On the Front Line

by Frenkel, Stephen J.; Korczynski, Marek; Shire, Karen A.; Tam, May

• ISBN13: 9780801435874
• ISBN10: 0801435870
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-07-01
• Publisher: Ilr Pr

Summary

The importance of customer service is widely emphasized in business today. This book offers the first comprehensive analysis of the organization and dynamics of front-line work. The volume is based on a five-year study of over a thousand employees and eight leading companies in the United States, Australia, and Japan.

On the Front Line reveals similarities and differences found in work environments -- such as variance in authority relations and division of labor -- as well as significant contrasts between management approaches used in Japan and those used in the United States and Australia. By examining how work differs among service, sales, and knowledge-based settings, it also shows how bureaucratic, entrepreneurial, and network forms of organization coexist in the informational economy.

Author Biography

Stephen J. Frenkel is a professor in the Australian Graduate School of Management at the University of New South Wales. Marek Korczynski is a lecturer in employment relations at Loughborough University. Karen A. Shire is Associate Professor of Comparative Sociology and Japan Studies at the Gerhard Mercator University Duisburg, Germany. May Tam is a research fellow in the Department of Sociology at the University of Hong Kong.

Table of Contents

LIST OF FIGURES	viii	(1)
LIST OF TABLES	ix	(2)
PREFACE	xi	(3)
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS	xiv
1. INTRODUCTION	1	(34)
Trends and Forces Shaping Work Organization	2	(11)
Approaches to the Transformation of Work and Organization	13	(10)
Theoretical Framework and Ideal Types of Work Organization	23	(8)
Looking Forward	31	(4)
2. RESEARCH STRATEGY AND METHODOLOGY	35	(25)
Research Strategy	35	(7)
Research Methods	42	(5)
Research Organizations and Workflows	47	(11)
Conclusion	58	(2)
3. WORK RELATIONS	60	(33)
The Medium and the Act of Work	61	(5)
The Act of Work: Service, Sales, and Knowledge Workers	66	(16)
Work Complexity and Work Experience	82	(9)
Conclusion	91	(2)
4. EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS	93	(40)
Structuring Employment Relations	95	(2)
Employment Relations Elements Common to the Three Types of Workflows	97	(4)
Employment Relations in Service, Sales, and Knowledge Work Workflows	101	(18)
Institutional Contexts as Sources of Variation in Employment Relations	119	(11)
Conclusion	130	(3)
5. CONTROL RELATIONS	133	(33)
Management Control in Theory	134	(5)
Management Control in Practice	139	(16)
Worker Participation in Theory	155	(2)
Worker Participation in Practice	157	(5)
Workers' Responses to Control and Opportunities for Participation	162	(2)
Conclusion	164	(2)
6. CO-WORKER RELATIONS	166	(32)
The Postbureaucracy Thesis and Co-worker Relations in the Three Types of Workflows	168	(5)
Interdependencies in Tasks and Learning	173	(14)
Relations among Co-workers in Teams	187	(6)
Co-worker Relations, Job Satisfaction, and Learning Outcomes	193	(3)
Conclusion	196	(2)
7. CUSTOMER RELATIONS	198	(32)
Customer Relations in Theory	199	(6)
Customer Relations in Practice	205	(16)
Customer-Related Outcomes	221	(5)
Conclusion	226	(4)
8. WORK ORGANIZATION: CONSEQUENCES AND CROSS-NATIONAL COMPARISONS	230	(35)
Concepts and Theories of Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment	231	(10)
Comparative Analysis and Discussion	241	(12)
Cross-National Comparisons of Work Organization and Its Consequences	253	(9)
Conclusion	262	(3)
9. CONCLUSION	265	(14)
Imagery versus Evidence	267	(3)
Japanese versus Western Work Organization	270	(1)
The Present versus the Future	271	(5)
Conclusion	276	(3)
APPENDIXES	279	(9)
Appendix 1. Results of Discriminant Analysis	279	(1)
Appendix 2. Definition of Factors, Descriptive Statistics, and Cronbach Alpha Coefficients of Factors	280	(4)
Appendix 3. Gender, Supervision, and Perceived Effectiveness of Service Workers	284	(1)
Appendix 4. Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations of Independent Variables Used in Service Workflow Regressions	285	(1)
Appendix 5. Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations of Independent Variables in Sales Workflow Regressions	286	(1)
Appendix 6. Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations of Independent Variables Used in Knowledge Work Workflow Regressions	287	(1)
REFERENCES	288	(17)
AUTHORS	305	(2)
INDEX	307