On the Front Line: Organization of Work in the Information Economy

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

• ISBN13: 9780801485671
• ISBN10: 0801485673
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-07-01
• Publisher: Cornell Univ 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 four-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. This seminal analysis of work in the service sector offers both a benchmark for consultants working with customer-contact organizations and valuable information for anyone concerned with the changing nature of work.

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	p. viii
List of Tables	p. ix
Preface	p. xi
List of Abbreviations	p. xiv
Introduction	p. 1
Trends and Forces Shaping Work Organization	p. 2
Approaches to the Transformation of Work and Organization	p. 13
Theoretical Framework and Ideal Types of Work Organization	p. 23
Looking Forward	p. 31
Research Strategy and Methodology	p. 35
Research Strategy	p. 35
Research Methods	p. 42
Research Organizations and Workflows	p. 47
Conclusion	p. 58
Work Relations	p. 60
The Medium and the Act of Work	p. 61
The Act of Work: Service, Sales, and Knowledge Workers	p. 66
Work Complexity and Work Experience	p. 82
Conclusion	p. 91
Employment Relations	p. 93
Structuring Employment Relations	p. 95
Employment Relations Elements Common to the Three Types of Workflows	p. 97
Employment Relations in Service, Sales, and Knowledge Work Workflows	p. 101
Institutional Contexts as Sources of Variation in Employment Relations	p. 119
Conclusion	p. 130
Control Relations	p. 133
Management Control in Theory	p. 134
Management Control in Practice	p. 139
Worker Participation in Theory	p. 155
Worker Participation in Practice	p. 157
Workers' Responses to Control and Opportunities for Participation	p. 162
Conclusion	p. 164
Co-worker Relations	p. 166
The Postbureaucracy Thesis and Co-worker Relations in the Three Types of Workflows	p. 168
Interdependencies in Tasks and Learning	p. 173
Relations among Co-workers in Teams	p. 187
Co-worker Relations, Job Satisfaction, and Learning Outcomes	p. 193
Conclusion	p. 196
Customer Relations	p. 198
Customer Relations in Theory	p. 199
Customer Relations in Practice	p. 205
Customer-Related Outcomes	p. 221
Conclusion	p. 226
Work Organization: Consequences and Cross-National
Comparisons	p. 230
Concepts and Theories of Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment	p. 231
Comparative Analysis and Discussion	p. 241
Cross-National Comparisons of Work Organization and Its Consequences	p. 253
Conclusion	p. 262
Conclusion	p. 265
Imagery versus Evidence	p. 267
Japanese versus Western Work Organization	p. 270
The Present versus the Future	p. 271
Conclusion	p. 276
Appendixes	p. 279
Results of Discriminant Analysis	p. 279
Definition of Factors, Descriptive Statistics, and Cronbach Alpha Coefficients of Factors	p. 280
Gender, Supervision, and Perceived Effectiveness of Service Workers	p. 284
Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations of Independent Variables Used in Service Workflow Regressions	p. 285
Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations of Independent Variables in Sales Workflow Regressions	p. 286
Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations of Independent Variables Used in Knowledge Work Workflow Regressions	p. 287
References	p. 288
Authors	p. 305
Index	p. 307
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