibit the CSRs’ autonomy and their ability to provide customized service (Deery et al., 2002). The data of the present study suggest giving the agents more decision latitude to personalize the organizational display rules and to develop an individual style how to interact with customers. However, our practical experience is that fewer defined display and interaction rules often lead to uncertainty for the CSRs with regard to what is and what is not allowed. Currently, there seems to be progress in the research on job stressors and resources in call centres. However, little research has been carried out on the social interaction of service provider and customer. Future research should, therefore, supplement recent research by looking more on the service provider-customer interaction, which seems to be the major source of stress in the present study. REFERENCES Adelmann, P.K. (1995). Emotional labor as a potential source of job stress. In S.L.Sauter & L. R.Murphy (Eds.), Organizational risk factors for job stress (pp. 371–381). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Batt, R. (2002). Managing customer services: Human resource practices, quit rates, and sales growth. Academy of Management Journal, 45, 587–597. Baumgart, U., Debitz, U., Metz, A.-M., Richter, P., Schulze, F., Timm, E., & Wieland, R. (2002). CCall Report 11. Call Center auf dem arbeitspsychologischen Prüfstand. Teil 2: Arbeitsgestaltung, Belastung, Beanspruchung & Ressourcen [Call centre at the work psychology test bench. Part 2: Job design, stressor, strain, and resources]. Hamburg: VerwaltungsBerufsgenossenschaft. Baumgartner, M., Good, K., & Udris, I. (2002). Call Centers in der Schweiz. Psychologische Untersuchungen in 14 Organisationen [Call centres in Switzerland: Psychological investigations in 14 organizations]. Zurich, Switzerland: Institut für Arbeitspsychologie, ETH Zurich. Bongard, S., & al’Absi, M. (2003). Domain-specific anger expression assessment and blood pressure during rest and acute stress. Personality and Individual Differences, 34, 1381–1402.

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Hochschild, A.R. (1983). The managed heart. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Holman, D.J. (2002). Employee well being in call centres. Human Resource Management Journal, 12, 35–50. Holman, D.J. (2003). Call centres. In D.J.Holman, T.D.Wall, C.W.Clegg, P.Sparrow, & A. Howard (Eds.), The new workplace: A guide to the human impact of modern working practices. Chichester, UK: Wiley. Holman, D.J., Chissic, C., & Totterdell, P. (2002). The effects of performance monitoring on emotional labor and well being in call centers. Motivation and Emotion, 26, 57–81. Isic, A., Dormann, C., & Zapf, D. (1999). Belastungen und Ressourcen an Call CenterArbeitsplätzen [Stressors and resources at call centre jobs]. Zeitschrift für Arbeitswissenschaft, 53, 202–208. Knights, D., & McCabe, D. (1998). What happens when the phone goes wild? Staff, stress and spaces for escape in a BPR telephone banking call regime. Journal of Management Studies, 35, 163–194. Kruml, S.M., & Geddes, D. (2000). Catching fire without burning out: Is there an ideal way to perform emotional labor? In N.M.Ashkanasy, C.E.J.Härtel, & W.J.Zerbe (Eds.), Emotions in the workplace: Research, theory and practice (pp. 177–188). Westport, CT: Quorum Books. Lazarus, R.S. (1999). Stress and emotion: A new synthesis. New York: Springer. Metz, A.-M., Rothe, H.-J., & Degener, M. (2001). Belastungsprofile von Beschäftigen in Call Centern [Stressor profiles of employees working in call centres]. Zeitschrift für Arbeits- und Organisationspsychologie, 45, 124–135. Morris, J.A., & Feldman, D.C. (1996). The dimensions, antecedents, and consequences of emotional labor. Academy of Management Review, 21, 986–1010. Morris, J.A., & Feldman, D.C. (1997). Managing emotions in the workplace. Journal of Managerial Issues, 9, 257–274. Nerdinger, F.W., & Röper, M. (1999). Emotionale Dissonanz und Burnout. Eine empirische Untersuchung im Pflegebereich eines Universitätskrankenhauses [Emotional dissonance and burnout: An empirical examination in the nursing sector of a university hospital]. Zeitschrift für Arbeitswissenschaft, 53, 187–193. Richter, P., & Schulze, F. (2001). Arbeitsorganisation als Möglichkeit der Beanspruchungsoptimierung an Call-Center-Arbeitsplätzen [Work organization as a possibility of strain optimization at call centre jobs]. In I. Matuschek, A.Henninger, & F.Kleemann (Eds.), Neue Medien im Arbeitsalltag (pp. 131–146). Wiesbaden, Germany: Westdeutscher Velag. Schaubroeck, J., & Jones, J.R. (2000). Antecedents of workplace emotional labor dimensions and moderators of their effects on physical symptoms. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 21, 163–183. Schuler, H. (2000). Die Call Center der Zukunft: Vom Call Center zum multimedialen KundenInteraktions-Center [The call centre of the future: From the call centre to the multimedia customer interaction centre]. In H.Schuler & J.Pabst (Eds.), Personalentwicklung im Call Center der Zukunft (pp. 1–11). Neuwied, Germany: Luchterhand. Semmer, N.K., Zapf, D., & Dunckel, H. (1995). Assessing stress at work: A framework and an instrument. In O.Svane & C.Johansen (Eds.), Work and health—scientific basis of progress in the

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working environment (pp. 105–113). Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. Semmer, N.K., Zapf, D., & Dunckel, H. (1998). Instrument zur Streßbezogenen Arbeitsanalyse ISTA Version 6.0. Bern, Germany: Psychologisches Institut Bern. Semmer, N.K., Zapf, D., & Dunckel, H. (1999). Instrument zur Stressbezogenen Tätigkeitsanalyse ISTA [Instrument for stress-related job analysis]. In H.Dunckel (Ed.), Handbuch psychologischer Arbeitsanalyseverfahren (pp. 179–204). Zürich, Switzerland: vdf Hochschulverlag. Spector, P.E., & Jex, S.M. (1998). Development of four self-report measures of job stressors and strain: Interpersonal Conflict at Work Scale, Organizational Constraints Scale, Quantitative Workload Inventory, and Physical Symptoms Inventory. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 3, 356–367. Wieland, R., Metz, A.-M., & Richter, P. (2001). CCall Report 3. Call Center auf dem arbeitspsychologischen Prüfstand. Teil 1: Verfahren, Tätigkeitsmerkmale und erste Ergebnisse zur psychischen Belastung [Call centres at the work psychology test bench. Part 1: Instruments, task characteristics and first results regarding psychological stress]. Hamburg, Germany: Verwaltungs-Berufsgenossenschaft. Zapf, D. (1993). Stress-oriented job analysis of computerized office work. The European Work and Organizational Psychologist, 3, 85–100. Zapf, D. (2002). Emotion work and psychological strain: A review of the literature and some conceptual considerations. Human Resource Management Review, 12, 237–268. Zapf, D., Bechtoldt, M., & Dormann, C. (in press). Instrument zur Streßbezogenen Arbeitsanalyse (ISTA), Fragebogen Version 6.0 [Instrument for stress-related job analysis (ISTA) questionnaire version 6.0]. Zeitschrift für Arbeits- und Organisationspsychologie. Zapf, D., Mertini, H., Seifert, C., Vogt, C., Isic, A., & Fischbach, A. (2000). Frankfurt Emotion Work Scales—Frankfurter Skalen zur Emotionsarbeit FEWS 4.0. Frankfurt, Germany: Department of Psychology, J.W. Goethe-University Frankfurt. Zapf, D., Seifert, C., Schmutte, B., Mertini, H., & Holz, M. (2001). Emotion work and job stressors and their effects on burnout. Psychology and Health, 16, 527–545. Zapf, D., & Semmer, N.K. (in press). Stress und Gesundheit in Organisationen [Stress and health in organizations]. In H.Schuler (Ed.), Enzyklopädie der Psychologie, Themenbereich D, Serie III, Band 3, Organisationspsychologie (2nd ed.). Göttingen, Germany: Hogrefe. Zapf, D., Vogt, C., Seifert, C., Mertini, H., & Isic, A. (1999). Emotion work as a source of stress: The concept and development of an instrument. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 8, 371–400. Zeithaml, V.A., & Bitner, M.J. (2000). Services marketing: Integrating customer focus across the firm (2nd ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill.

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Working conditions, well-being, and job-related attitudes among call centre agents Simone Grebner, Norbert K.Semmer, Luca Lo Faso, Stephan Gut, Wolfgang Kälin, and Achim Elfering University of Berne, Switzerland

A comparison of 234 call centre agents with 572 workers in traditional jobs with long lasting training revealed lower job control and task complexity/ variety and higher uncertainty among call agents. However, time pressure, concentration demands, and work interruptions were lower in call agents. Within the call agent sample, controlling for negative affectivity and other working conditions, job control predicted intention to quit, and job complexity/variety predicted job satisfaction and affective commitment. Social stressors and task-related stressors predicted uniquely indicators of well-being and job-related attitudes. Furthermore, data confirm the role of emotional dissonance as a stressor in its own right, as it explained variance in irritated reactions and psychosomatic complaints beyond other working conditions. Results indicate that strong division of labour may be a rather general phenomenon in call centres. Therefore, working conditions of call agents require a redesign by means of job enrichment or—better—organization development. Moreover, measures of social stressors and emotional dissonance should be integrated routinely into stressrelated job analyses in service jobs. Call centres that execute customer care by phone, represent a new form of work organization, which often is designed “from scratch”. This might offer a unique opportunity to design jobs according to established principles of job design, creating work

Correspondence should be addressed to S.Grebner, Dept. of Psychology, University of Berne, Muesmattstr. 45, CH-3000 Berne 9, Switzerland. Email: [email protected]

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that is motivating, and enhances productivity (Parker & Wall, 1998). Typically, however, when new jobs are designed, such principles tend not to play a major role (Clegg et al., 1997). Rather, work is designed around technical solutions or existing organizational principles, and this may imply unfavourable working conditions for employees (Parker & Wall, 1998). This seems to apply to call centres as well. Of course, one cannot lump together all call centre jobs in an undifferentiated way. Nevertheless, there are indications that, at present, many call centre agents predominantly carry out tasks that are rather specialized and often simplified (cf. Isic, Dormann, & Zapf, 1999; Taylor, Mulvey, Hyman, & Bain, 2002). This can be attributed to a very high degree of structural division of labour. For instance call agents mainly answer incoming calls (inbound) or call customers (outbound), whereas back office employees often execute post-processing of requests (cf. Isic et al., 1999; Moltzen & van Dick, 2002). High-grade division of labour certainly promises some obvious microeconomic advantages. As it simplifies tasks, only a relatively short period of vocational training is required (e.g., 4–6 weeks of training, cf. Baumgartner, Good, & Udris, 2002; Toomingas et al., 2001). Also, simplified tasks do not require specialized personnel. Altogether this might serve to keep personnel costs low. However, possible disadvantages are easily overlooked. Several studies have shown that job simplification by division of labour comes along with routine work (low task variety, i.e., repetition of the same task over extended periods), low task complexity (i.e., only few necessities of own decisions; Frese & Zapf, 1994), and consequential low utilization of qualification (knowledge, skills, and abilities). Moreover, many call agents have low influence on one’s own work in terms of work-related resources such as job control, not only over work pace (i.e., decision possibilities over time frame of task conduct such as time point, succession, and duration of actions), but also with regard to planning and organizing one’s own work (cf. Deery, Iverson, & Walsh, 2002; Isic et al., 1999; Metz, Rothe, & Degener, 2001). This is in conflict with the fact that the majority of call agents in Switzerland are skilled workers (cf. Baumgartner et al., 2002). Thus, in comparison with more traditional jobs that require extensive job-specific vocational training (e.g., several years), the work of call agents that are employed in front line jobs is often characterized by elements of Taylorism, with its emphasis on strict division of labour, and consequential limited job demands in terms of low complexity, low variability, and low control, in particular with regard to inbound jobs (Isic et al., 1999). Although there are not many studies concerning call centres, supporting evidence is growing. A German study involving 250 call agents from 14 call centres (mostly inbound) found that call agents had poorer working conditions in terms of task variability and complexity and lower job control as well as higher psychosomatic complaints than people in comparable, but more traditional work places (administrative clerks, bank clerks; cf. Isic et al., 1999) controlling for age, sex, and education level. A Swiss study among 242 call agents from 14 call centres (primarily inbound) showed that task variety predicted psychosocial well-being, qualification requirements predicted job satisfaction, and lack of complexity was related to low organizational commitment (Baumgartner et al., 2002). Moreover, a recent study by Holman and Wall (2002) found that low job control predicted depression among inbound call agents of a national UK bank in crosssectional as well as in longitudinal data. Furthermore, in a study among US teleservice

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centre representatives, lack of job control was associated with musculoskeletal disorders (Hoekstra, Hurrell, Swanson, & Tepper, 1995). Finally, there is some evidence that many call centres suffer from high turnover rates of agents. Baumgartner et al. (2002) report turnover rates of 8–50%. They found that experienced monotony is one of the most frequent reasons that call agents cite for quitting their job. In line with this, low complexity and variety predicted intention to quit and were negatively related to actual job tenure. It seems, therefore, that there is a tendency in the design of many call centre jobs to show low control (i.e., limited resources) as well as low complexity and variety (i.e., limited job demands), that have not only been associated with poor outcomes in terms of well-being and turnover both in call centre studies but also in the general literature (e.g., Kahn & Byosiere, 1992; Sonnentag & Frese, 2003). From these considerations we derive two hypotheses, which ask about the working conditions of call agents as compared to employees in more traditional jobs that require a longer vocational training period (e.g., several years). We expect that due to the high division of labour in call centres and the short training period job control and task complexity and variety of call agents are lower than among employees in traditional jobs with a long training period (Hypothesis 1). With regard to call centre studies, the picture is less clear for stressors, such as taskrelated stressors (e.g., work overload, concentration demands, and uncertainty in terms of role ambiguity) and social stressors (e.g., conflicts with supervisors and colleagues). However, there are reports that high call volumes often lead to a fast pace of work (cf. Moltzen & van Dick, 2002). Isic et al. (1999) found, controlling for age, sex, and educational level, rather high levels of time pressure, concentration demands, and uncertainty among call agents, and two of those were significantly higher among call agents than among administrative clerks; the task-related stressors of bank clerks were, however, comparable to those of the call agents. From our point of view it seems plausible that the picture is less clear for stressors: In contrast to limited job resources and job demands (i.e., low control, low complexity, and limited variety), which seem to reflect a general tendency for job design in call centres, the level of some task-related stressors (work interruptions, problems of work organization, uncertainty, and concentration demands), and social stressors is in any organization likely to depend more on specific circumstances within that organization (e.g., organization structure, information flow, leadership behaviour, etc.) than on job demands and resources, and therefore is not built in the tasks of call agents as strongly as control, variety, and complexity of tasks. Therefore, we do not expect differences between call agents and employees in more traditional jobs concerning work interruptions and problems of work organization (i.e., regulation obstacles such as lack of updated information and deficient tools; cf. Frese & Zapf, 1994; Semmer, 2003), uncertainty (unclear or conflicting goals), concentration demands, and social stressors (Hypothesis 2a). However, we expect call agents to have higher workload respectively time pressure than employees in traditional jobs because of paced work, as reported in the literature (Hypothesis 2b). Moreover, because of limited job demands and resources we expect call agents to report worse well-being (e.g., context-free well-being such as irritation and psychosomatic complaints, and job-specific well-being like work-home spillover), and

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impaired job-related attitudes in terms of lower job satisfaction, less affective commitment, more resigned attitude towards the job, and higher intention to quit than among employees in traditional jobs (Hypothesis 3). It is important to note that job satisfaction might be classified as an indicator of well-being (cf. Warr, 1999) as well as a job attitude. We classified it as an attitude because of its clear attitudinal component. Hypotheses 1–3 intend primarily to replicate earlier findings (Isic et al., 1999). However, in two respects they go beyond a mere replication. First, they include problems of work organization and work interruptions in terms of regulation obstacles, a category of taskrelated stressors that is not often employed in occupational stress research, but that is interesting from many perspectives. Obstacles impede or even thwart to pursue and reach a goal. From this point of view, obstacles underscore the importance of goals (Frese & Zapf, 1994; Semmer, 2003), and they also underscore that people are motivated to do good work—that is—to reach their goals, and they are stressed if they do not find the conditions for doing so. Moreover, coping with regulation obstacles requires additional effort (e.g., to start again, to repeat parts of the action process or to enhance physical strength, etc.), or even the use of more risky actions in order to reach the goal despite the obstacles (e.g., Frese & Zapf, 1994). This type of task-related stressor has been proposed in the 1980s (Keenan & Newton, 1984; O’Connor, Peters, Pooynan, Weekley, Frank, & Erenkrantz, 1984; Peters & O’Connor, 1980; Semmer, 1984), and its relationships to a number of outcomes (e.g., psychosomatic complaints, cf. Semmer, 1984; Semmer, Zapf, & Greif, 1996b) have been demonstrated in these and some following studies (Dormann, Zapf, & Isic, 2002; Greiner, Ragland, Krause, Syme, & Fisher, 1997; Isic et al., 1999; Leitner, 1993; Semmer, Zapf, & Dunckel, 1995; Spector & Jex, 1998). Secondly, Hypotheses 1–3 go beyond a simple replication because negative affectivity is controlled, which is a stable affective disposition or personality trait, predisposing to negative perceptions of the world and leading to experiences of distress and negative emotions. Negative affectivity (NA) might not only influence self-reports of working conditions and strain, but may also lead to inflated correlations of stressors and strains (common method variance, e.g., Brief et al., 1988). The influence of NA should be controlled in studies that use exclusively self-reports and cross-sectional data (cf. Spector, Zapf, Chen, & Frese, 2000). For the assessment of job design in call centres it is not only important to compare working conditions and strain of call agents with working conditions and strain of other samples. It is also important to know what effects working conditions have on strain. Numerous studies have investigated effects of working conditions on strain (cf. Kahn & Byosiere, 1992; Sonnentag & Frese, 2003). For instance, resources at work such as job control are in general positively related to well-being, health and job-related attitudes (e.g., Semmer, 1998; Terry & Jimmieson, 1999). Moreover, job demands like job complexity and variety have the same effects on well-being and job-related attitudes as resources at work as long as they do not overtax a person’s capabilities, and as long as they allow to utilize one’s skills, knowledge, and abilities and, therefore, promote learning. Positive relationships of job complexity and variety with well-being and job-related attitudes have been reported both in the literature on stress at work in general (e.g., Kahn & Byosiere, 1992; Sonnentag & Frese, 2003; Warr, 1999) and specifically for call agents

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(Baumgartner et al., 2002; Isic et al., 1999). While control, complexity, and variety are associated with well-being, good health, and positive job-related attitudes, the opposite applies to stressors at work. In general, stressors are a possible source for chronic stress, such as impaired well-being and health (e.g., irritation, psychosomatic complaints; cf. Kahn & Byosiere, 1992; Sonnentag & Frese, 2003) and negatively affect job-related attitudes, too. For instance they might reduce job satisfaction and affective commitment over time, and, in turn, enhance intentions to quit a job (e.g., Sonnentag & Frese, 2003). However, although many studies have investigated stressor-strain relations, only a few studies tested unique effects of specific working conditions (e.g., job control) controlling at the same time for other types of working conditions (e.g., task-related and social stressors). From our point of view this is important because—although they are theoretically clearly distinguishable—different types of working conditions are usually moderately correlated and might contain redundant information. Therefore, it would be important to study the conceptual independence of specific types of working conditions in their effect on strain. Moreover, from a practical point of view, if the unique contribution of specific types of working conditions to strain is known job design could be tailored to improve that specific working conditions and therefore, to prevent systematically detrimental effects. For instance, Dormann et al. (2002) found an independent contribution of problems of work organization to psychosomatic complaints beyond other task-related stressors (time pressure, uncertainty), social stressors, job control, complexity, variety, emotion work scales (e.g., emotional dissonance), and NA. Hence, we expect negative relations between job control, job complexity, and variety on the one hand and measures of impaired well-being and impaired job-related attitudes on the other, which go beyond other influences including task-related stressors, social stressors, and emotional dissonance (Hypothesis 4). Moreover, we expect positive relations between task-related stressors (time pressure, concentration demands, uncertainty, problems of work organization, work interruptions) and measures of impaired well-being and lowered job attitudes beyond other influences (Hypothesis 5a). There exist many studies that investigated the effect of stressors at work on strain. However, most of them concentrated on task-related stressors. In general there exists not much evidence with regard to the effect of social stressors at work (e.g., conflicts with supervisors and colleagues, social animosities at work, negative group climate, and unfair behaviour) on strain, although available evidence suggests that social stressors may have a strong impact on well-being and health (e.g., Dormann & Zapf, 2002; Semmer, McGrath, & Beehr, in press). A possible explanation is that social stress situations involve attributions of blame (Reicherts & Pihet, 2000)— which increases stress—as well as negative social evaluations, which also are particularly stressful (Leary & Kowalski, 1995) because they offend self-worth. Hence, even if social stressors might share variance with taskrelated stressors (e.g., an impatient supervisor might not only cause time pressure but also conflicts) they might contribute uniquely to strain beyond task-related stressors because they involve negative social evaluations. Therefore, we expect social stressors to predict positively impaired well-being and impaired job-related attitudes beyond other influences (Hypothesis 5b).

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Social situations that require to control one’s owns emotions do not only occur in interactions with supervisors and colleagues (e.g., conflict with a co-worker), but are likely to occur in interactions with clients (e.g., customers). Call agents communicate most of the time voice-to-voice with customers (cf. Dormann et al., 2002; Holman & Wall, 2002; Moltzen & van Dick, 2002). Therefore, they have to deal with a variety of emotions of customers (e.g., anger, frustration). In such situations call agents have to display emotions as required by the organization (e.g., to show empathy and friendliness)— regardless of their real emotions (e.g., anger), in order to influence customers emotions in a goal-oriented manner. Therefore, their job involves emotion work according to Hochschild (1983) and Morris and Feldman (1996). Emotion work implies a stressor—emotional dissonance—that occurs when an employee has to display emotions that are appropriate for customer contact (e.g., friendliness), but differ from emotions he or she might feel actually (e.g., anger; cf. Zapf, 2002). It is important to note that in the literature emotional dissonance is seen either as a dependent variable (i.e., a state of tension that results when emotional expressions are actually different from internal feelings, e.g., Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993), or as a stressor that results when the organizationally desired emotion is not felt spontaneously (e.g., Grandey, 1998), or as a stressor located in the social environment in terms of a job demand (Zapf, 2002). We rely on the latter definition, according to the multidimensional concept of emotion work (Zapf, Vogt, Seifert, Mertini, & Isic, 1999) where emotional dissonance is defined as the demand to display emotions that are not truly felt, such as being friendly to disrespectful customers, even though the feeling that is experienced might be anger (Zapf et al., 1999). Research has shown that emotional dissonance is in general associated with impaired well-being (e.g., emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, irritation, psychosomatic complaints, reduced job satisfaction; cf. Dormann et al., 2002; Zapf, 2002; Zapf et al., 1999; Zapf, Seifert, Schmutte, Mertini, & Holz, 2001). Moreover, Dormann et al. (2002) have shown that emotional dissonance explains variance in emotional exhaustion and depersonalization beyond other working conditions (e.g., task-related and social stressors) and, therefore is considered as a stressor in its own right. However, these authors did not control for NA. From our point of view this seems to be important in particular with regard to emotional dissonance, because people high in NA are more likely to report high levels of emotional dissonance. Therefore, we expect that emotional dissonance is a task characteristic that is uniquely associated with impaired well-being and impaired job-related attitudes beyond other influences including NA (Hypothesis 5c).

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METHOD Samples Call centre sample The analyses are based on a field study of 339 male and female call centre employees from a company located in the French and German speaking area of Switzerland, corresponding to a response rate of 93%. Data collection took place in spring 2001. Overall, 163 employees in the French-speaking and 176 in the German-speaking area filled in questionnaires. The sample consists of 234 call centre agents, 40 team leaders, and 65 back office clerks. Mean age was 27.6 years (SD = 7.2, range 18–59), and 52.8% were female. The vast majority of the participants were employed full time (93.8%). Most of them (53.1%) had completed an apprenticeship or technical or secondary school. Another 30.6% had a college or university degree. Mean job tenure in the call centre of the present organization was 15 months (SD = 7.6, range 1–36), and 64.5% reported an overall job experience in customer care between 1 and 10 years, only 16% less than 6 months. Because team leaders and back office employees do not have personal contact with customers on a regular basis, data analyses are based on the subsample of n = 234 call agents who exclusively carried out inbound tasks. Work tasks and division of labour. Most of the time call agents are occupied by inbound calls. Primarily they provide information (i.e., concerning new products and services) and execute orders of customers (e.g., cancellation of contracts). The mean duration of calls is 3 min (SD = 42.3 s) and the mean duration of reworking per call 5 min (SD = 71.2 s). Remaining activities (13.5% of work time) concern team meetings and processing of information (i.e., updating own knowledge). The training period lasts few weeks, as usual for call agents in Switzerland (Baumgartner et al., 2002). However, follow-up tasks arising from inbound calls, such as processing of contracts, bills, and letters by mail, are handled by back-office employees. Comparison sample A sample of N = 572 young workers from five traditional occupations (cooks, sales assistants, nurses, bank clerks, and electronic technicians) was used as a comparison sample. These jobs require extensive vocational training between 2 and 4 years. All of them had 2 years’ job experience after finishing vocational trainings. Their mean age was 22.7 years (SD = 3.15). Slightly more than half of the sample was female (57.7%), and a similar percentage (55%) was working in the German-speaking and the others in the French-speaking area of Switzerland. The sample emanates from the third wave of the longitudinal research project “Work experiences and quality of life in Switzerland” (AEQUAS; cf. Kälin et al., 2000). The first wave took place in spring 1997, before participants completed their last year of vocational training. For the first wave, questionnaires were handed out in classrooms, in vocational schools. For waves two and

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three, they were sent out by mail. A stratified sample was drawn with the aim of having an equal representation of French- and German-speaking apprentices within each occupation, of both sexes in the overall sample, and in all selected occupations except nursing and electronics, where we simply targeted all participants of the minority gender that were available. Service and hightech occupations were chosen because they characterize the ongoing economic development in Switzerland. Therefore, the comparison sample represents a heterogeneous spectrum of job characteristics and traditional tasks (people work including service work, nursing, sales, and technical tasks, for instance programming and maintenance). Comparability of the samples Both samples are comparable in their proportion of females and French-speaking participants. Furthermore, both samples are on average in their twenties, even though the comparison sample is somewhat younger. Moreover, the overall education level is comparable. The crucial difference is that call agents are working in jobs requiring a few weeks’ training, whereas jobs in the comparison sample require longer training periods. Measures Working conditions. Working conditions (job control, job complexity/ variety, and taskrelated stressors) were measured through a short version of the Instrument for Stress Oriented Task Analysis (ISTA; Semmer et al., 1995). The instrument shows satisfying reliabilities with Cronbach’s alpha between .68 and .82 except uncertainty (α =.62; see Table 1; N = 572). All ISTA-scales consist of items that have a 5-point Likert format, reflecting either intensity or frequency. Job control captures aspects of method control (e.g., independently plan and organize one’s own work) and time control (e.g., influence on work pace and schedule). Moreover, job complexity/ variety measures complexity of tasks (e.g., necessity of complex decisions) and task variety (e.g., number of tasks). There were five task stressors: time pressure, concentration demands, problems of work organization (e.g., having to work with obsolete information), uncertainty (e.g., unclear instructions), and work interruptions. For some analyses, these five stressors were combined into a single index of task-related stressors by averaging the five scale means (cf. Frese, 1985, or Grebner, 2001, for a similar procedure). Moreover, social stressors were measured by an instrument of Frese and Zapf (1987), which captures personal animosities, poor group climate, and conflicts based on problems within the relationship to supervisor(s) and colleagues (5-point scale). Furthermore, emotional dissonance from the FEWS (Frankfurt Emotion Work Scales, Version 3.0; Zapf et al., 1999) was used to assess the frequency of the necessity to display emotions that are not genuinely felt (e,g., “How often do you have to suppress your feelings in your job in order to appear neutral?”; 5-point Likert scale). This scale was employed exclusively in the call centre sample.

Means shown are not corrected. Significances are related to estimated marginal means. Dashes indicate calculation of internal consistency is not appropriate because a mean is used. a scored from 1 to 4;b scored from 1 to 5;c scored from 1 to 6;d scored from 1 to 7;e In the call agents sample a 14-item version and in the comparison sample a 13-item version was used. Emotional dissonance was measured only among call agents. fMultivariate and univariate analyses of covariance (MANCOVAs) with age, sex, neuroticism, education level, and language region as covariates. Sample size: Call agents: N=234. Comparison sample: N=572. **p < .01; ***p< .001.

Descriptive statistics and internal consistencies (Cronbach’s alpha) for all study variables, multivariate (MANCOVA) and univariate analysis of variance (ANCOVA) for effects of group (call agents vs. comparison sample) on working conditions, well-being, and job-related attitudes

TABLE 1

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Well-being. Well-being was assessed in terms of context-free and job-related well-being (Warr, 1999). As an indicator for context-free well-being, psychosomatic complaints were measured with a scale developed by Mohr (1986, 1991; 5-point scale) on the basis of Fahrenberg (1975), asking for frequency of headaches, stomachaches, nervousness, etc. during the preceding year. The scale is comparable to many similar ones used in this type of research (e.g., the Physical Symptoms Inventory by Spector & Jex, 1998) and might be considered as a psychological long-term stress response. It has been used in a variety of studies on stress at work in German-speaking countries (e.g., Büssing, 1999; Frese, 1985; Garst, Frese, & Molenaar, 2000). Furthermore, well-being was measured by a scale on irritation/strain (Mohr, 1986, 1991; 8 items, 7-point Likert scale). This scale captures aspects of context-free well-being as well as aspects of job-related well-being. Therefore some of the analyses are based on two subscales of the Irritation/ Strain scale that differentiate both aspects. One subscale refers to the inability to “switch off” after work and to ruminate about work problems instead in terms of spillover from work to private life (e.g., “It is hard for me to switch off my mind after work”; 4 items) and, therefore measures job-related wellbeing. Garst et al. (2000) call this subscale “worrying”. The other subscale refers to context-free well-being and measures irritated reactions (e.g., “I am easily annoyed”; 4 items). Job-related attitudes. Job satisfaction was assessed by a scale that contains three items developed by Oegerli (1984) plus a Kunin Faces. It has been shown to be a good predictor of turnover (Baillod & Semmer, 1994; Semmer, Baillod, Stadler, & Gail, 1996a). Resigned attitude towards one’s job is based on Bruggemann’s (1974; for an English description see Büssing, 1992) concept of “resigned job satisfaction”. Items are again from Oegerli, and ask how often one has thoughts like “my job is not ideal, but it could be worse”, aiming at a defensive, or resentful, adaptation to working conditions that are not optimal (cf. Semmer, 2003; see also Kälin et al., 2000). Affective commitment in terms of strong positive attitudes towards the organization manifested by emotional attachment to, identification with, and involvement in the organization was measured by a scale of Dunham, Grube, and Castaneda (1994; 7-point scale, e.g., “I enjoy discussing my organization with people outside of it”). Intention to quit was measured with two items (5-point Likert scale), which ask for the subjective probability of staying in the same organization for 6 months or 2 years, respectively (cf. Bluedorn, 1982). Control variable. As an indicator for negative affectivity (NA) neuroticism was measured, based on the five-factor model of personality (McCrae & Costa, 1985). The short version of the bipolar adjective rating list was used (Ostendorf, 1990; Schallberger & Venetz, 1999). Data analysis In order to test Hypotheses 1, 2a, 2b, and 3, comparisons between call agents and the comparison sample with regard to working conditions, well-being, and job-related

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attitudes were conducted by analysis of covariance (ANCOVA), with gender (dummy coded), language area (dummy coded), level of education (dummy coded), and NA as covariates. Additionally, in order to consider existing correlations within categories of dependent variables three multivariate analyses of covariance (MANCOVA) were calculated separately for three categories of dependent variables: (1) job control and job complexity/ variety, (2) time pressure, work interruptions, problems of work organization, concentration demands, uncertainty, and social stressors, and (3) all measures of wellbeing and job-related attitudes. Within the call centre sample, hierarchical regression analyses were performed to predict indicators of well-being, as well as job-related attitudes by working conditions (Hypotheses 4, 5a, 5b, and 5c). In all regression analyses, control variables—NA, gender, language area, level of education, and age—were entered in a first step. Task-related stressors (time pressure, uncertainty, problems of work organization, concentration demands, and work interruptions) were entered in a second step. In order to determine the amount of additional variance explained by social stressors, emotional dissonance, job demands (complexity/variety) and resources (job control), these predictors were entered each in separate steps. Therefore, in a third step social stressors were entered. Emotional dissonance was added in the fourth step. In the fifth step job complexity/ variety was added. Finally in the last sixth step job control was entered. Due to entering all types of working conditions in each regression model, each effect of a specific working condition on a dependent variable is not only controlled for “control variables” but also for all other types of working conditions. RESULTS Table 1 presents descriptive statistics and reliability of all study variables for the call agents and the comparison sample. All measures in both samples indicate mostly satisfying levels of reliability in terms of internal consistency (coefficient α). Comparison of working conditions, well-being, and job-related attitudes between call agents and the comparison sample Working conditions. In Table 1, the means of working conditions, indicators of well-being, and job-related attitudes are shown for call agents and the comparison sample. In analyses of covariance, the means are controlled for age, sex, level of education, language area, and NA. As expected (Hypothesis 1), call agents showed significantly lower job control and job complexity/variety compared to employees in traditional jobs. The multivariate term was also significant indicating that the differences are not due to shared variance. Hypothesis 1 is therefore supported. Unexpectedly, the comparison sample showed higher values in task-related stressors. This applies to the index of task-related stressors as well as to three of the five underlying scales (time pressure, work interruptions, and concentration demands). Call agents had higher values only with regard to uncertainty. The multivariate term was significant,

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indicating again that the differences are not due to shared variance of dependent variables. However, with regard to organizational problems and social stressors no group differences were found as expected. Hypothesis 2a is not supported with regard to work interruptions, concentration demands, and uncertainty. However, Hypothesis 2a reveals some support concerning social stressors and problems of work organization. Hypothesis 2b is not supported. Well-being and job-related attitudes. In line with expectations, call agents reported higher psychosomatic complaints and resigned attitude towards the job (corrected means). However, they were also lower on the irritation/strain scale than the comparison sample. For job satisfaction, and affective commitment no difference was found between the samples. Moreover, call agents reported lower intention to quit than the comparison sample. Altogether Hypothesis 3 is hardly supported. The multivariate term was significant indicating again that differences are not due to shared variance of well-being and job-related attitudes. Moreover, it is important to note that the comparison sample showed a higher mean in NA. However, group differences in working conditions, well-being, and job-related attitudes remain the same if neuroticism is controlled, indicating that group differences are not based on NA. Correlations between working conditions, well-being, and job-related attitudes among call agents Intercorrelations of all study variables within the call centre sample are shown in Table 2. In line with expectations, task-related stressors, social stressors, and emotional dissonance showed a pattern of positive associations with psychosomatic complaints, irritated reactions, inability to switch off, resigned attitude towards the job and intention to quit, as well as negative associations with job satisfaction and affective commitment. Against expectations, positive relationships with concentration demands were found for job satisfaction, and affective commitment and a negative relationship was found with intention to quit. For job control, the pattern was similar as for the stressors but with a reversed sign. Job control was positively related to job satisfaction and affective commitment and negatively associated with irritated reactions, psychosomatic complaints, resigned attitude towards the job, and intention to quit. For job complexity/variety, the pattern is similar as for control, with regard to jobrelated attitudes. Job complexity/variety has clear positive associations with job satisfaction and affective commitment and a negative association with intention to quit. However, we found no associations for the well-being variables. Working conditions predicting well-being and job-related attitudes Table 3 shows the prediction of well-being and job-related attitudes by working conditions, controlling for age, sex, language area, education level, and NA.

Sample size N = 212–234. Coefficients above r = .12 are significant at p < .05; above r = .16 at p < .01; and above r = .22 at p < .001.

Intercorrelations of all study variables within the call agents sample

TABLE 2

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sex, language region, and level of education were included in Step 1 but are not shown. Sample sizes: N=209–222 call agents. Standardized regression coefficients (beta-weights) are from the final model. *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

aAge,

Prediction of well-being and job attitudes by working conditions within the call agents sample

TABLE 3

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Control variables predicting well-being, and job-related attitudes. Control variables are important for all dependent variables except for job satisfaction, affective commitment and intention to quit. Typically, it is NA and language region that are responsible for this. Positive associations of both variables are found with inability to switch off, irritated reactions, psychosomatic complaints, and resigned attitude towards the job. Moreover, women show higher psychosomatic complaints. Job control and job complexity/variety predicting well-being, and job- related attitudes. Controlling for demographic variables (age, sex, educational level, and language area) and NA, job control predicts negatively intention to quit beyond other working conditions (i.e., task-related stressors, social stressors, emotional dissonance, and job complexity/ variety) (ΔR2 = .02, p < .05). Job complexity/variety predicts job satisfaction (ΔR2 = .04, p < .01) and affective commitment (ΔR2 = .04, p < .01), beyond control variables and other working conditions. Therefore, support for Hypothesis 4 is limited to job-related attitudes concerning job control and job complexity/variety. Altogether, Hypothesis 4 is not very well supported. Task-related and social stressors predicting well-being and job-related attitudes. Some task-related stressors explain additional variance beyond job control, and job complexity/variety and each of the dependent variables is affected by at least one type of task-related stressors (see Table 3). Problems of work organization explain variance in psychosomatic complaints, job satisfaction, resigned attitude towards the job, and affective commitment. Time pressure explains variance in inability to switch off, and uncertainty predicts negatively job satisfaction. Altogether, Hypothesis 5a is moderately supported. Altogether social stressors are the most consistent predictor among stressors showing unique effects on inability to switch off (ΔR2 = .02, p < .05), psychosomatic complaints (ΔR2 = .02, < .05), job satisfaction (ΔR2 = .06, p < .001), resigned attitude towards the job (ΔR2 = .06, p < .001), and intention to quit (ΔR2 = .02, p < .05) beyond task-related stressors, emotional dissonance, job control, and complexity/variety. Altogether we revealed satisfying support for Hypothesis 5b with regard to context-free well-being, jobrelated well-being, and job-related attitudes. In Hypothesis 5c, we expected emotional dissonance to predict well-being and jobrelated attitudes over and above the types of stressors that are more established and more often employed in occupational stress research (task-related stressors and social stressors), and controlling for job control and job complexity/variety. For irritated reactions (ΔR 2 = .04, p < .01), and psychosomatic complaints (ΔR2 = .07, p < .001), emotional dissonance yields a unique contribution. For job satisfaction, resigned attitude, personal accomplishment, and intention to quit, however, this is not the case, although bivariate relationships were statistically significant for all these variables. Altogether, Hypothesis 5c receives support with regard to context-free well-being, but not for job-related attitudes. In general, it should be noted that, in all analyses, regression coefficients hardly changed when NA was removed as predictor.

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DISCUSSION This article had two major objectives. First, we wanted to investigate if working conditions of call agents are characterized by low control and low complexity and variety, as has been reported in the literature. Moreover, we wanted to study whether task-related stressors (except time pressure) and social stressors do not differ from other occupations. Moreover we tested if time pressure was higher among call agents. Second, we wanted to investigate the prediction of various indicators of well-being by aspects of the work situation of call agents, with a special emphasis on (1) the unique role of social stressors, (2) the unique role of emotional dissonance as a stressor, and (3) the specific outcome variables that are linked to particular aspects of the work situation. Therefore, one general aim of this article is to replicate previous findings concerning (1) differences in working conditions and well-being between call agents and traditional jobs and (2) associations of working conditions with well-being and job-related attitudes among call agents. Beyond the mere replication it contributes to occupational stress research firstly because a broad variety of dependent variables is used (context-free wellbeing, job-specific well-being, and job-related attitudes). Moreover a unique contribution is, that sample comparisons as well as predictions are controlled for negative affectivity, and that predictions of well-being and job related attitudes by stressors are also controlled for other working conditions. Job design With regard to the first issue, we do, indeed, find significantly lower control and lower complexity and variety for call agents as compared to a sample of employees in more traditional jobs that require long lasting vocational training, thus confirming the general trend reported in the literature that reports overly simplified and repetitive tasks with low control among call centre agents. With regard to task-related stressors, however, the picture for our sample of call agents is more favourable than for the comparison sample. This suggests that, apart from initial design decisions, which seem to have been taken according to the usual pattern of strong labour division, the investigated organization had undertaken respectable efforts to install acceptable working conditions. The combination of less control and complexity/fewer variety but also lower task-related stressors are likely to be responsible for the finding that, overall, well-being among call-agents is at a similar level as it is in the comparison sample, which we had not expected. Specifically, call agents have higher values on psychosomatic complaints but lower ones on irritation, with no difference in job satisfaction, resigned attitude towards one’s work, and affective commitment. Interestingly, intention to quit is even lower among call agents. This may be due to the fact that the comparison sample is younger, and therefore might anticipate changes more than would be true for an older sample. Nevertheless, given the rather high turnover rates sometimes reported for call agents (Baumgartner et al., 2002), this result seems surprising. It could also be that call agents plan their changes less actively but rather react more spontaneously to opportunities that arise, which might imply that their threshold to quit their job is lower, and thus would explain why a low mean intention to

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quit might still be associated with a rather high actual turnover rate. Moreover, this seems plausible because call agents did not invest much in their current job in terms of training and if they quit their job they do not lose much in terms of job demands and resources. That job control and complexity and variety are rather low, and that both predict intention to quit, certainly has implications for job design. Increasing job control (job enrichment) seems to be the most urgent need. Reducing computer control, for instance by making decisions about breaks, or even planning their shifts, by themselves, would increase time control (and also help to guard against fatigue—Matthews, Davies, Westerman, & Stammers, 2000). Deciding on how to deal with questions that one cannot answer immediately (or may not answer immediately even if one knew the answer, because they are outside of one’s competences), rather than being required to refer them to a specialist, could be examples of how method control could be improved. Combining direct customer contact with post-processing tasks, rather than having these executed by back-office people, could be a good way of improving complexity and variety (see Isic et al., 1999, for similar suggestions). On the stressor side, social stressors and problems in work organization are the two aspects most consistently linked to well-being. With regard to the latter, qualitative results revealed that many of these problems are related to poor information flow. For instance, it can happen that a new product is introduced and heavily advertised, but call agents are not informed in advance, and thus are confronted with customer questions that take them by surprise. Furthermore, if call agents were not only informed in advance, but also consulted, they could be very helpful in avoiding problems, as their customer contacts often enable them to anticipate typical difficulties. This would also improve complexity and variety and increase overall control through participation in product design. However, to rebind call agents, for instance, into product development and development of marketing strategies, would even offend against the principle of division of labour respectively task sharing—the basic idea of call centres. In fact, sufficient improvement of job control, complexity, and variety might require organization development, for instance, in terms of systematically reintegrating customer care into preliminary departments. Reducing social stressors would probably require specific training, supervision, or coaching for supervisors and/or teams. However, since social stressors often may arise from difficulties at work (Euler, 1977), social aspects may well profit from being treated in conjunction with problems of work organization—for instance, in the context of a quality circle (Cordery, 1996). Working conditions, well-being, and the specific role of emotional dissonance Task-related and social stressors. Overall, our results with regard to stressors and wellbeing confirm our expectations: Task-related stressors predict well-being, and so do social stressors. This conforms to the picture that is generally reported in the literature, and thus does not require much additional comment. A few aspects do, however, deserve to be mentioned. First, these relationships are found even when controlling for NA, thus

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countering an often-heard criticism (see Spector et al., 2000). Second, social stressors are especially powerful in predicting well-being, and this is important given that, over many years, this type of stressors has received less attention than seems warranted. Only in recent years can one observe an increased focus on this variable, and this research also demonstrated its powerful effects (Dormann & Zapf, 2002; Spector & Jex, 1998). Note that these are social stressors arising within the organization, that is, with colleagues and supervisors, not with customers! Third, the role of “Problems in Work Organization” (barriers to task fulfilment respectively regulation obstacles, cf. Frese & Zapf, 1994) should also be stressed. Our results concerning this variable underscore its importance, as do the findings in call centre samples by Zapf and colleagues (Isic et al., 1999; Zapf et al., 2001). Emotional dissonance. Based on previous findings (e.g., Zapf et al., 2001) we hypothesized that emotional dissonance would explain variance over and above the other investigated stress factors (job control, job complexity/variety, time pressure, concentration demands, work interruptions, problems of work organization uncertainty, and social stressors; Hypothesis 5), and this was confirmed for irritated reactions and psychosomatic complaints (context-free well-being). This adds further evidence to the role of emotion work in service occupations and underscores the role of emotional dissonance as a stressor in its own right. Strengths and limitations The greatest weaknesses of this study are certainly its cross-sectional design and exclusive use of self-reports. Furthermore, the focus on one organization limits the generalizability of our results to other populations, both within and beyond call centres. On the strong side of our study is the fact that we could demonstrate unique relationships between work characteristics and well-being after controlling for NA and other working conditions, and that we employed a broad set of well-being measures, including job-specific well-being and context-free indicators. It should also be mentioned that our results in many respect resemble those obtained by Dormann et al. (2002) and by Zapf et al. (1999), thus lending additional credibility to both studies. However, our approach of testing the influence of working conditions on well-being and job-related attitudes by controlling each of the tested effects for numerous other work-related variables has advantages and disadvantages. The advantage of that kind of simultaneous testing is, that results show which working condition contributes independently (uniquely) of other working conditions to well-being and job-related attitudes. However, a disadvantage is, that several effects that would appear by testing less comprehensively using for instance only task-related and social stressors as predictors, are hidden because of overlapping variance of the numerous predictor variables. For instance, using exclusively job control and job complexity/variety as work-related predictors, job control predicts beyond the above-described effects also psychosomatic complaints, job satisfaction, and resigned attitude towards the job, whereas job complexity/variety

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predicts beyond the above-described effects also intention to quit (all effects in the expected direction). CONCLUSIONS In sum, our study shows, once again, the tendency for a strong division of labour in call agent jobs, and it documents again the relationship of these work characteristics with lower levels of well-being and impaired job-related attitudes. This calls for efforts to redesign such jobs, yielding more autonomy, variety, and complexity for instance by job enrichment. At the same time, our data show comparatively low levels in terms of taskrelated stressors, indicating that job design in the organization we investigated acts more strongly on stressors, and this is, in our sample, in a positive direction. Furthermore, our study shows relationships between complexity and variety, control, and task-related stressors on well-being and intention to quit. It replicates findings that emotional dissonance is a stress factor in its own right. Moreover, it suggests that social stressors should be measured on a regular basis in addition to task-related stressors. REFERENCES Ashforth, B.E., & Humphrey, R.H. (1993). Emotional labor in service roles: The influence of identity. Academy of Management Review, 18, 88–115. Baillod, J., & Semmer, N. (1994). Fluktuation und Berufsverläufe bei Computerfachleuten [Turnover and career paths among computer specialists]. Zeitschrift für Arbeits- und Organisationspsychologie, 38, 152–163. Baumgartner, M., Good, K., & Udris, I. (2002). Call centers in der Schweiz. Psychologische Untersuchungen in 14 Organisationen [Call centres in Switzerland. Psychological investigations in 14 organizations] [Reports from the Institute for Work Psychology]. Zurich, Switzerland: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology . Bluedorn, A.C. (1982). The theories of turnover: Causes, effects, and meaning. Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 1, 75–128. Brief, A.P., Burke, M.J., George, J.M., Robinson, B., & Webster, J. (1988). Should negative affectivity remain an unmeasured variable in the study of job stress? Journal of Applied Psychology, 73, 193–198. Bruggemann, A. (1974). Zur Unterscheidung verschiedener Formen von “Arbeitszufriedenheit” [Different forms of job satisfaction]. Arbeit und Leistung, 28, 281–284. Büssing, A. (1992). A dynamic view of job satisfaction in psychiatric nurses in Germany. Work and Stress, 6, 239–259. Büssing, A. (1999). Can control at work and social support moderate psychological consequences of job insecurity? Results from a quasi-experimental study in the steel industry. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 8, 219–242. Clegg, C., Axtell, C., Damodaran, L., Farbey, B., Hull, R., Lloyd-Jones, R., Nicholls, J., Sell, R., & Tomlinson, C. (1997). Information technology: A study of performance and the role of human and organizational factors. Ergonomics, 40, 851–871.

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Emotional dissonance, emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction in call centre workers K.A.Lewig and M.F.Dollard Work & Stress Research Group, School of Psychology, The University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia

The rapid rise of the service sector, and in particular the call centre industry has made the study of emotional labour increasingly important within the area of occupational stress research. Given high levels of turnover and absenteeism in the industry this article examines the emotional demands (emotional labour) of call centre work and their relationship to the job satisfaction and emotional exhaustion in a sample of South Australian call centre workers (N = 98) within the theoretical frameworks of the job demand-control model, the effortreward imbalance model, and the job demands—resources model. Qualitatively the research confirmed the central role of emotional labour variables in the experience of emotional exhaustion and satisfaction at work. Specifically the research confirmed the preeminence of emotional dissonance compared to a range of emotional demand variables in its potency to account for variance in emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction. Specifically, emotional dissonance mediated the effect of emotional labour (positive emotions) on emotional exhaustion. Furthermore emotional dissonance was found to be equal in its capacity to explain variance in the outcomes compared to the most frequently researched demand measure in the work stress literature (psychosocial demands). Finally, emotional dissonance was found to exacerbate the level of emotional exhaustion at high levels of psychosocial demands, indicating jobs combining high levels of both kinds of demands are much more risky. Future theorizing Correspondence should be addressed to M.F.Dollard, School of Psychology, University of South Australia, City East Campus, Adelaide South Australia, 5600. Email: [email protected] Kind thanks for the helpful suggestions of the anonymous reviewers.

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about work stress needs to account for emotional demands, dissonance in particular. Potential ways to alleviate emotional exhaustion due to emotional dissonance is to reduce other psychosocial demands, increase rewards, support and control as conceptualized in the JDR model. Ways to boost job satisfaction are to increase control, support, and rewards. The last two decades of the twentieth century witnessed a major global shift in the distribution of employment away from agriculture and industry into the service sector (Godbout, 1993). Concomitant with this transition has been the creation of a relatively new labour market characterized by work roles that emphasize interactions between front-line service workers and customers. As a consequence a new type of work demand, that of emotional labour, has emerged as a key component of interactive service work. One such example of work requiring emotional labour is that of call centre work. This work requires constant interaction with customers, and the requirement to regulate emotions at work. It is not unusual to experience constant abuse from angry customers, and in these situations the call centre worker (CCW) must maintain organizational standards with respect to customer service—adherence to the organizational value that the customer is always right. Paradoxically, while the unique role of the call centre is the creation and maintenance of good customer relationships, call centres themselves have evolved in response to significant technological advances as well as global demands for cost-cutting initiatives. The CCW is therefore faced with the opposing goals of optimizing productivity while delivering superior customer service. Even in call centres driven by quality rather than quantity, call centre work is of itself demanding, repetitive, and often stressful (Taylor & Bain, 1999; Wallace, Eagleson, & Waldersee, 2000). This is reflected in high levels of turnover and absenteeism. Staff turnover in the Australian call centre industry is estimated to be 18% per year, representing a cost of Australian $330m annually (Information Industries Training Advisory Board, 2001). In call centres characterized by high stress, turnover is reported to be almost double the industry average. Stress-related absenteeism is estimated to cost the industry $A 7.5m per year (ACTU Call Centre Unions Group, 2001). Call centres are growing at an astonishing 40% per year globally. In Australia, call centre growth is forecast at around 20–25% annually (ACTU Call Centre Unions Group, 2001). Given the rapid growth of the call centre industry it is important from a practical perspective that organizations are aware of the impact of the emotional and psychological demands of call centre work on their employees in order to optimize the effectiveness and well-being of front-line workers and decrease the costs of turnover and absenteeism. From a theoretical perspective it is important that emotional labour is acknowledged in existing theories of occupational stress in order to assess its interaction with, and impact on, other workplace influences such as job and organizational characteristics (Abraham, 1998). The aims of this article are twofold. The first aim is to develop a more detailed understanding of the emotional demands associated with call centre work and to assess the relationship between these emotional demands and CCW well-being. To achieve this aim the different components of emotional labour and their relationship to emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction among CCWs will be explored. The second aim is to assess

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the salience of emotional dissonance in the prediction of CCW well-being and, further, to identify resources that may moderate the impact of emotional dissonance on call centre worker well-being. It is proposed to achieve these aims by (1) assessing the contribution of emotional dissonance to CCW emotional well-being and job satisfaction, (2) examining the relationship between emotional dissonance, organizational stressors, and resources and their combined effects on CCW emotional well-being and job satisfaction, and (3) placing the analysis of emotional dissonance within the context of a variety of theoretical viewpoints in order to arrive at a model that best predicts emotional well-being and job satisfaction among CCWs. In order to explicate these aims we will first discuss the concept of emotional labour and outline recent attempts to operationalize it. The relationship between emotional labour, other organizational work characteristics and employee well-being will then be reviewed. Finally three theoretical frameworks selected for the analysis of emotional labour will be presented and discussed. EMOTIONAL LABOUR The concept of emotional labour was first used by sociologist Arlie Hochschild (1983) to analyse the jobs of flight attendants and bill collectors and has been defined as “the effort, planning, and control needed to express organizationally desired emotions during interpersonal transactions” (Morris & Feldman, 1996, p. 98). According to Ashforth and Humphrey (1993, p. 96), “emotional labour is a double-edged sword”. In its functional capacity, emotional labour can serve to facilitate task effectiveness by providing the service worker with a means to regulate what are often dynamic and emergent interactions and thus provide the worker with a sense of increased self-efficacy. Emotional labour makes interactions with customers more predictable, and allows the service worker to maintain objectivity and emotional equilibrium by cognitively distancing him/herself from the implicated emotion. Emotional labour may also facilitate self-expression by enabling the service worker to “project at least some of the ‘authentic self into the enactment” (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993, p. 94). On the other hand, emotional labour can become dysfunctional for the worker when dissonance between felt emotions and displayed emotions is experienced. This incongruence between feeling and action, termed emotional dissonance, may ultimately lead to lowered self-esteem, depression, cynicism, and alienation from work. Similarly, selfalienation may result when the worker ceases to recognize or even feel authentic emotions (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993). There is a wide discrepancy in the literature exploring the relationship between emotional labour and employee well-being. Adelmann (1995) for example found no relationship between emotional labour and job outcomes in a study of table servers, whereas Wharton (1993) found that emotional labour actually enhanced job satisfaction. The relationship between emotional labour and job outcomes appears to be further complicated by the interaction of emotional labour with other work conditions such as job autonomy, job involvement, self-monitoring, and organizational identification (Adelmann, 1995; Schaubroeck & Jones, 2000; Wharton, 1993). In contrast Pugliesi

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(1999) found an independent effect of job conditions and emotional labour on job strain, job satisfaction, and psychological distress. Morris and Feldman (1996, 1997) posit that one reason for the discrepancies noted in the literature is the incomplete operationalization of the emotional labour construct. They have proposed a more rigorous conceptualization of emotional labour that considers both its qualitative (emotional dissonance) and quantitative (frequency and duration of emotional display) components and predict three outcomes of emotional labour based on these components. First, emotional exhaustion is predicted via emotional dissonance, based on the argument that emotional dissonance is a type of role conflict and role conflict has been shown to be a key antecedent of emotional exhaustion. Second, job dissatisfaction due to emotional dissonance is predicted through person-environment fit theory, which suggests that not all workers would find the requirement to express organizationally desired emotions dissatisfying. Thus frequency and duration of emotional labour (quantitative components) may not be relevant to job dissatisfaction. Rather it is the workers who experience dissonance (qualitative component) who will experience decreased levels of job satisfaction. A third outcome, role internalization, encompasses the argument put forward by Ashforth and Humphrey (1993) that work roles requiring emotional labour also carry pressure to internalize role demands because failure to internalize organizational display rules will ultimately lead to poor perceived job performance and job loss. However, overidentification with the work role so that too much emotional labour is expended in meeting high work demands can increase the risk of emotional exhaustion (Schaufeli & Enzmann, 1998). Expanding on the propositions of Morris and Feldman (1996, 1997), Zapf, Vogt, Seifert, Mertini, and Isic (1999) have recently developed a quantitative measure of emotional labour. The Frankfurt Emotion Work Scale (FEWS) differentiates five factors of emotional labour, namely the requirement to display positive emotions, the requirement to display negative emotions, the necessity to display sensitivity to the needs of the client (sensitivity requirements), the ability of an employee to decide when to engage in an interaction with a client and when that interaction will end (interaction control), and emotional dissonance. Following from Morris and Feldman’s (1996, 1997) proposition that frequency and duration of emotional labour need not directly impact on employee well-being, but may do so through emotional dissonance, Zapf et al. (1999) propose that the requirement to display positive emotions, negative emotions, and sensitivity requirements are not necessarily stressful but may become so through emotional dissonance. In a test of the FEWS scale on employees from social service institutions, the hospitality industry, and call centres, emotional dissonance was highly correlated with emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, irritation, and psychosomatic complaints. Emotional dissonance was negatively associated with job satisfaction in all but the hospitality industry sample (Zapf et al., 1999). In a further study using the FEWS to investigate the relationship between organizational stressors, social stressors, emotional labour, and burnout, emotional dissonance was identified as the most stressful aspect of emotional labour. Further, the contribution of emotional dissonance to emotional exhaustion and depersonalization was similar to that of task and organizational stressors (Zapf, Seifert,

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Schmutte, Mertini, & Holz, 2001). Based on the concepts discussed above we hypothesized that of all the emotional labour factors emotional dissonance would account for the most variance in emotional exhaustion and job dissatisfaction (Hypothesis 1). EMOTIONAL LABOUR AND ORGANIZATIONAL STRESSORS AND RESOURCES Recent attempts to clarify the relationship between emotional labour and other organizational variables in the prediction of employee well-being have consistently reported that job related stressors, especially work overload, time pressures, and role conflicts, are more strongly associated with emotional exhaustion than client-related stressors such as interactions with difficult clients (Lee & Ashforth, 1996; Schaufeli & Enzmann, 1998). However, Zapf et al. (2001) observe very few of these studies have directly measured emotional demands. Further Schaufeli and Enzmann argue that the high correlations reported between workload and emotional exhaustion may result from the conceptual overlap between task-related and client-related job characteristics. For example, call centre workers who are expected to provide a service to the customer (client related) and at the same time answer as many calls as possible (workload) may experience time pressure and/or role conflict. Based on the dual level exchange theory of burnout, Zapf et al. (2001) posit that one can expect to find interactions between organizational stressors and emotional demands in the development of emotional exhaustion due to the combined effect of lack of perceived client reciprocity when emotional demands are high, and lack of perceived organizational reciprocity when organizational stressors are high. However, a unique contribution of emotional demands to emotional exhaustion can also be expected, as emotional dissonance by its definition may act as a stressor independent of other organizational stressors. In Zapf et al.’s (2001) comparison of the relationship between emotional labour variables, organizational variables, and social variables in the prediction of burnout across a range of service jobs including call centre work, a unique contribution of emotional labour variables to burnout was noted over and above the contribution of other variables. Interaction effects between task-related stressors and emotional dissonance were also noted in the prediction of emotional exhaustion. Job resources are also relevant in the prediction of employee well-being. As found in the broader work stress literature researching psychosocial demands and employee wellbeing, job resources such as social support and autonomy also appear to moderate the relationship between emotional demands and employee well-being (see Zapf, 2002). Guided by the concepts discussed above we hypothesized that emotional dissonance would explain a unique proportion of the variance in emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction beyond that accounted for by psychosocial demands (Hypothesis 2). To further conceptualize how the various work demands and resources may combine together we searched the literature for a theoretical framework in which to place an analysis of emotional dissonance and its relationship to employee well-being. As de Jonge and Dormann (2003) observe, although a variety of theoretical frameworks are available for the analysis of workplace stressors, it is difficult to decide what framework is relevant

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to a particular work setting, a decision that is complicated further by the general lack of consensus on the value of the contribution made by existing theories to the understanding of work stress. In response to this predicament, three current models of work stress: the job demand-control model (JDC; Karasek, 1979); the effort—reward imbalance model (ERI; Siegrist, 1998); and the job demands-resources model (JDR; Demerouti, Bakker, Nachreiner, & Schaufeli, 2001) were examined. The JDC and ERI models of work stress were selected for analysis of call centre work because they are predominant theories that have been critically examined in the literature and empirically supported. The JDC and the ERI model both predict that stress arises as a consequence of an imbalance between the worker and the work environment. However, while the JDC model identifies the environmental constraint, decision latitude, as the central modifier of the impact of workplace demands on strain (Baker, 1985), the ERI identifies occupational reward as the key modifier. Further, where the JDC model focuses attention on work content, the ERI makes a distinction between situational and personal characteristics. Specifically the ERI model identifies individuals who engage in a pattern of active coping with work demands, characterized by excessive effort and a higher than average need for approval and esteem (overcommitment), as more susceptible to the adverse effects of effort-reward imbalance in the long run (Joksimovic, Siegrist, Peter, Meyer-Hammar, Klimek, & Heintzen, 1999). The JDC model and the ERI model have been criticized on the grounds that the measurement of psychological demands employed by the models may not be applicable across occupational groups (de Jonge & Dormann, 2003; Kasl, 1996). It is claimed that the indices commonly used to measure global job demands are operationalized in terms of physical effort and time pressures, to the exclusion of other potential sources of strain (Melamed, Kushnir, & Meir, 1991; Van Der Doef & Maes, 1999). This study will partially address this criticism by assessing demands specific to service work (emotional demands). De Jonge, Mulder, and Nijhuis (1999) assessed the impact of emotional, physical, and psychosocial demands on the well-being of health care workers within the framework of the JDC model, and found that only psychological demands had a significant direct effect on emotional exhaustion. No direct or indirect effect of emotional demands on emotional exhaustion was evident. Using the ERI model as a theoretical framework, Van Vegchel, de Jonge, Meijer, and Hamers (2001) also failed to find an association between emotional demands and risk of emotional exhaustion among ancillary health care workers. The operationalization of the emotional labour construct may account for the failure to find an association between emotional demands and psychological well-being in these studies. A more recent theoretical model of work stress, the job demands— resources model (Demerouti et al., 2001) was further included for comparison in this study. The JDR model was chosen as it conceptually resembles a combined JDC/ERI model. Calnan, Wainwright, and Almond (2000) have reported that a combined JDC/ERI model improved the prediction of stress in general practitioners. The JDR model proposes that employee well-being is related to a wide range of workplace variables that can be conceptualized as either job demands (the physical, social, or organizational aspects of the job that require sustained physical or psychological effort) or job resources (those aspects

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of work that may reduce job demands, aid in achieving work goals, or stimulate personal growth, learning, and development) (Bakker, Demerouti, Taris, Schaufeli, & Schreurs, 2003; Demerouti et al., 2001). The JDR model predicts that burnout occurs through exposure to job demands (via emotional exhaustion) and lack of resources (via cynicism and a reduced sense of personal accomplishment), and that an interaction between job demands and job resources is the most important for the development of burnout. A recent test of the model across four different home care organizations found a significant interactive effect of job demands and resources in the prediction of exhaustion in two of the organizations over and above the main effects for these two variables (Bakker et al., 2003). Thus using the concepts of the JDC and ERI models, the JDR model predicts that employees experiencing high job demands, and low levels of resources (control, support, rewards) are the most likely to experience the highest levels of work stress. In summary, while there is evidence to support the distinctive contribution of both the JDC and the ERI in the prediction of work stress, there is also evidence to suggest that both models combined may enhance the overall explanatory power. It is therefore hypothesized that the JDR model will account for more variance than either the JDC or ERI alone (Hypothesis 3). METHOD Survey sample The study surveyed call centre workers in metropolitan Adelaide. Contact details for call centres in Adelaide were obtained from: the Australian Services Union; through contacts given by participating call centres; and through the researcher’s personal contacts. A total of 16 call centres were contacted and permission to recruit volunteers was obtained from 9 of these centres. The reasons given by the call centres for not wishing to participate were that employees had recently been surveyed by the company (f = 2), the call centre was in the process of moving to new premises (f = 1), the manager who had authority to approve participation was on holidays for a number of weeks (f = 1), and the type of work that the call centre handled was unusual and not suited to the study (f = 1). Of the 195 questionnaires given to managers to be handed out to volunteers, 99 were returned (1 of which was unusable), representing a response rate of 50.7%. The participating call centres were drawn from a variety of industry sectors as shown in Table 1. The survey respondents were predominantly female (M = 27, F = 71) and ranged in age from 18 to 63 years (M = 32 years, SD = 10.6 years). Fifty-three per cent were employed on a permanent basis and 47% were employed on a temporary or casual basis. Length of service was relatively short with 65% of respondents having worked less than 1 year in their current position. In terms of call type, 37% of respondents handled inbound calls only, 24% handled outbound calls only, and 37% handled both inbound and outbound calls.

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TABLE 1 Industry participation and response rates

Note: Numbers in brackets indicate number of participating organizations.

Demographics Demographic data was collected with regard to age, sex, education level, work status, and length of service. Participants were also asked to estimate the number of calls and the length of calls taken each day and whether their work predominantly involved making outbound calls, receiving inbound calls, or a mixture of both. Measures Emotional demands. The emotional demands of call centre work were measured using five subscales of the recently developed Frankfurt Emotion Work Scales-E (FEWS; Zapf et al., 2001). The FEWS are the only theoretically based, empirical measures of emotion work developed to date. The FEWS subscale, Display of Positive Emotions (EP), comprises five items measuring the requirement to display positive emotions (e.g., “How often in your job do you have to display pleasant emotions towards customers?”). The subscale, Display of Negative Emotions (EV) is made up of seven items designed to assess the requirement to display negative emotions when dealing with customers (e.g., “How often do you have to display unpleasant emotions towards customers?”). The Demand for Sensitivity subscale (ES) comprises four items measuring the extent to which empathy or knowledge of the customers’ current feelings are a requirement of the job (e.g., “How often in your job is it of importance to know how the customer is feeling at the moment?”). The Interaction Control subscale (EH) comprises four items designed to measure the degree of influence an employee has in his or her interactions with customers (e.g., “How often does your job allow you to end conversations with customers if you consider it to be appropriate?”). Finally, the five items of the Emotional Dissonance subscale (ED) assess the level of suppression of organizationally undesirable emotions and the display of unfelt emotions (e.g., “How often in your job do you have to suppress emotions in order to appear ‘neutral’ on the outside?”). Responses for each of the scales were rated from 1 = very rarely/never to 5 = very often (several times an hour). Internal reliabilities for the scales as measured by Cronbach’s alpha were .34 for positive emotions, .79 for negative emotions, .26 sensitivity demands, .24 for interaction

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control, and .72 for emotional dissonance. We will address the low reliabilities in the results section. Psychosocial demands. The Effort—Reward Imbalance Questionnaire (ERI) was used to measure psychosocial demands (extrinsic effort). The measure of psychosocial demands from the ERI Questionnaire is conceptually and operationally similar to the measure of psychosocial demands in the Job Content Questionnaire (used to test the JDC model). Six items were used to measure work place demands (effort) including statements such as “I have constant time pressure due to a heavy work load”. Respondents were asked whether they agreed or disagreed with the statements on a 2-point scale. The alpha coefficient was .67. Rewards. The ERI questionnaire was also used to measure rewards (monetary, esteem, status). Eleven items of the ERI scale are designed to measure the perceived rewards of the job and include statements such as “considering all my efforts and achievements, I receive the respect and prestige I deserve at work”. The reward scale items were rated agree or disagree on a 2-point scale. The reward scale was reverse scored so that a high score reflected high reward and low score reflected low reward. The alpha coefficient was .82. Autonomy. The Job Control Scale of the Job Content Questionnaire (Karasek, 1998) was used to measure job autonomy. The scale includes nine items designed to measure skill discretion and decision authority. The scale is rated from 1 = strongly disagree to 4 = strongly agree and includes items such as “my job allows me to make a lot of decisions on my own” and “my job requires me to be creative”. Cronbach’s alpha for the scale was .82. Social support. The Social Support Scale of the Job Content Questionnaire (Karasek, 1998) was used to measure social support. The scale includes four items designed to measure co-worker support and four items designed to measure supervisor support. The scale is rated from 1 = strongly disagree to 4=strongly agree and includes items such as “the people I work with take a personal interest in me” and “my supervisor is helpful in getting the job done”. Cronbach’s alpha for the scale was .88. Emotional exhaustion. The emotional exhaustion scale of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI; Maslach & Jackson, 1986) was used to measure feelings of being emotionally extended and depleted of one’s resources. The scale comprises eight items and includes statements such as “I feel emotionally drained from my work” and “I feel frustrated by my job”. Items were rated from 0 = never to 6 = every day. Cronbach’s alpha was .92. Job satisfaction. A single item taken from the Job Satisfaction Scale (Warr, Cook, & Wall, 1979) was used to measure job satisfaction. The item, “taking everything into consideration how do you feel about your job as a whole?” was assessed on a 7-point scale from 1 = extremely dissatisfied to 7 = extremely satisfied.

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Qualitative data. Qualitative data was obtained from two open-ended questions asking for “aspects of work contributing most to job satisfaction” and “most stressful aspects of call centre work”. The data was sought to confirm (or not) the centrality of emotional labour components of call centre work. Statistical treatment Overall scores for emotional exhaustion, demands, reward, control, support, and the emotion work subscales (emotional dissonance, display of negative emotions, display of positive emotions, interaction control, and sensitivity) were obtained by summing the individual items for each scale. Descriptive and frequency information was derived to assess the representativeness of the sample. Bivariate correlation analyses were then undertaken to delineate the relationship between the type of emotional labour performed, and its relationship to emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction, and to determine the relationship between emotional labour and other work place characteristics. Given the possibility that different statistical procedures used to test core theoretical aspects of the models could themselves lead to different findings (Cotton, Dollard, & de Jonge, 2003) we uniformly used standard hierarchical multiple regression analyses to examine the main and interaction effects proposed in each hypotheses as recommended by Cohen and Cohen (1983). Prior to the analysis we standardized the independent measures to deal with problems of multicollinearity that arise from cross-product terms (Aiken & West, 1991). As moderated regression leads to a lack of power to detect interactions of significance the criterion for the significance of the increase in R2 was .1 (Frese, 1999). To test Hypothesis 1, a standard regression model was used to regress emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction on each of the emotional demands measures. To test Hypothesis 2, the main effects of demand and emotional dissonance were assessed at Step 1, followed by the interactive effects of demands and emotional dissonance at the second step. To test Hypothesis 3, that the JDR model would account for more variance than either the JDC or ERI model in both emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction, we adopted the following procedure. Given that, of the emotional demands, emotional dissonance was the only one associated with the outcome measures, an important question became: What resources could best reduce the negative impacts of emotional dissonance at work? Also, given that psychosocial demands have been shown in numerous studies to be reduced by control and rewards, to give every possibility of finding an effect if it existed (i.e., to increase the power), we focused only on emotional dissonance in the models. With respect to the JDC model, emotional dissonance and control were entered at the first step, to test for the main effects of each variable, then the interaction (Emotional dissonance×Control) was entered at the second step. Reward was added at the third step to see whether the addition of reward to the JDC model would improve its predictive power. The two interactions (Emotional dissonance×Reward and Emotional dissonance ×Reward×Control) were entered at the fourth step.

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TABLE 2 Means, standard deviations, ranges, and sample sizes for the study variables

To test the ERI model, emotional dissonance and reward were entered at the first step, followed by their interactions (Emotional dissonance×Reward) at the second step. Control was then entered at the third step to ascertain whether the addition of control to the ERI model would improve its predictive power. The two interaction terms (Emotional dissonance×Control and Emotional dissonance×Control×Reward) were entered at the fourth step. Finally, to test the combined JDR model, emotional dissonance, rewards, and control were entered at the first step of the analysis. Support was entered at the second step to ascertain whether this additional resource would add any variance. Then six interaction terms were entered (Emotional dissonance ×Control, Emotional dissonance×Reward, Emotional dissonance× Support, Emotional dissonance×Control×Reward, Emotional dissonance×Control×Support, and Emotional dissonance×Control× Support×Reward). RESULTS Descriptives Table 2 presents the descriptive statistics for all variables used in the regression analysis. As can be seen the alpha coefficients of positive emotions, interaction control, and sensitivity requirements are low. We examined the interitem correlations and removed items that were contributing to a low alpha level. By the removal of one item from the positive emotion scale the alpha improved to .54, the removal of one item from the interaction control scale improved the alpha to .47, and removal of one item from the sensitivity scale improved the alpha to .76. We decided not to try to make further improvements to the scales as, despite two being of low reliability, interaction control was now only three items. Further the reliabilities were similar to those reported by Zapf et al. (1999) for positive emotions (.52) and for interaction control (.51).

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TABLE 3 Frequency of emotional labour requirements

Emotional exhaustion. Descriptive statistics revealed that call centre workers in this sample experienced moderate levels of emotional exhaustion. A comparison with other high strain professions suggests call centre workers in this sample experienced levels of exhaustion similar to that of police officers (N = 430, M = 17.55, SD = 10.90) and probation/correction officers (N = 386, M = 19.49, SD = 11.33) (Schaufeli & Enzmann, 1998), but less than human service workers (e.g., social workers) from a large public sector in South Australia (N = 770, M = 20.06, SD = 11.11; Dollard, Winefield, & Winefield, 2001). Twenty-four per cent of respondents reported high levels of emotional exhaustion, twenty-nine per cent reported moderate levels of emotional exhaustion, and forty-seven per cent reported low levels of emotional exhaustion. Job satisfaction. Seventy-five per cent of call centre workers reported being satisfied with their jobs. The results were as follows: extremely satisfied 7%, very satisfied 29%, moderately satisfied 39%, not sure 8%, moderately dissatisfied 12%, very dissatisfied 3%, and extremely dissatisfied 1%. The levels of job satisfaction (M=5.02) were slightly higher than other South Australian public sector human service workers (N = 771, M = 4.84, SD=1.37) (Dollard et al, 2001). Emotional labour. As shown in Table 3, call centre workers reported that their jobs entailed high positive emotional display and emotional dissonance requirements and low negative emotion display and sensitivity requirements. Around 21% of workers report the experience of emotional dissonance several times an hour. Respondents also reported that they were often in control of the duration of their interactions with customers. The length of interaction on the phone was short with 78% of calls lasting less than 5 minutes, 16% of calls lasting 5–10 minutes, and 5% over 10 minutes. Examination of bivariate correlations (refer to Table 4) between the emotional labour variables and the outcome variables revealed a significant relationship between emotional dissonance and emotional exhaustion, r(98) = .43, p < .01, dissonance and job satisfaction, r(98) = −.27, p