ABSTRACT
In recent years call centres have been one of the fastest growing areas of employment in Germany. Call centres tend to be characterised by a pronounced division of labour. This reflects their basic philosophy of removing customer contacts from the case handling process, concentrating them into specific organisational units and dealing with them solely by telephone to the greatest possible extent. Tasks are often prescribed as highly standardised, frequently monotonous and with limited time allowed for completion. It is against this background that call centre work is frequently described as the ‘neo-Taylorism’ of service activities (D’Alessio and Oberbeck 2002). However, previous research on call centres in Germany (briefly summarised by Holtgrewe 2003) and in several other countries (e.g. Batt 2000; Kinnie et al. 2000; Frenkel et al. 1999; Wray-Bliss 2001) has illustrated that it is inappropriate to lump all call centres together. Call centres are far from being easily characterised by badly paid, monotonous and simple service work (see for example Koskina’s chapter on Greece in this volume).
