Call centers are increasingly catching the attention of practitioners and academic researchers studying work design and labor processes. While the former tend to depict such centers as hightech, organic organizations, the latter - at least those with a more critical view of organizational reality - seem to be unveiling a different condition, marked by a mechanicist design. This paper follows a more critical stream of research, using data from a four case comparative study to understand work design transformation brought on by technology in call center environments. Results indicated that the evolutionist discourse is limited: in general, technology implementations in call centers investigated led to more machanicist organizations. However, at one center, the new technology was used to transform work in the opposite direction, leading to a more organic structure. Hence, the study reinforces the argument that not only technology, but also the manager conception of work and how such technology is implemented, are important to determine the evolution or involution of work design at call centers.
call centers; new technologies; organizational structure
