Happiness in the Digital panopticum
Happiness in the Digital panopticum
Employees are widely believed to perceive management control as negative. Labor-process researchers have discussed employee reactions to control regimes in terms of resistance. Yet, do employees always resist? Could control even be welcomed? A call center is an appropriate environment for answering these questions. Because of its intensive control systems, call centers have been labeled as ‘electronic panopticon’. Through controlled interviews, observation and document analysis, the opinions of call center agents regarding intensive control were studied in an in-house call center of a Dutch insurance company. Our research concluded that it is not possible to generalize respondent perception to management control as always negative; we therefore distinguished three types of perception regarding control: opponents (the ‘unwilling’), proponents (the ‘willing’) and disinterested (the ‘indifferent’). We conclude with recommendations for praxis.
Gelukkig in het elektronisch panopticon?