Does role clarity explain employee-perceived service quality? A study of antecedents and consequences in call centres

Purpose – Role clarity of frontline staff is critical to their perceptions of service quality in call centres. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of role clarity and its antecedents and consequences on employee-perceived service quality. Design/methodology/approach – A conceptual model, based on the job characteristics model and cognitive theories, is proposed. Key antecedents of role clarity considered here are feedback, autonomy, participation, supervisory consideration, and team support; while key consequences are organizational commitment, job satisfaction and service quality. An internal marketing approach is adopted and all variables are measured from the frontline employee's perspective. A structural equation model is developed and tested on a sample of 342 call centre representatives of a major commercial bank in the UK. Findings – The research reveals that role clarity plays a critical role in explaining employee perceptions of service quality. Further, the research findings indicate that feedback, participation and team support significantly influence role clarity, which in turn influences job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Research limitations/implications – The research suggests that boundary personnel in service firms should strive for more clarity in perceived role for delivering better service quality. The limitations are in sample availability from in-house transaction call centres of a single bank. Originality/value – The contributions of this study are untangling the confusing research evidence on the effect of role clarity on service quality, using service quality as a performance variable as opposed to productivity estimates, adopting an internal marketing approach to understanding the phenomenon, and introducing teamwork along with job-design and supervisory factors as antecedent to role clarity.

Insights into the Indian call centre industry:can internal marketing help tackle high employee turnover?

Purpose – Increasing turnover of frontline staff in call centres is detrimental to the delivery of quality service to customers. This paper aims to present the context for the rapid growth of the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector in India, and to address a critical issue faced by call centre organisations in this sector – the high employee turnover. Design/methodology/approach – Following a triangulation approach, two separate empirical investigations are conducted to examine various aspects of high labour turnover rates in the call centre sector in India. Study one examines the research issue via 51 in-depth interviews in as many units. Study two reports results from a questionnaire survey with 204 frontline agents across 11 call centres regarding employee turnover. Findings – This research reveals a range of reasons – from monotonous work, stressful work environment, adverse working conditions, lack of career development opportunities; to better job opportunities elsewhere, which emerge as the key causes of increasing attrition rates in the Indian call centre industry. Research limitations/implications – The research suggests that there are several issues that need to be handled carefully by management of call centres in India to overcome the problem of increasing employee turnover, and that this also demands support from the Indian government. Originality/value – The contributions of this study untangle the issues underlying a key problem in the call centre industry, i.e. employee turnover in the Indian call centre industry context. Adopting an internal marketing approach, it provides useful information for both academics and practitioners and suggests internal marketing interventions, and avenues for future research to combat the problem of employee turnover.

"High commitment" strategies:it ain't what you do; it's the way that you do it

Purpose: This paper sets out to contribute to the advancement of knowledge, particularly with regard to the processes of implementation and the role of managers engaged in such high commitment strategies and work practices. Design/methodology/approach: This study is part of a research project investigating the extent to which employee involvement predicts job performance (as well as job satisfaction, wellbeing and organisational commitment) in the NHS, using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The main focus of this paper is to present evidence from four of the 20 case studies to show the barriers to implementing employee involvement as well as highlighting the techniques and practices that have proven to be most successful. Findings: Employee involvement is used successfully by management and has enabled frontline staff to contribute their knowledge to their work. Research limitations/implications: The ethical issues of confidentiality and anonymity permeated the research process throughout. Practical implications: The link between "high commitment" strategies and organisational performance is of great interest to academics and practitioners alike. One of these "high commitment" strategies, namely employee involvement, has been an important HR strategy for the NHS in the UK. Originality/value: Other organisations can learn from the findings by implementing the successful parts. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Reporting and managing risk:a look at current practice at Tesco, RBS, local and central government

These case studies from CIMA highlight the need to embed risk management within more easily understood behaviours, consistent with the overall organisational culture. In each case, some form of internal audit team provides either an oversight function or acts as an expert link in that feedback loop. Frontline staff, managers and specialists should be completely aligned on risk, in part just to ensure that there is a consistency of approach. They should understand instinctively that good performance includes good risk management. Tesco has continued to thrive during the recession and remains a robust and efficient group of businesses despite the emergence of potential threats around consumer spending and the supply chain. RBS, by contrast, has suffered catastrophic and very public failures of risk management despite a large in-house function and stiff regulation of risk controls. Birmingham City Council, like all local authorities, is adapting to more commercial modes of operation and is facing diverse threats and opportunities emerging as a result of social change. And DCMS, like many other public sector organisations, has to handle an incredibly complex network of delivery partners within the context of a relatively recent overhaul of central government risk management processes. Key Findings: •Risk management is no longer solely a financial discipline, nor is it simply a concern for the internal control function. •Where organisations retain a discrete risk management cadre – often specialists at monitoring and evaluating a range of risks – their success is dependent on embedding risk awareness in the wider culture of the enterprise. •Risk management is most successful when it is explicitly linked to operational performance. •Clear leadership, specific goals, excellent influencing skills and open-mindedness to potential threats and opportunities are essential for effective risk management. •Bureaucratic processes and systems can hamper good risk management – either as a result of a ‘box-ticking mentality’ or because managers and staff believe they do not need to consider risk themselves.