Term Project

Managerial practices and implications for the shop-floor culture - a call centre in the UK insurance industry

Introduction

We begin this book with several facts . There are widespread differences in managerial practices across firms , across establishments within firms , and across countries . Comparing across countries , in recent years , productivity has been higher in the U .S . than in many European countries , and some of these productivity differences appear to be attributable to differences in managerial practices . Comparing across firms , even when firms or establishments produce products that are nearly identical , the management

practices of these firms can differ widely . These differences in management practices are likely to result in differences in productivity . Many studies show that when firms adopt a set of `best practices ' the productivity of the establishment often rises . Of course , the best practices ' for one firm need not be best practices for other firms . However , studies show that when we compare the performance of establishments that are very similar , such as performance of establishments in narrowly defined fairly homogeneous industries , best practices raise the performance of the establishments Yet , these same establishments do not all adopt best practices

These facts ' lead to questions . What makes some innovative management practices especially effective ? Why do some firms adopt new practices and some do not ? Do the institutional rules and regulations that are often specific to countries play a role in the adoption or success of innovative management practices

And given the fact that multinational firms operating across country boundaries are often guiding the adoption of management practices , what can we learn about the effectiveness and adoption of these practices by looking within multinational firms ? What can such a study of best practices in multinational firms tell us about the optimal management of such firms ? Nevertheless , we will be looking at the shop-floor culture - a call centre in the UK insurance industry as a case study

Today , a rapidly growing form of work organisation in the industrialised part of the world is the call centre . This defines the call centre to be a separate building constructed in to offer direct line services , meaning interactions with customers through computer-telephony links . The call centre organisation is relatively flat , and usually consists of a huge group of telephone operators (agents , some "teamleaders , and a small team of senior managers . The internal labour processes may therefore differ from the parent organisations . This means that the phenomenon could be studied separately as an organisational grouping within the organisation

Recently business insiders , and the public press , have criticised the managerial practices for being top-down oriented , leading to a factory-like shop floor culture . Ingredients mentioned are tight managerial control , both electronic through (monitoring ) and manual through "teamleaders , and high intensification of the pace of work in search for capital gain

Tentative case example Guardian Direct (GD ) Insurance

The GD was established in 1994 by the big UK insurance firm GRE . The GD site in Colchester was the company 's first attempt to consolidate the direct sale operation...