Refashioning Organizational Boundaries: Outsourcing Customer Service Work*

abstract In recent years there has been a discernible trend towards the outsourcing and subcontracting of work. However, there has been very little empirical research on employees' attitudes to work in outsourced firms. This study is conducted in the area of call centre services where there has been a substantial growth in the provision of external market suppliers. It examines employees' perceptions of their work and employment arrangements in both an in‐house producer and an external service provider and identifies and compares the factors that shape their organizational commitment and intentions to quit. The research found that the character of the internal labour market and the nature of the work regime were more important explanations of organizational commitment and intentions to quit in the external market supplier than in the in‐house producer. The paper discusses the implications of these findings for the quality of customer service provided under subcontracting arrangements.     

Diaries from the front line—Formal supervision and job quality among social care workers during austerity

Focusing on social care workers in public, private and voluntary sectors, this article contributes to research on the impact of austerity on public service human resource management (HRM). The article uses an innovative diary method to highlight the importance of intrinsic elements of job quality such as supervision practice in mitigating degradation in extrinsic elements as austerity dismantles public service HRM. The article also reports that supervision has itself come under pressure due to resource shortages. The results regarding sub‐sector differences have implications for policy‐makers and practitioners in terms of rebuilding the standard employment relationship in social care so that they are more sensitive to differences across private, public and voluntary sectors.     

Gender Roles and Organizational HR Practices: The Case of Women's Careers in Accountancy and Consultancy Firms in China

The Chinese finance industry has experienced significant expansion both within the state sector and into the private sector. Professional consultancy firms have also emerged as a result of the rising interest in the outsourcing of accounting and management services. However, the study of women's careers in the accountancy profession in contemporary China remains largely an uncharted territory. Drawing on data from 69 interviews with auditors in five firms, this article investigates the nature of work of external auditors in China and how women auditors view their work‐life choices and constraints. We explore the likely differences between male and female auditors in their career aspirations and the extent to which these self‐perceived differences are informed by social conventions of gender role, organizational practices, and personal preferences. The study has strong implications for human resource management in professional service firms in China, with particular reference to job design, work organization, career support, and work‐life balance initiatives. The study contributes to the debate on gender, employment, and career development in the accountancy profession in different parts of the world. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The rise of the ‘network organisation’ and the decline of discretion

This article explores the implications of ‘networked’ and ‘flexible’ organisations for the work and skills of professionals/ Drawing on material from four different case studies, it reviews work that is outsourced (involving IT professionals and housing benefit caseworkers), work that is done by teachers contracted to a temporary employment agency and work organised through an inter‐firm network (chemical production workers). In each case work that was outsourced was managed very differently to that undertaken in‐house, with managerial monitoring replacing and reducing employees' discretion. New staff in these networks had fewer skills when hired and were given access to a narrower range of skills than their predecessors. By contrast, the production staff directly employed on permanent contracts in the inter‐firm network were given (and took) significant amounts of responsibility, with positive results for both their skills and the work processed. Yet, despite the negative impact they have on skills, outsourcing and subcontracting are a far more common means of securing flexibility than organisational collaboration.     

Ignorant Theory and Knowledgeable Workers: Interrogating the Connections between Knowledge,Skills and Services

This article builds on recent critiques of the knowledge economy to argue that key growth areas in future employment will be in low level service jobs rather than knowledge work as currently understood. The article discusses the knowledge, skills and competencies involved in interactive service work. It suggests that knowledge which is contextual, social or tacit has been taken to be of lesser value in relation to competitive advantage. It highlights the contrast, therefore, between the growth in interactive service work and the focus of the knowledge management literature on a small sub‐set of total employment. Two case‐studies of interactive service work, one drawn from a range of service sectors and the other from a call‐centre setting, provide empirical material which highlights the skills required by em‐ployers in this area. Technical skills were seen as less important than aesthetic and social skills. These cases highlight the management of social skills and competencies as critical to interactive service work. Workers need to develop an understanding of themselves that allows them to consciously use their emotions and corporeality to influence the quality of the service. This leads to the conclusion that the interactive service sector should not be conflated with knowledge work. Rather, it is more important to focus on the broader need for knowledgeability in work, and so broaden understanding of labour in the contemporary workplace.     

A slow burning flame? Organisational change and industrial relations in the fire service

The process of organisational change in the public sector has led to a restructuring of the employment relationship in a context of budgetary constraints, the introduction of performance indicators and the development of new management strategies. The pace of change has been uneven and mediated by service cultures that have been resistant to innovation. Our case study of a metropolitan fire brigade explores these issues and suggests that financially driven organisational change has a major impact on industrial relations and that trade union organisation rooted in workplace culture can provide a significant challenge to restructuring.     

Health sector reform and human resource management: Britain in comparative perspective

This article examines the impact of health service restructuring for employment practices in Europe, using Britain as the basis of comparison. It first considers trends in West European health care reform and examines the extent to which reform measures have been accompanied by changes in employment practices. It focuses on reforms of pay determination arrangements and work organization, examining in particular the experience of nurses, who form the largest occupational group. Finally, some of the implications for a future research agenda are considered. It concludes that research on health sector employment practices is under-developed and outlines a research agenda that recognizes the importance of workplace restructuring within a comparative framework.     

承接金融服务外包对中国就业的影响

研究以金融行业外包服务数据为样本,沿直接与间接两种影响渠道,分析承接金融服务外包对我国就业数量与就业结构的影响,对就业数量变动的流向与趋势进行测算,深入到了劳动力就业质量层面。实证结果表明,承接金融服务外包可以扩大第三产业的相对就业比重,改善知识结构,有利于就业结构与产业结构之间的平衡。但不熟练工人的金融外包业准入将受到限制,加深了他们的就业困境。如何借此机遇将大量低技术劳工培训成合格人才将成为一个严峻的挑战。研究还提出了针对这一新产业形态未来发展的总结与展望。     

Human resource policy in social work management: a response to enforced market orientation

This article is a contribution to the study of public service organizations converting to a market orientation. The case examined here is that of a social services department which opted for the strategy of restructuring on the lines of budget autonomy but accompanied it by an unusual focus upon managerial skills. The effect was to personalize the change. The conflict between old ways and new thinking was congealed into personal debate by the focus on skills so that changes had to be resolved internally. The rationale for this strategy is located in the antipathy between professional social work values and the practice of management.     

人才中心毕业生推荐管理系统的分析与设计

近年来，高校毕业生人数逐年增加，各大高校就业推荐工作量也越来越大。合理搭建一个公开的信息化平台，能够提高就业指导部门工作的效率，降低企业用人成本，便于毕业生求职。组织力量自行开发适合于本校的就业信息网站，对于实现毕业生就业服务信息化、网络化，提高就业指导质量与管理水平，具有重要的现实意义。     

The Marketization of Local Services and the Fragmentation of Labour Markets

This paper is a product of the ESRC's Local Governance research programme which considers the employment implications of the introduction of market forces into the provision of local government services in the United Kingdom. It discusses the fragmentation of labour markets as both a process and outcome of the commercialization of local service provision. In contrast to privatization scenarios, marketization suggests the blurring of the distinction between public and private employment deriving from the commercialization of municipal services and the transmission of local authority work organization and culture into the private sector. An assessment of employment change, workforce recomposition and bargaining capacity is offered which leads to the development of new models for institutional restructuring. ‘Sectoral de-differentiation’ is a concept developed to address the evolution of new labour market patterns and a ‘public capsule’ model is offered to explain the locality and service variations in marketization outcomes.     

Public service restructuring in the UK: the case of the English National Health Service

This article overviews welfare state retrenchment in the UK under the Conservative‐led coalition government that formed in May 2010 and has centred its response to economic crisis on rapid public deficit reduction through public expenditure austerity targeted increasingly on the welfare benefits budget. It locates the coalition's reforms of public services and public sector employment relations in the long trajectory of public sector restructuring in the UK: the policies of New Right governments in the 1980s and New Labour from 1997 to 2010 that installed marketisation and privatisation in a permutation of forms, intensifying challenges for trade union organising. Focusing on the English NHS, the article identifies the respects in which the coalition's reforms continue and depart from New Labour's.     

Shrinking the state or the Big Society? Public service employment relations in an era of austerity

The Big Society is an integral part of the coalition's plans for public service retrenchment, but it is premature to dismiss it as exclusively concerned with expenditure cuts and privatisation. The Big Society signals the government's ambition to transform public services and it is the rubric that is being used to shrink the state and undermine long‐standing systems of public service employment relations. This article considers the origins and meaning of the Big Society and then assesses its consequences for public service provision and the workforce. The Big Society is integrally connected to deficit reduction with the voluntary sector and an increased emphasis on volunteering promoted as a more user‐centred and cost‐effective way of delivering public services in tough times. For the workforce, more competition between diverse providers in conjunction with budget cuts is placing downward pressure on terms and conditions and encouraging employers to question the continuation of national pay determination in many parts of the public sector.     

Risk allocation in service triads – The case of Dutch and Finnish home care procurement

We compare how Finland and the Netherlands organize home care services, both in legislation and in procurement practices, from a service triad risk perspective. We find Finnish public bodies rely to a great extent on inhouse provision and hybrid outsourcing. Dutch public bodies rely completely on outsourcing, using framework agreements with many care providers in parallel. Incentives used in contracts affect financial and service quality risks assumed by buyers, suppliers, and end-customers in the triad. This research improves our understanding of risk allocation among the actors in the service triad based on buyer decisions on outsourcing and supply market conditions. The risk profiles for all three actors in the home care service triad are affected by the manner in which public bodies outsource home care services: the purchasing practices. The delivery method (whether public and private or all private) and the number of providers impact the information position of the municipality versus the care provider in the triad.     

Researching Public Sector Change

This article highlights the importance of taking a gendered perspective for the understanding of new public manage-ment and the restructuring of public services. Significant changes havetaken place in the management structure and processes of public sector organizations throughout the decade, with work-forces being redefined and reconstitu-ted. Relatively little research work has examined the gendered implications of such change and the way in which pro-cesses of redefinition are negotiated, accepted or resisted by male and female professionals. A conceptual framework for future research is presented which is informed by three separate research literatures: the feminization thesis, developments in HRM and marketiza-tion and managerialism. The article con-cludes by emphasizing the importance of a more inclusive and gendered view of restructuring agendas. A theoretical framework is proposed that accommo-dates difference and agency in the restructuring process as a way forward in analysing public sector change.     

Incentives and the Efficiency of Public Sector-outsourcing Contracts

Abstract.  Outsourcing the provision of traditionally publicly provided services has become commonplace in most industrialized nations. Despite its prevalence, there still is no consensus in the academic literature on the magnitude (and determinants) of expected cost savings to the government, nor the sources of those savings. This article considers the arguments for (and against) outsourcing and then examines the empirical evidence pertaining to whether any observed savings occur and whether they persist over time. In addition, we examine the existing evidence for the 'redistribution hypothesis' and the 'quality-shading hypothesis', which critics have used to argue that outsourcing lowers government expenditure by lowering wages and conditions and/or lower quality services. Finally, we consider the impact of contract design on outsourcing outcomes. While the power of incentives is a strong theme in economics, recent work has suggested that high-powered incentives may be suboptimal for many public sector services, because they may crowd out intrinsic motivation, particularly in instances where agents are highly motivated. We discuss the implications of this insight for the efficiency of public sector outsourcing.     

陕西民办高校毕业生就业服务体系的完善与创新

新时期落实就业优先发展战略,是陕西民办高校战略转型阶段,面临的一项艰巨任务和新的挑战。陕西民办高校应与时俱进,不断创新和改革工作思路,积极整合优势资源,逐步完善就业服务体系,在确保毕业生充分就业的前提下,提高就业质量,促进学生体面就业。     

Women's attitudes towards trade unions in the UK: a consideration of the distinction between full‐ and part‐time workers

This article considers the attitudes and experiences of female full‐ and part‐time workers towards trade unions. Expanding upon previous research it suggests that while the attitudes of full‐ and part‐time workers towards trade unions are similar, experiences of trade unions are not: they depend upon the employment context and work history. A life course perspective is advanced, which examines women's employment contexts and transitions between full‐ and part‐time work in order to further explain female part‐timers’ lower likelihood of unionising.     

Restructuring strategies,firms' size and atypical employment in the local productive system of Thessaloniki,Greece

Drawing upon an extended case study in six industrial sectors in the city of Thessaloniki, Greece this paper highlights that the transformation of the local production system is based on the locally specific interaction of two interrelated restructuring trajectories: a ‘weak’ strategy that is mainly associated to small/medium‐sized labour intensive enterprises and a ‘strong’ strategy which is fairly connected to large, increasingly internationalised firms. Both these strategies are found to be in need of cheap labour while they make use of the locally diversified atypical employment pools, though in different ways. In parallel, they presuppose a subordinated integration into subcontracting production systems that expands towards the regional, the Balkan and the international arena. The paper underlines that restructuring strategies in Thessaloniki, especially the prevailing ‘weak’ one, do not seem to alter the conditions of backwardness for the local productive system. Apart from leaving local structures poor in innovative production, automated machinery and non‐hierarchical networking practices they are largely based on diffused, poorly‐paid atypical employment.     

Equality and diversity in the public services: moving forward on lesbian,gay and bisexual equality?

A key change for lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) people in the European Union has been the prohibition by the Employment Equality Directive (2000) of discrimination in employment on grounds of sexual orientation. This article focuses on the UK, which in 2003 introduced legislation making it unlawful to discriminate on these grounds. It explores the factors encouraging ‘good practice’ in sexual orientation equality work. It considers progress within the public services that have ‘pioneered’ sexual orientation equalities work, drawing on the views of LGB employees, management and trade union stakeholders. The recent legislation is considered to have provided a major impetus for change; however, an emerging ‘business case’ within the public service modernisation agenda is considered to have provided both opportunities and barriers to progress. A challenge for HR practitioners is getting organisational commitment to sexual orientation work, which is still perceived within organisations as a ‘sensitive’ area.