Critical Essay of Mark Twain’s “The Damned Human Race”

Mark Twain, through a heavy dose of satire, irony, and a not-so-subtle attempt at the scientific method, provides readers with an effective, but flawed, argument as to why humans are the lowest of animals in his essay The Damned Human Race. While the essay is successful in providing facts that support Twain's claim of humans have descended from animals, and not the other way around, his bias and pessimism towards the human race in general strongly emanates from the essay, and he does not provide any opportunity for the reader to gather any evidence to the contrary of his beliefs, further limiting the legitimacy of his argument.Twain provides several sound reasons for stating that humans are worse than animals, all conveyed in an effective manner. He makes simple and definitive statements which are generally believed to be true of humans and not animals, and elaborates on these statements to pinpoint just what is wrong with human beings. For example, Twain states â€Å"Man is the onl y Patriot† (Twain). While most believe this to be a positive trait of humans, Twain immediately follows this statement by stating that humans are the only species to kill one another for their countries, writing: Man is the only Patriot.He sets himself apart in his own country, under his own flag, and sneers at the other nations, and keeps multitudinous uniformed assassins on hand at heavy expense to grab slices of other people’s countries, and keep them from grabbing slices of his. And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for the universal brotherhood of man, with his mouth.(Twain) Twain goes to on to point out that humans are the only species that take slaves, are the only species to take more than they need, and the only species that claim religions, and provides specific examples of different types of animals behaving differently in this regard (Twain). His points are effective arguments because he uses facts and strong lang uage to solidify each point that he makes, and does so in a way that leaves little for argument.While the points that Mark Twain makes in his essay are for all intents and purposes true, and he conveys his beliefs in a very effective manner, the essay as a whole is not a successful argument, largely because he primarily uses only one of the three main means of persuasion. Twain provides facts throughout his essay that are generally hard to argue with in regards to the bad things that humans are capable of that animals are not, but does not use emotion to trigger a response from the reader.This could be by design because of his use of heavy satire, and the fact that this was written in a scientific manner rather, which generally are written to not contain the author's emotions. There is a clear lack of ethical appeal, or ethos, in Twain's essay because of the fact that he is writing this in an official scientific capacity, though he is clearly not a scientist. He also does not provid e information that may contradict his beliefs, which prohibits the reader from gathering opposing views of the story.Twain could have easily provided facts and arguments that point out the good things that human beings are capable of that animals are not, such as charities, social welfare programs, and medical care. With that said, The Damned Human Race is an essay containing heavy satire, something that Twain makes apparent almost immediately by stating â€Å"I have not guessed or speculated or conjectured, but have used what is commonly called the scientific method† (Twain).By the time that this essay was published in 1905, Twain was an established as a well-known author, known for his humor and famous works rather than scientific prowess. Also, at this point in his life, Twain was also very open about his overall disdain for the human race in general, perhaps due to circumstances regarding his family and life experiences, though it has been debated that Twain had no more o f a troubled life than most normal people (Byrne 19).All of these things prohibit his essay from being considered a legitimate argument, and points to it being more a rant by the author, however effective it may be. While Mark Twain provides many solid facts about the human race that are true and should be noted by the reader, the heavy doses of clear bias and satire overwhelm any legitimacy the essay could possibly carry. It is also difficult to ignore the cynicism throughout the piece, even in the last line when Twain is describing the human races declension from animals, stating, â€Å"Below us, nothing† (Twain).

Mule Killers Essay

â€Å"Mule Killers†, 2004 by Lydia Peele is the gripping story of love and the difficulties around it. It deals with issues such as fatherhood, friendship and marriage, including the conflicts surrounding these. Lydia Peele presents the story of a father telling his son, who is the narrator, an anecdote from his early life. The anecdote is an unhappy love story of the narrator’s father’s love life, and the relationship to the narrator’s grandfather. In a story with its roots in rural America, a much deeper story appears. This is a story of love, hope and the decisions of life. It is the story of the struggles and difficulties that are a part of life. The story, set in the countryside of the USA, presents a group of interesting characters with strong personalities, that each have their way of participating to the story. It is especially the father and the grandfather that have great significance to the Lydia Peele’s short story. The grandfather is presented as a man who is afraid of letting go of his usual surroundings and habits. This is seen on line 77-78, page 4. The grandfather tells the father: †You’re gonna see a future I can’t even stretch my mind around. Not any of it. I can’t even begin to imagine†. The fact that he has such difficulties imagining the future, points towards the conclusion that he would rather live in the present. He would rather live his old fashioned life and not worry about the future. The grandfather’s way of thinking seems old fashioned and generally conservative. When his son explains how he accidentally impregnated a young woman, without having any intentions of marrying her, the conservatism shines through. The grandfather replies on line 86-87, page 4â€Å"This is wrong†¦You got no choice but to take care of it. This is wrong†. The two different worlds of son and father clash, and the true differences are shown. Even though father and son look upon the world with different points of view, the son still has massive respect for his old man. His father is actually his role model, which is also shown throughout the text: â€Å"My father has his father’s height, and he carries it apologetically†(line 7, page 2). The word â€Å"apolegitacally† points towards the fact that the son is aware of the superiority that his father possesses. The son has difficulties living up to his father and his way of life. He wants to possess his father’s ability to show no emotion and how to be â€Å"a real man†. He hides the feelings that strong men traditionally do not feel: He is trying hard to keep certain things inside his chest: things like fear, sadness, and uncertainty†. (line 7-9, page2). This could very likely be a typical trend of the time and environment that the story takes place in. The final main character in the anecdote is the narrator, who is the son to the young man with love problems in the short story. The son is a first person narrator, so the point of view is limited to him. His main function is to tell the story. An actual presentation of his personality is not included. As stated earlier, the setting has great importance for the personalities of the main characters in the story. The setting is in Nashville, just before industrialization modernized the farming life with tractors. The father in the story carries typical traits of a farmer dedicated to old norms, such as no illegitimate children. A possible explanation of this could be that the state of Tennessee is located in the Bible belt, which is known as a highly religious area. There are also other elements of the setting that point out the religious beliefs that the two main characters have: â€Å"At church she always sits with the same girl† (line 14), page 2. The use of the adverb â€Å"always† proves that the son and father attend church on a regular basis. Whilst reading â€Å"Mule Killers† several obvious themes jump out on the page. The main theme seen in the short story is the generational difference between father and son. As stated earlier, the father tries to hold on to his old norms and principals, whereas the son believes in a modern way of life. The difference is illustrated when the son decides not to marry the girl whom he impregnated. The father regards this as uncaring and irresponsible. The views of the son seem to relate to the modern world of today. It becomes more and more ordinary to have a baby outside of marriage without the intentions of helping the mother nurture the child. A specific example is seen in MTV’s â€Å"Teenage Mom† television program where several teenage girls give birth. The program also shows the way the father typically tends to leave the mother after birth. If this had happened in the time where the â€Å"Mule Killers† takes place or prior to it, it would have had major consequences for the father of the child. One can therefore conclude that the times constantly change and some people will always be â€Å"caught† in the past, which in this case is the father. This could also be a possible message of the story. The message could be that norms change throughout history, but not all people follow the change. Regardless of this, it is still important to respect the people who have a hard time dealing with the future. Lydia Peele manages to take the reader on a journey of love and the relationship between the narrator’s father and grandfather. She also shows the reader the different norms and beliefs that the two generations have, and the clashes than can rise to the surface due to this. She also presents the stereotypical religious middle class farmer at this time. This is done by using a small farmer town located in the Bible belt as a setting. The short story is a touching and mind bobbling tale portraying the relationship between two sets of father and son. It tells the tale of the relationship between the narrator’s father and grandfather. The relationship between the narrator’s father and grandfather is presented as a relationship built on a general respect for the elderly. The narrator’s father respects the grandfather since he listens to what he says, and obeys the rules that the grandfather upholds. It is also the tale of how the setting, which is the farmer community in the US during the industrialization, has a major importance for the outcome of the story. The highly religious setting is represented in the Narrator’s grandfather’s point of view regarding childbirth. All in all the short story shows the difficulties surrounding love and how to deal with it in a sensible matter.

Correctional Institution , Criminology major Essay - 2

Correctional Institution , Criminology major - Essay Example s to analyze one of the many problems, and to propose a solution or management plan in response to the selected issue, from the office and viewpoint of a correctional manager. The premise is that there is no provision of additional staff, funding, or other resources, and of course, the law cannot be changed or hampered with. The chosen problem is a lack of rehabilitation in the institutes, and the linked lack of trained staff for the rehabilitation process (The Florida DC). To ascertain the fact that the proposed management plan is within the responsibilities and job description of the correctional manager, and that it does not violate the law, a brief discussion of the responsibilities and authority of the correctional manager is provided. The correctional manager is responsible for the daily activities and management of the set up, and in medium and high risk prisons, there are some added responsibilities to his office (Institutional Management Structure). His duties span the human resource, finance, event management, emergency control, security, administration, and almost all other departments responsible for the daily working of the institute (Institutional Management Structure). He is in control of the planning of the daily events and activities, the visitations, the searches and monitoring of the inmates and the visitors, pay roll, attendance, any violations or other disciplinary issues and their related consequences, acute management of emergencies until the appropriate authorities get to the scene, the deployment of personnel and their rotations, the recruiting and training of personnel, and many other such duties (Institutional Management Structure). Given the span of the duties of a correctional manager, it is evident that

Wk2 Progress a Assign. INTL304 Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Wk2 Progress a Assign. INTL304 - Assignment Example There are different types of sensor suites. These are the easiest way to monitor the things inside a building from any part of the world. An Orbit refers to a path of an object found in the space. There are four types of orbit of satellite sensor. The first one is satellite orbit; this satellite follows an elliptical path, round the earth. One complete revolution is known as the orbital period. Geostationary orbits, this occurs when a satellite follows an orbit that is parallel to the equator that moves in a similar direction as the earth’s rotation. Near polar orbits, refers to the orbital plane that is inclined at an angle with respect to the rotation of the earth’s axis. Sun-synchronous orbits, follows an orbit whose altitude is in a way that the satellite will pass over a location at a local solar time. Technical intelligence is not easy because it not possible to collect complete information from the adversaries. This is because the chips may be down, and some of the strategies may fail. Designing a satellite of balanced force has been another drawback of the airborne sensors platform in collecting technical intelligence. 2 Resolution is the clarity of an image. It is the ability of the sensors to see the smallest objects in an image. Resolution determines the sharpness of an image. Spatial resolution refers to the ability of measuring how closely lines can be resolved in an image. Spatial resolution is limited by diffraction. The pixel spacing the ground sample of an image on the earth’s surface is small compared to resolvable spot size.

Non require Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Non require - Essay Example inning as a renegade sect of Judaism that was banned by the Roman government (largely because it did not allow for the kind of religious pluralism that the Roman state was based on), to a tolerated, legal but minority religion (under the reign of Constantine),1 very briefly back to being an illegal religion (under Julian the Apostate) before finally becoming the official religion of the Roman state.2 Along with these changes in official status came changes in church structure – early Christian churches likely operated on a very small scale, with priests and bishops (where they existed) mainly serving the role of teachers and communicators, without actually wielding much power.3 As Christianity became more officially recognized, it became a more strongly organized church in itself, with greater emphasis put on hierarchy and the power and authority of church elders and leaders, and less emphasis on the importance of individual believers. Through these broad changes many disagree ments emerged: questions about who were church leaders, how their power was exercised, who got to set doctrinal legitimacy, and theological questions such as the nature of the divine. Through the broad history of Christianity, it becomes apparent that more and more of these conflicts were solved by the creation of a strict hierarchy, which put older, educated men at the head, forming church policy, while diminishing the importance and voice of anyone else. The role of women in the Church was an early issue that demonstrates the shift of power from ordinary believers into the hands of the same kind of people that ruled Roman society, older, patriarchal men. Women played an incredibly important role in early Christianity – Mary Magdalene and Mary, mother of Jesus were both incredibly important members of the early church. Likewise, Paul had many â€Å"coworkers† that demonstrate that women were indeed an important part of the early church.4 Women may have even had a role in

Divorce and the Coase Theorem Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Divorce and the Coase Theorem - Essay Example I would not advocate for a change in the current law. This is for the rationale that alternative arrangement divorce would be time consuming and would even cause or start hateful issues to develop during the arrangements and can ruin friendships. It is also confident for spouses to formulate one of the reasons for divorce essential in ruling. No-fault divorce, on the other hand, accepted that a marriage collapse might not be the cause of one spouses misbehavior. They cut down the divorce procedure and made it more reliable countrywide, hence obviating the necessitaty for distressed couples to cross position lines in look for of simpler break up laws. Ronald Coase is for no fault divorce and he said that, if the amount of a couple’s mesh gains from matrimony, as seen by the couple, is negative, then no conformity on distributing the gains from the marriage can keep them as one. Despite of its merits it is not the best way to divorce because it can cover up serious matrimonial misbehavior and I don’t advocate for

The significant works of E.E. Cummings Research Paper

The significant works of E.E. Cummings - Research Paper Example His personal story reflected in poems such as number 34 about his father and All in green went my love riding, which relates his relationship to the female sex. He is best remembered, however, for his avant-guarde use of language Near the end of his life, Cummings wrote little i, a poem that looked back to his childhood and in a few short lines expressed the memory of a child from the point of view of his childhood home. He wrote â€Å"who are you little i/(five or six years old)/peering from some high/window; at the gold/of November sunset† (Reef, 1). Cummings began his relationship with poetry at a young age. His mother wrote poetry and encouraged her son to jot down his ideas and thoughts and put them into poetic form. Cummings once said â€Å"I did not decide to become a poet- I was always writing poetry† (Reef 5). Poetry was a part of his life from such a young age that he never knew a time when he was not writing and his prolific list of work reveals the depth to which the art form allowed for his expression Cummings, who is known for using lower case letters in spite of grammatical correctness, is also known for his overt sentimentality. His poem number 34 from his 50 Poems expresses his love for his father who had died in a car accident in 1926. The first stanza, ‘my father moved through dooms of love/through sames of am through haves of give,/singing each morning out of each night/my father moved through depths of height† (Bloom 10). This work, however sentimental, does reveal the differences between himself and his father. His father is characterized as open and loving, an attachment to the divine love that was lacking in the emotional sphere of Cummings who was more comfortable in isolation, his experience in life leaving him with the difficulty of love and the realities of death. He writes in the work â€Å"though dull were all we taste as bright/ bitter all utterly things sweet,/maggoty minus and dumb death/all we inherit . All bequeath/† as a discussion of the inevitability of death making all that is sweet in life have a bit of bitterness as it will pass into the oblivion of death. In his poem All in Green Went My Love Riding, the predatory nature of the female can be observed through the construction of the phrasing, coupled with the last line that suggests that more than once he had fallen to the hunt of a woman. Cora Robey states that â€Å"Cummings borrows from the Classic and Medieval past and evokes the method of the Pre-Raphaelite poets in exploring his theme: the lover’s vision of feminine cruelty† (Robey 23). Cummings uses imagery such as â€Å"the famished arrows† in order to continue the underlying theme of the cruelty of the exercise. The hunt is wrapped in beautiful concepts such as â€Å"the great horse of gold/into the silver dawn† which envelops the hunt in visual beauty, the emotional content rife with the fear of the consummation of that hunt - th at the speaker will fall to the wiles, his desire to do so as much apparent as his realization that he will ‘die’ from the experience (Lehman 393). In experimenting with language, Cummings used simple language and turned the sentence structure, juxtaposing the combinations in order to create interesting and unexpected relationships between them (Kidder and Oppenheim 79). In his poem, may i feel said he, Cummings explores a sexual interlude using very simple language the grinds like wheel over and over, the syntax

Assigment 3 and 4 Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Assigment 3 and 4 - Assignment Example The high demand for the free goods affects the demand that the markets are able to supply. Non payers are not able to be prohibited in using the goods. Market failures are common in provision of public goods. When there is no payment of goods, revenues are not earned from the goods that are produced hence the market is not able to produce more. Government distortion is common in production of public goods through production subsidizing and protection of intellectual property inadequately (Hubbard and Anthony, 51). When the interference occurs, the market is not able to earn revenues and profits from the goods produced. This leads to market failure. Government intervention leads to protection of goods in a market and other firms are not able to enter easily into the markets. 5. Free rider problem occurs when a consumer is in a position of enjoying a good or service without paying for it. Marketers providing public goods have successfully used a number of techniques to encourage those who use the products to contribute to them (Hubbard and Anthony, 67). In the techniques used, they give contributors private goods, arrange matching contribution for them and appeal to the sense of civil and moral responsibility. Solutions are as follows: Common in public and beautiful sceneries those citizens are ready to access through payments. Limiting entrance for such areas may make them private. This is common in sectors that are on high demand in an economy in general. Citizens are beneficiaries of services from the government such as defense. They pay for this indirectly through taxation. Though some taxpayers complain, this remains one of the best ways of making the economy of a country flow steadily. 6. Poverty trap is a mechanism that forces people to remain below the poverty line. It is common in under-developed and developing countries (Hubbard and Anthony, 83). The main causes of the poverty trap are inadequate credit to citizens and

The LM curve Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The LM curve - Essay Example IS curve or IS schedule explains the investments and savings aspect of market or economy. This explains the activity of goods and services performance in the economy. The LM curve, on the other hand, explains the money market or money aspects of the market and economy. As a whole, they both describe the overall activities of the economy which lead national income. The FE schedule describes the labor market and the labor aspects of the economy. The IS-LM-FE model addresses the three major areas of any economy. Labor, money and goods and services are all addressed by this model. We have the IS curve equation. Using the given data, we can calculate for the income Y. r = 0.1(I+G+0.2Y*-0.2Y+50RE) as r = r* = 5, we can substitute the value of r* for r in the IS equation. 5 = 0.1 (100 + 100 + 0.2*500 - 0.2Y + 50*1) Yielding Y = 1500 This gives us the income, Y, as 1500. Y, the income, is local income only as the foreign income Y* has also been considered. This is the equilibrium level of income in the economy. To calculate for the resulting equilibrium level of money supply, we use the LM curve. The LM curve explains the supply and demand aspects of money in the market and economy. Using the equation for the LM curve, we can calculate for the equilibrium money supply level in the market. M=0.25Y-5r We calculated Y to be 1500 and r is given to be r* which is 5. Solving for M, money supply, we get M = 350 The money supply has equilibrium value of 350 for the given values of income, exchange rate and other variables. b)to what extent does r* have to move in order to obtain an income level of 1600explain For the income to be 1600, we can calculate for the value of r* which is also r is our case. Solving the same equation of IS schedule for r we get, r = 0.1(I+G+0.2Y*-0.2Y+50RE) Putting values of I, G, Y*, Y and RE, we get, r = 0.1 (100 + 100 + 0.2*500 - 0.2*1600 + 50*1) r = 18 r has to be 18 in order to make the income equal to 1600. This means that the value of r has to increase to 360% of its original value. By reaching this level, the income in the market will be

Children Today Essay Example for Free

Children Today Essay There are many factors which lead to the way children act today. The way a child is raised, is a reflection of the lack of respect which an adolescent embraces for their elders. Over time, generations of human beings have become more reliant on technology. This has made mankind lazy and uncultured, causing a reflection on our children. Also, there have been many laws which were set against structure in a childs life. Whether the child is at home, school, or with a care giver such as a â€Å"babysitter†, there are limits to how a child can be disciplined. However, when a child has a lack of authoritative parents, it often times produces the young ones disrespect for others. The powerful painting by Banksy entitled, Girl Patting Down Army Soldier, demonstrates role reversal between child and adult. The image clearly illustrates a young girl in a pink dress and pig-tails, patting down a strong, fierce soldier. Soldiers represent power and authority, and this little girl is taking over that roll. This, to an extent, is the way our generation of children are becoming. They believe they are equals with adults in this world. They do this by bossing their parents around, and disrespecting them day after day. The way our world uses technology is only part of the reason why our children are so ignorant today. In the past, parents would send their children outside to get their pride and joy out of their hair and to have some fresh air. Presently, they set their child in front of a television to watch a show or play a video game. Due to the fact that most parents do not monitor every show or game their child takes part of, many children begin learning how to act by observing what is on the television screen in front of them. The television show entitled, Toddlers and Tiaras, is a prime example of these types of shows. Here, children of various ages dress as though they are twenty years old, yet act the total opposite. Kids which are two and three yeas old talk back to their parents and constantly role their eyes at the people they love. There are also multiple children hitting their competition and parents when they do not get what they want. When any child watches this type of show, they often times will begin to mirror the negative behavior. In fact, according to Illinois State Medical Societys  experiment entitled, Monkey See Monkey Do, â€Å"In a matter of seconds, most children can mimic a movie or TV character, sing an advertising jingle or give other examples of what they have learned from watching media. These examples may include naming a popular brand of beer, striking a â€Å"sexy† pose, acting impolitely, or play fighting. Children only have to put a movie into the DVD player, flip through the channels, open a magazine, click on a web site, pop a video game into an X-Box or watch television to experience all kinds of messages. The impact of these messages can build slowly when children see and hear them over and over again.† Our youth today does not understand what is real and what is not on the T.V. If kids do not have guidance from their parents, they will most likely begin transforming into impolite little people. Therefore, parents need to not place their child in front of the television, but rather spend more time with them. Many kids care givers are also beginning to spend more time with their technology instead of their child. This is beginning to cause children to act up due to the fact they feel they are getting no attention. An article on The Washington Post entitled, Parents are ignoring their children for their Blackberry, stated, If youre taking [parental attention] away from the child, for what looks like it is not a good reason, kids might think, What am I doing wrong that my parents dont like me? and may start acting out to get their parents attention because they have a hard time distinguishing positive from negative attention. Although parents do not mean to push their child away and make them feel as though they are less important than their phone, they are. This is why our generation of kids are beginning to throw tantrums and are becoming more impolite. The laws which have been set against a childs punishment have changed tremendously over the past fifty years. This is a large factor of why our children have become so disrespectful to the people around them. In the past, teachers had the right to inflict corporal punishments on children. This is a form of discipline which ended around 1989 in Oregon. According to American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, corporal punishment is a method which a, â€Å"Supervising adult deliberately inflicts pain upon a child in response to a childs unacceptable behavior.† The purpose for this  type of punishment was to try to prevent non-tolerated actions to reoccur. It was meant to change their long-term behaviors and to show the child what was and was not acceptable. In current times, children can not be touched in any physical matter from any one other than their parent or guardian. This is because it is now illegal to physically harm kids. This law has led some children to understand they can get away with excessive amounts of negative behaviors due to the fact there are less ramifications that follow their unfavorable actions. Because of these laws, kids can not be disciplined to any amount which the state would find excessive. Therefor, when these kids become disrespectful, there is no possible way for the children to be disciplined by any teacher or caregiver. The law of non corporal punishment has effected our children to a point because they cannot be punished for their actions, making them more disrespectful. There are many parents who hold a lack of authority. This is part of what is producing our youths disrespect for others. An authoritative parent is someone who expects a lot from their child. They also have strict rules which they predict will be followed at all times. These parents are also a large part of child rearing. According to ChildRearingMatters.com, â€Å"The aim is always to bring?out?the best in each child, and to prevent and overcome difficulties.† In other words, parenting. When a childs parents lack this, their children in most cases, end up running the house. These children think they are their own parent. When this occurs, the adolescent ends up pushing their own parents around as well as the others around them. Many children today are becoming unexceptionably disrespectful to their elders and others around them. This is due to the way they are raised and brought up since birth. There are three main aspects which have created this issue which is occurring now. These include the number of parents relying on technology, the laws which protect children from any form of physical discipline, and the lack of authoritative parents which these children have. If the way our children are raised never changes, the issue of disrespect towards others is only going to worsen. Having respect for other is a large aspect of life. If children can not learn how to respect others, how are they supposed to respect themselves?

Management Systems in a Call Centre

Management Systems in a Call Centre ABSTRACT: Call centers are most common mean by which the Organizations can reach out to their customers and this explains their rapid growth. Many projects have been focused on call centers in order to explain their management and performance from different perspective. In this project, I have attempted to identify the two main perspectives and to explore the effective use of performance management systems found in a call centre to improve the performance of a call agents. This project was conducted in a sit-up ltd based in west Acton London, while I was working as a contact centre 1st line manager and as a customer services Team leader,. The project involved semi-structured interviews with thirty call agents and three IT employees. The analysis of the data was based on the management techniques and performance of a call centre agents on daily basis . Information systems present were standard and up to date which could also be found in any call centre and the working condition is a common issu e found in most literature. Hence the highlight of this project is on the fact that there is still the need for human interaction with information systems. We have focused on that issue that The people aspect of the call centre is been ignored, hence organizations are producing burnt out employees which in long terms could have a diverse effect on the organization despite the implementation of up to date and functional information systems. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Firstly, I want to express my profound gratitude to the one and only Almighty God Who in His infinite mercies blessed me with this opportunity of undergoing learning at work partnership programme , M.A Computer and Business studies. Thank you all for your guidance throughout the academic year. Words are not enough to express my feelings . I want to specially thank and dedicate this project to my parents.. I want to thank Dr. Howard cowte, who taught me to believe in myself and in my work because he never let me off with a poor argument. Thank you again. Finally, I want to thank all my friends for their words of encouragement, support and friendship. Specially when I was going through hard times with my health. The CALL CENTRES. INTRODUCTION: dynaTrace is the innovator and emerging leader in application performance management (APM). The company offers the only continuous APM system on the market one that can monitor all transactions at all times and one that is used by all key contributors to application performance architects, development, test and production. Industry leaders such as UBS, Salesforce.com, Renault, EnerNOC, Fidelity, and Thomson Reuters use dynaTraces patent pending technology to gain deep visibility into application performance, identify problems sooner and reduce the mean time to repair issues by 90%. Leading companies rely on dynaTrace to proactively prevent performance problems from happening and quickly resolve those that do occur saving time, money and resources. Call centers are part of out daily life today as ATMs, self-service supermarkets and internet shopping (ebay). All of which are new age service delivery systems that the customer at large has had to accept and live with (Mahesh and Kasturi, 2006). Call centres are being used by many organizations in a wider contexts, hence the variations in their operations range from strategic purpose to the nature of technology used and finally to management style and priorities (Taylor and Bain, 2001). According to Calvert (2001), he observed that based on the several researches done on call centres, about 95% of call centres are reported to supply information to customers and about 74% process complaints. Hence it can be concluded that the 3 main drivers for call centres indentified are Improve customer services to retain their clients base. Gain new customers and after sales service. Reduce cost as compare to face to face clients and also to improve efficiency. A call centre in general, is regarded as an interface between customers and an organizations system (Information Systems and performance systems), in order to complete a well specified transaction such as generate sales; provide solutions to existing clients or advice on quite complex and technical issues like broadband support for their internet clients . Over the years, the advancement of IT, product and process knowledge as well as customer information are set into the system which has helped to reduce cost of training. This has therefore ensured core-service modules to be standardized; customized and at the same time has enabled the front line staff or call agents to concentrate on the customer and their interaction (Frenkel et al, 1998). Therefore, the purpose of this project is to explore the work environment of the call agent with respect to performance management systems, customer services and information systems. Highlighting the challenges they are constantly faced with, wh en executing their duties. Project was done while observing the performance and management in many departments of sit-up ltd, RESEARCH FOCUS This project was focused to explore the effective use of performance management systems in a call centre of sit-up ltd. The main questions this project seeks to investigate are daily tasks and targets: What are the working conditions in todays call centres and the call agents are subjected to? How do performance management systems affect the call centre working environment from the call agents? perspective? How does the work environment affect the agent emotionally? THE AIMS AND OBJECTIVES. The main aims and objectives for this project include: Identify the state-of-the-art performance management system in the call centre used in the organisation under study. This would enable us to understand the level of advancement of information systems in the organisation. Investigate the use of performance management systems in a call centre. Explore and determine the extent to how performance management system affects the working conditions of the call agent both in terms of the peroformance and improvements . In highlighting the issues and challenges the call agents encounter, it would provide an insight of the job description of a call agent from the call agents? perspective. This project also intends to bring more awareness to management regarding the issues and challenges the call agents are constantly faced with. A good knowledge of this would enable them effectively identify and address any form of resistance that may arise from the call agents. This could be done by offering adequate training and support in the use of the performance management systems. As well as improving communication with the call agents which could affect the work environment, making it more conducive. This in turn enhances better performance from the call agents and also for the management to reduce cost in hiring new agents on the floor and continuous monitoring from management and HR point of view. RESEARCH APPROACH. This project was based on learning at work method where many employees were observed and different management techniques were applied in order to improve their daily performance. This approach was found appropriate because it is concerned with understanding performance management systems from the social context, the social processes by which it was developed and construed by people and finally how it influences and is influenced by its social settings. Many employees were interviewed while generating data and statistics as call centres always have high level of absences and sicknesses. This was an easy approach to obtain information from number of employees and departments. Answers to complex questions and sensitive information which the respondents might be reluctant to give. Project Summary. This project is structured into many chapters in order to spread the information in easy and understandable way as outlined below: Call Centre This chapter is an introduction of the project highlighting the research area with a presentation of the aims and objectives of the research. Literature Review This chapter is a critical review of existing literature on call centre. It also discusses different theories and perspectives relating to the call centre. It also discusses the use of performance management systems within the context of this project. Theory and Research Methodology This chapter discusses the theory chosen for the analysis of the case, research approach and the rationale behind the methods chosen for this research. It also highlighted the research design. Project findings This chapter presents the case study, the findings from the semi-structured interviews conducted in the organization using the chosen theory as the conceptual lens for the discussion. Conclusion This chapter is an evaluation of the research findings with a reflection on its implications for practice. It also suggests some recommendations for future research. SUMMARY. This chapter has provided an introduction of call centre, identifying the focus area. It also stated the aims and objectives of this project as well as the research approach. It also presented a brief outline of the structure of the project. LITERATURE REVIEW. INTRODUCTION This chapter presents a critical review of existing literature on call centres. It discusses different theories and perspectives found in literature. This chapter also discusses the different uses of management techniques in a call centre in terms of management and the call agents. CALL CENTRES Call centre operations have become a norm in all sectors of the economy such as retailing, telecommunication, the entertainment industry (Taylor et al, 2002). They are a rapidly growing channel for service and sales delivery particularly in the financial service and telecommunication industry. These centres enable retail customers to transact business by telephone either using programmed information technology such as automatic voice response systems or through employees manipulating software to assist in answering queries resolving problems or selling products (Frenkel et al, 1998). Hence, growing number of organizations use call centres as a means of communicating with their customers directly (De Ruyter and Wetzels, 2000); managing customer complaints and maintaining customer loyalty (Pontes and O?Brien, 2000). However, despite the rapid emergence of technological innovations that have been developed to change and enhance the business processes in organisations, the call centre is still basically defined by the integration of the telephone and computer technologies (Taylor and Bain, 1999). In more details, the definition of a call centre is a dedicated operation in which computer utilizing employees receive inbound or make outbound telephone calls. These calls made or received are controlled by an Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) or a predictive dialling system. In other words, a call centre is therefore characterized by the integration of the telephone and Voice Response Units (VDU) technologies using recorded messages; Inter-active Voice Recognition (IVR) which enables customers interact with the information systems via telephone keys and speech recognition systems which enables a two-way communication between the computer and the customer using synthetic speech messages (Schalk and Van Rijckevorsel, 2007). A key feature of the call centre labour process is the integration of the telephone and the VDU technologies. Central to inbound operations is the ACD system which receives the incoming calls and automatically channels them to the available agents according to programmed instructions hence removing the need for the switchboard operators. In the case where there is no available agent to receive the call, the calls are stacked and distributed in sequence as the agents become available. Although the system can only stack a certain number of calls after which it automatically drops the calls. The agents take the calls automatically through the headset and their main assignment is to resolve the basic problems of a customer. On the other hand, for the outbound operations, it is largely based on telesales or telemarketing. The predictive dialling system works its way through the databases of their customer phone numbers and as programmed automatically dials the number of the customer as selected by the agent. At this point all the information of the customer is retrieved and displayed on the screen so as enable the agent have well info rmed communication. Their main job function is selling and advertising a particular product or service (Fernie and Metcalf, 1997). The common and defining call centre labour process is the ability for the operators to scan and interpret information on the VDU screens, manipulate their keyboards, retrieve data and at the same time communicate with the customer. Therefore, it is the integration of the telephone and computer technologies which both structures the labour process. This process also generates extreme levels of surveillance, monitoring and speed up which are manifest in a call centre. Recent technological developments are sought to minimize the wasteful manual operations and maximize the real time agents spend with customers hence this both speeds up and intensifies the work as the time gaps between calls are progressively reduced (Schalk and Van Rijckevorsel, 2007). In the author?s opinion, despite all these advancements in technologies, there is still the aspect of the h uman interaction. Employees? performance data as an instance which is either electronically displayed or in hard prints still requires human interpretation. Managers and team leaders based on the results can then take appropriate actions such as discipline or coach an underperforming agent. Hence it can be said that a call centre is a combination of technology driven measurements and human supervisors to interpret these results. CALL CENTRES AND THEORIES. In literature, there are two main theories seen to be dominant in the discussion of call centres: Foucauldian electronic panopticon which has been based on the labour process theory (Fernie and Metcalf, 1997). This is based on the preoccupation of an individual?s subjectivity which has masked the importance of a collective, trade unions organization which is a more developed form of resistance. This attempts to provide insight into the complexity of work organization and the way it is experienced by the call agents. Emotional labour which is based on the emotional labour theory (Hochschild, 1983). This requires an individual to induce or suppress their feelings in order to sustain the outward countenance that produces the proper state of mind in others. This provides insight and better understanding of how call agents in most cases have to define their outer expression so as to smile down the phone. These two theories further are explained in the chapter three. PERSPECIVES OF CALL CENTRES Literature has generally presented two distinct perspectives of call centres. First of all, there is the perspective presented by publicists who have portrayed exciting images of a call centre. It portrays a high level of co-operative teamwork among the employees, the call agents? work under very relaxed conditions and very professional in their interactions with their customers. The agents are said to smile down the phone after conversing with each customer (Taylor and Bain, 1999). However, there is the other perspective presented by Fernie and Metcalf (1998) that portrays the call centre based on the Bentham?s panopticon. It emphasizes the constraining nature of work setting described as the electronic sweatshop or panoptical wired cage (Frenkel, 1998). Based on this view, employees are connected to information technology that automatically allocates work, facilitates its completion and monitors employee performance. In other words, work is conducted in relative isolation from other colleagues but under the constant gaze of management who are responsible for structuring and interpreting the electronic information. Work can therefore be regarded as deskilled and monotonous. They claim that the constant surveillance of the supervisors on the agents has enabled them have total control over the agents which eliminates any form of resistance from the call agents. Hence call centres have been referred to as dark satanic mills or new sweatshops. However, it is worth noting that their perspective was not based from a range of studies carried out on call centres but rather it was primarily based on payment systems of which they studied a call centre. CALL CENTRES AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS One main indication of call centres is in most cases defined in terms of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) they make use of rather than by any specific outputs they create (Frenkel et al, 1998; Taylor and Bain, 1999). Systems such as the Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) that places inbound calls in a queue and allocates them to the agents, speech recognition systems as well as screen capture are example of systems found in a call centre. But information systems has also increased the control and surveillance of calls (which could either be inbound or outbound), the agent that?s handles the call and virtually every activity they perform on real time basis (Robinson and Clive, 2006). Hence it is argued that technology found in call centres constitutes a version of technical control. According to Callaghan and Thompson (2001), technology tends to control speed through ensuring that call agents are aware of queue numbers and average waiting times. In such instances, managerial control is seen to be evident through the use of such technologies and could at the same time produce employee resistance. However, ICT has the potential to create skilled and enabled workforce (Fernie et al, 1998, and Kinnie et al, 2000). In such a situation, the improved employee independence may be resulted through the creation of alternative socio-technical systems within the call centre. This could be exhibited with self-managed work teams who have the tendency to produce more customized outputs when the dynamics of empowerment displaces the reality of control (Batt and Moynihan, 2004). This can be regarded as another concept of the call centre which is referred to as the semi-professional empowered worker (Winslow and Bramer, 1994). In this setting work is increasingly customized to the needs of the customer. The agent uses IT to seamlessly identify and render service to the customer and appropriate software assists in on-the-job learning thereby improving the agent ?s knowledge and skills. Based on the labour process, systems implemented in the call centre are based on the expected result. According to Edward (1979) cited in Russell (2007), who first classified ICT as technological control, in agreement to this Callaghan and Thompson (2001), also argue the fact that management deliberately choose a technology that is designed in such a way as to limit the worker?s independence, hence are almost seen as part of the machine (technology) which continuously directs calls at them. This was represented in the expression of Taylor and Bain (1999) stating „the assembly line in the head?, where technology supports the formulation of specific targets of which workers are held accountable for (Taylor and Bain, 2001). Another aspect of technologies in a call centre is the organizational culture or behaviour. This is an attempt in understanding how new technologies affect the (re)organization of work. Barleys (1990), emphasized the need for researche rs to focus more on how new technologies are incorporated into the everyday working lives of the organizational members. His argument was that a particular system could have different effects in various departments or jobs. This draws attention to the organizational theory which is based on the behaviour of users when a new technology is implemented focusing on how they establish patterns to either conform or deviate from the intentions of the designers (Russell, 2007). This aspect is outside the scope of this dissertation. Technology can therefore be regarded as a solution that bridges the sales and marketing functions to improve targeting efforts. In other cases, it can be viewed as a tool that is specifically for a one-to one customer interaction which is regarded as the sole responsibility of the sales/service; call centres or marketing departments (Peppers, 2000). But on the overall, it should neither be regarded as just a mere technology nor application but rather a cross-func tional , customer-driven, technology-integration business process management strategy that aims at increasing and maximising relationships which also encompasses the entire organisation. This is often referred to as Customer Relation Management (CRM) (Goldenberg, 2000). Literature has shown that CRM is based on the interaction of: People: this refers to the people working with the system and are regarded as the building block for customer relationship, Business process: this defines the overall business goal of the organisation Technology: this is an enabler for achieving remarkable improvement in the performance of the organisation (Chen and Popovich, 2003). These interactions are represented in the diagram below Diagram 2.1 The CRM Model (Chen and Popovich, 2003). CALL CENTRE AND MANAGEMENT In general, academic literatures on call centre have focused on employment, relationship and the labour process. A significant number of these literatures have focused largely on managerial perspective in terms of operations and performance. Call centres are people intensive operations and the management of the frontline employees otherwise referred to as the call agents has been identified as one of the biggest challenges for call centre managers (Houlihan, 2002). Call centres potentially contribute to customer satisfaction and retention but most organizations still fail to exploit full strategic value out of their call centre operations (Mahesh and kasturi, 2006). Traditionally service management models recommend that Organisations focus on three areas which include: Defining a service strategy Ensuring the service delivery systems are user friendly Managing for customer- oriented people especially on the frontline (Gilson and khandelwal, 2005). These models further argue that it is important for the components strategy, operations and people are all compatible but most literature show an indication of incompatibility. CHALLENGES OF MANAGERS/SUPERVISORS IN A CALL CENTRE Managers are faced with a number of challenges of which the most common and prevalent ones include: The conflict of quality versus quantity: In call centres, this conflict is at the core of many other related problems (Frenkel et al, 1998; Callaghan and Thompson 2002 dean, 2002). Measurement of both quantity and quality in most cases is based on performance. Research has shown that although management values quality, they tend to focus more on measurement and statistics which is as a result of the large amount of information provided to them. Information provided to them such as the number of calls per agent; the percentage of calls answered within a specified time frame; the average speed calls are answered, hence the shift of attention to quantity (Robinson and Clive, 2006). This has attributed to the high reliance on information systems to govern the pace of work in the call centre, provide the means to access the work of the call agents as well as monitor them. Information system can therefore be said to have shaped the social and organizational structure of the call centre (C alloghan and Thompson, 2001). But the negative consequence of this especially on the call agents include exhaustion, stress which should be of great concern to management. Organizations stress the need for customer satisfaction and have an overall strategic intent to acquire and retain their customers through high quality interfaces or interaction. But it has been observed that the aspect of quality in some case is given low priority than the efficiency of processing customer interactions (number of calls) at call centres (Mahesh and kasturi, 2006). Mahesh (1995) commented on the tendency of most organizations to move from high labour intensity and customization position of professional services to standardization and low labour intensity service. The origin of such problems could be traced back to the genesis of call centres and the reason for their rapid growth which is to reduce cost and increase efficiencies. The conflict of Control versus Empowerment: this is another common conflict observed in the call centre. According to Houlihan (2002), the orthodox design of the call centre is rooted in a control paradigm. Early literature on call centres abound with keywords such as blue-collar work; taylorism; battery farming; mental assembly line; worker resistance control and emotional labour (Fernie and Metcalf, 1997; knights and McCabe, 1998). Recent literature on the other hand has indicated the need for empowerment in service, but organisations specifically in the call centre still ignore this despite the fact that studies have indicated positive outcomes from increased empowerment. Empirical data also shows that call agents perceive themselves as less empowered than other workers in traditional office environment (Holdsworth and Cartwright, 2003). Thus the control paradigm of call centres seems to extend to the area of job design as well. Researchers also argue that the frontline agents pla y a critical role in service delivery in which their skills, knowledge motivation and loyalty are important factors to be managed by the organization (Sergeant and Frenkel, 2000). But the mass production model used at many call centres for operational efficiency assumes that jobs can be designed to be turn-over proof with workers as replaceable parts (Batt and Moynihan, 2002). Hence Wallace et al, 2000 labelled this as sacrificial HR strategy. Other common problems management is faced with in the call centre according to Taylor and Bain (1999) include: High rates of absence due to sickness High labour turnover Problem with motivating and keeping the employees committed to their jobs Lack of promotion opportunities especially in flat organisational structures. Loss of staff following investments in training. CALL AGENTS AND JOB STRUCTURE The general basic idea of a call centre operator or call agent is any worker with a telephone and a computer. This has led organisations in an attempt to differentiate their operations and services, come up with names such as Customer Service Centre or Customer Satisfaction. Various literatures have shown that agents usually work in large, open-plan offices seated in cubicles that are divided shoulder-high partitions. They are wired or connected to an integrated telephone and a computer system when they put on their headphones. In the researcher?s opinion, the job function of a call agent is basically to: Provide customers with detailed product and procedures involved Process customer transactions Attend to customer queries in an approachable, accurate and timely manner. Deliver standard service at all times to customer when interacting with them which is usually in accordance to specified service standards (scripts). In a call centre, the use of scripts either in the form of typewritten prompt or on screen template is an attempt to structure the speech of workers into a series of predictable and regulated routine queries and responses (Taylor and Bain, 1999). This could be regarded as another distinct feature of the call centre in terms of Communication between an agent and a customer. The call agents are expected to read and enter data into the computer system that is networked within the organization while interacting with the customer. This enables any other employee to easily access and retrieves the customer?s profile as well as their record history. Other expectations of call agents in relation to their work include: The call agent is expected to acquire and use lower-order and higher-order contextual knowledge in accomplishing their task (Deery et al, 2002). The lower-order contextual knowledge is knowledge about the company information; specific products; procedures; software practices an d people which may be in other departments on whom the call agents depend on for updated information as well as solution for more complex problems of the customer. While the higher- order is basically a deeper understanding of the lower, although this is not acquired during training but rather it is as a result of experience. Agents with such knowledge are seen to be more confident when dealing with the customers. But it should be noted that most of the knowledge required by the agents is embedded as information either as hard copy reference manuals or available online. The call agent is expected to display some skills when executing their duties. These skills include the computer skills which have to do with inputting data; word processing and navigating through several systems. The other skill is the social skill which is used mainly when relating to customers and other staff. A lot of attention is paid to the latter skill than the former because the social skill involves the abil ity to remain calm under pressure especially when faced with a continuous stream of customer calls; positive and tactful attitude when executing their duties as well as not getting personally engaged which protects them from customer abuse (Kinnie et al, 2000). In general, the call agent has to be systematic; creative and know who to depend on for more complex customer queries. Call centre jobs are highly specialized and simplified, thus there is a high level of division of labour which has its advantages. But there are also disadvantages such as low task variety (monotony of work), low task complexity, low utilization of educational qualification which are most times overlooked. Call agents are known to have no influence or control over their work in terms of the pace of their work (duration of calls, how many calls they receive) and also the planning and organisation of their work. These disadvantages are some of the factors that lead to depression among call agents and monotony o f their work is one of the most frequent reasons call agents quit their jobs (Deery et al, 2002). SUMMARY This chapter has defined discussed what a call centre is and highlighted the different perspectives of call centres found in literature. It identified the theories on which the analysis of this dissertation is based on, although it is further explained in the next chapter. It also discussed the call centre from different points of views such as technology which mentioned the fact that it still requires human interaction for any organisation to achieve its maximum potential, management who determine the work pace of the call centre. Although highlighting the challenges they are faced with, it also identified areas where they need to place more attention (i.e. control vs. empowerment). Lastly it discussed the general idea of call agents? job descriptions. This has served as a background to further explore in this research the working conditions of the call centre and determine the effect of information systems on their jobs. THEORY AND RESEARCH METHODOLOGY INTRODUCTION This chapter discusses the research approach adopted for this research based on the chosen theory. It also highlights the research methodolo Management Systems in a Call Centre Management Systems in a Call Centre ABSTRACT: Call centers are most common mean by which the Organizations can reach out to their customers and this explains their rapid growth. Many projects have been focused on call centers in order to explain their management and performance from different perspective. In this project, I have attempted to identify the two main perspectives and to explore the effective use of performance management systems found in a call centre to improve the performance of a call agents. This project was conducted in a sit-up ltd based in west Acton London, while I was working as a contact centre 1st line manager and as a customer services Team leader,. The project involved semi-structured interviews with thirty call agents and three IT employees. The analysis of the data was based on the management techniques and performance of a call centre agents on daily basis . Information systems present were standard and up to date which could also be found in any call centre and the working condition is a common issu e found in most literature. Hence the highlight of this project is on the fact that there is still the need for human interaction with information systems. We have focused on that issue that The people aspect of the call centre is been ignored, hence organizations are producing burnt out employees which in long terms could have a diverse effect on the organization despite the implementation of up to date and functional information systems. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Firstly, I want to express my profound gratitude to the one and only Almighty God Who in His infinite mercies blessed me with this opportunity of undergoing learning at work partnership programme , M.A Computer and Business studies. Thank you all for your guidance throughout the academic year. Words are not enough to express my feelings . I want to specially thank and dedicate this project to my parents.. I want to thank Dr. Howard cowte, who taught me to believe in myself and in my work because he never let me off with a poor argument. Thank you again. Finally, I want to thank all my friends for their words of encouragement, support and friendship. Specially when I was going through hard times with my health. The CALL CENTRES. INTRODUCTION: dynaTrace is the innovator and emerging leader in application performance management (APM). The company offers the only continuous APM system on the market one that can monitor all transactions at all times and one that is used by all key contributors to application performance architects, development, test and production. Industry leaders such as UBS, Salesforce.com, Renault, EnerNOC, Fidelity, and Thomson Reuters use dynaTraces patent pending technology to gain deep visibility into application performance, identify problems sooner and reduce the mean time to repair issues by 90%. Leading companies rely on dynaTrace to proactively prevent performance problems from happening and quickly resolve those that do occur saving time, money and resources. Call centers are part of out daily life today as ATMs, self-service supermarkets and internet shopping (ebay). All of which are new age service delivery systems that the customer at large has had to accept and live with (Mahesh and Kasturi, 2006). Call centres are being used by many organizations in a wider contexts, hence the variations in their operations range from strategic purpose to the nature of technology used and finally to management style and priorities (Taylor and Bain, 2001). According to Calvert (2001), he observed that based on the several researches done on call centres, about 95% of call centres are reported to supply information to customers and about 74% process complaints. Hence it can be concluded that the 3 main drivers for call centres indentified are Improve customer services to retain their clients base. Gain new customers and after sales service. Reduce cost as compare to face to face clients and also to improve efficiency. A call centre in general, is regarded as an interface between customers and an organizations system (Information Systems and performance systems), in order to complete a well specified transaction such as generate sales; provide solutions to existing clients or advice on quite complex and technical issues like broadband support for their internet clients . Over the years, the advancement of IT, product and process knowledge as well as customer information are set into the system which has helped to reduce cost of training. This has therefore ensured core-service modules to be standardized; customized and at the same time has enabled the front line staff or call agents to concentrate on the customer and their interaction (Frenkel et al, 1998). Therefore, the purpose of this project is to explore the work environment of the call agent with respect to performance management systems, customer services and information systems. Highlighting the challenges they are constantly faced with, wh en executing their duties. Project was done while observing the performance and management in many departments of sit-up ltd, RESEARCH FOCUS This project was focused to explore the effective use of performance management systems in a call centre of sit-up ltd. The main questions this project seeks to investigate are daily tasks and targets: What are the working conditions in todays call centres and the call agents are subjected to? How do performance management systems affect the call centre working environment from the call agents? perspective? How does the work environment affect the agent emotionally? THE AIMS AND OBJECTIVES. The main aims and objectives for this project include: Identify the state-of-the-art performance management system in the call centre used in the organisation under study. This would enable us to understand the level of advancement of information systems in the organisation. Investigate the use of performance management systems in a call centre. Explore and determine the extent to how performance management system affects the working conditions of the call agent both in terms of the peroformance and improvements . In highlighting the issues and challenges the call agents encounter, it would provide an insight of the job description of a call agent from the call agents? perspective. This project also intends to bring more awareness to management regarding the issues and challenges the call agents are constantly faced with. A good knowledge of this would enable them effectively identify and address any form of resistance that may arise from the call agents. This could be done by offering adequate training and support in the use of the performance management systems. As well as improving communication with the call agents which could affect the work environment, making it more conducive. This in turn enhances better performance from the call agents and also for the management to reduce cost in hiring new agents on the floor and continuous monitoring from management and HR point of view. RESEARCH APPROACH. This project was based on learning at work method where many employees were observed and different management techniques were applied in order to improve their daily performance. This approach was found appropriate because it is concerned with understanding performance management systems from the social context, the social processes by which it was developed and construed by people and finally how it influences and is influenced by its social settings. Many employees were interviewed while generating data and statistics as call centres always have high level of absences and sicknesses. This was an easy approach to obtain information from number of employees and departments. Answers to complex questions and sensitive information which the respondents might be reluctant to give. Project Summary. This project is structured into many chapters in order to spread the information in easy and understandable way as outlined below: Call Centre This chapter is an introduction of the project highlighting the research area with a presentation of the aims and objectives of the research. Literature Review This chapter is a critical review of existing literature on call centre. It also discusses different theories and perspectives relating to the call centre. It also discusses the use of performance management systems within the context of this project. Theory and Research Methodology This chapter discusses the theory chosen for the analysis of the case, research approach and the rationale behind the methods chosen for this research. It also highlighted the research design. Project findings This chapter presents the case study, the findings from the semi-structured interviews conducted in the organization using the chosen theory as the conceptual lens for the discussion. Conclusion This chapter is an evaluation of the research findings with a reflection on its implications for practice. It also suggests some recommendations for future research. SUMMARY. This chapter has provided an introduction of call centre, identifying the focus area. It also stated the aims and objectives of this project as well as the research approach. It also presented a brief outline of the structure of the project. LITERATURE REVIEW. INTRODUCTION This chapter presents a critical review of existing literature on call centres. It discusses different theories and perspectives found in literature. This chapter also discusses the different uses of management techniques in a call centre in terms of management and the call agents. CALL CENTRES Call centre operations have become a norm in all sectors of the economy such as retailing, telecommunication, the entertainment industry (Taylor et al, 2002). They are a rapidly growing channel for service and sales delivery particularly in the financial service and telecommunication industry. These centres enable retail customers to transact business by telephone either using programmed information technology such as automatic voice response systems or through employees manipulating software to assist in answering queries resolving problems or selling products (Frenkel et al, 1998). Hence, growing number of organizations use call centres as a means of communicating with their customers directly (De Ruyter and Wetzels, 2000); managing customer complaints and maintaining customer loyalty (Pontes and O?Brien, 2000). However, despite the rapid emergence of technological innovations that have been developed to change and enhance the business processes in organisations, the call centre is still basically defined by the integration of the telephone and computer technologies (Taylor and Bain, 1999). In more details, the definition of a call centre is a dedicated operation in which computer utilizing employees receive inbound or make outbound telephone calls. These calls made or received are controlled by an Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) or a predictive dialling system. In other words, a call centre is therefore characterized by the integration of the telephone and Voice Response Units (VDU) technologies using recorded messages; Inter-active Voice Recognition (IVR) which enables customers interact with the information systems via telephone keys and speech recognition systems which enables a two-way communication between the computer and the customer using synthetic speech messages (Schalk and Van Rijckevorsel, 2007). A key feature of the call centre labour process is the integration of the telephone and the VDU technologies. Central to inbound operations is the ACD system which receives the incoming calls and automatically channels them to the available agents according to programmed instructions hence removing the need for the switchboard operators. In the case where there is no available agent to receive the call, the calls are stacked and distributed in sequence as the agents become available. Although the system can only stack a certain number of calls after which it automatically drops the calls. The agents take the calls automatically through the headset and their main assignment is to resolve the basic problems of a customer. On the other hand, for the outbound operations, it is largely based on telesales or telemarketing. The predictive dialling system works its way through the databases of their customer phone numbers and as programmed automatically dials the number of the customer as selected by the agent. At this point all the information of the customer is retrieved and displayed on the screen so as enable the agent have well info rmed communication. Their main job function is selling and advertising a particular product or service (Fernie and Metcalf, 1997). The common and defining call centre labour process is the ability for the operators to scan and interpret information on the VDU screens, manipulate their keyboards, retrieve data and at the same time communicate with the customer. Therefore, it is the integration of the telephone and computer technologies which both structures the labour process. This process also generates extreme levels of surveillance, monitoring and speed up which are manifest in a call centre. Recent technological developments are sought to minimize the wasteful manual operations and maximize the real time agents spend with customers hence this both speeds up and intensifies the work as the time gaps between calls are progressively reduced (Schalk and Van Rijckevorsel, 2007). In the author?s opinion, despite all these advancements in technologies, there is still the aspect of the h uman interaction. Employees? performance data as an instance which is either electronically displayed or in hard prints still requires human interpretation. Managers and team leaders based on the results can then take appropriate actions such as discipline or coach an underperforming agent. Hence it can be said that a call centre is a combination of technology driven measurements and human supervisors to interpret these results. CALL CENTRES AND THEORIES. In literature, there are two main theories seen to be dominant in the discussion of call centres: Foucauldian electronic panopticon which has been based on the labour process theory (Fernie and Metcalf, 1997). This is based on the preoccupation of an individual?s subjectivity which has masked the importance of a collective, trade unions organization which is a more developed form of resistance. This attempts to provide insight into the complexity of work organization and the way it is experienced by the call agents. Emotional labour which is based on the emotional labour theory (Hochschild, 1983). This requires an individual to induce or suppress their feelings in order to sustain the outward countenance that produces the proper state of mind in others. This provides insight and better understanding of how call agents in most cases have to define their outer expression so as to smile down the phone. These two theories further are explained in the chapter three. PERSPECIVES OF CALL CENTRES Literature has generally presented two distinct perspectives of call centres. First of all, there is the perspective presented by publicists who have portrayed exciting images of a call centre. It portrays a high level of co-operative teamwork among the employees, the call agents? work under very relaxed conditions and very professional in their interactions with their customers. The agents are said to smile down the phone after conversing with each customer (Taylor and Bain, 1999). However, there is the other perspective presented by Fernie and Metcalf (1998) that portrays the call centre based on the Bentham?s panopticon. It emphasizes the constraining nature of work setting described as the electronic sweatshop or panoptical wired cage (Frenkel, 1998). Based on this view, employees are connected to information technology that automatically allocates work, facilitates its completion and monitors employee performance. In other words, work is conducted in relative isolation from other colleagues but under the constant gaze of management who are responsible for structuring and interpreting the electronic information. Work can therefore be regarded as deskilled and monotonous. They claim that the constant surveillance of the supervisors on the agents has enabled them have total control over the agents which eliminates any form of resistance from the call agents. Hence call centres have been referred to as dark satanic mills or new sweatshops. However, it is worth noting that their perspective was not based from a range of studies carried out on call centres but rather it was primarily based on payment systems of which they studied a call centre. CALL CENTRES AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS One main indication of call centres is in most cases defined in terms of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) they make use of rather than by any specific outputs they create (Frenkel et al, 1998; Taylor and Bain, 1999). Systems such as the Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) that places inbound calls in a queue and allocates them to the agents, speech recognition systems as well as screen capture are example of systems found in a call centre. But information systems has also increased the control and surveillance of calls (which could either be inbound or outbound), the agent that?s handles the call and virtually every activity they perform on real time basis (Robinson and Clive, 2006). Hence it is argued that technology found in call centres constitutes a version of technical control. According to Callaghan and Thompson (2001), technology tends to control speed through ensuring that call agents are aware of queue numbers and average waiting times. In such instances, managerial control is seen to be evident through the use of such technologies and could at the same time produce employee resistance. However, ICT has the potential to create skilled and enabled workforce (Fernie et al, 1998, and Kinnie et al, 2000). In such a situation, the improved employee independence may be resulted through the creation of alternative socio-technical systems within the call centre. This could be exhibited with self-managed work teams who have the tendency to produce more customized outputs when the dynamics of empowerment displaces the reality of control (Batt and Moynihan, 2004). This can be regarded as another concept of the call centre which is referred to as the semi-professional empowered worker (Winslow and Bramer, 1994). In this setting work is increasingly customized to the needs of the customer. The agent uses IT to seamlessly identify and render service to the customer and appropriate software assists in on-the-job learning thereby improving the agent ?s knowledge and skills. Based on the labour process, systems implemented in the call centre are based on the expected result. According to Edward (1979) cited in Russell (2007), who first classified ICT as technological control, in agreement to this Callaghan and Thompson (2001), also argue the fact that management deliberately choose a technology that is designed in such a way as to limit the worker?s independence, hence are almost seen as part of the machine (technology) which continuously directs calls at them. This was represented in the expression of Taylor and Bain (1999) stating „the assembly line in the head?, where technology supports the formulation of specific targets of which workers are held accountable for (Taylor and Bain, 2001). Another aspect of technologies in a call centre is the organizational culture or behaviour. This is an attempt in understanding how new technologies affect the (re)organization of work. Barleys (1990), emphasized the need for researche rs to focus more on how new technologies are incorporated into the everyday working lives of the organizational members. His argument was that a particular system could have different effects in various departments or jobs. This draws attention to the organizational theory which is based on the behaviour of users when a new technology is implemented focusing on how they establish patterns to either conform or deviate from the intentions of the designers (Russell, 2007). This aspect is outside the scope of this dissertation. Technology can therefore be regarded as a solution that bridges the sales and marketing functions to improve targeting efforts. In other cases, it can be viewed as a tool that is specifically for a one-to one customer interaction which is regarded as the sole responsibility of the sales/service; call centres or marketing departments (Peppers, 2000). But on the overall, it should neither be regarded as just a mere technology nor application but rather a cross-func tional , customer-driven, technology-integration business process management strategy that aims at increasing and maximising relationships which also encompasses the entire organisation. This is often referred to as Customer Relation Management (CRM) (Goldenberg, 2000). Literature has shown that CRM is based on the interaction of: People: this refers to the people working with the system and are regarded as the building block for customer relationship, Business process: this defines the overall business goal of the organisation Technology: this is an enabler for achieving remarkable improvement in the performance of the organisation (Chen and Popovich, 2003). These interactions are represented in the diagram below Diagram 2.1 The CRM Model (Chen and Popovich, 2003). CALL CENTRE AND MANAGEMENT In general, academic literatures on call centre have focused on employment, relationship and the labour process. A significant number of these literatures have focused largely on managerial perspective in terms of operations and performance. Call centres are people intensive operations and the management of the frontline employees otherwise referred to as the call agents has been identified as one of the biggest challenges for call centre managers (Houlihan, 2002). Call centres potentially contribute to customer satisfaction and retention but most organizations still fail to exploit full strategic value out of their call centre operations (Mahesh and kasturi, 2006). Traditionally service management models recommend that Organisations focus on three areas which include: Defining a service strategy Ensuring the service delivery systems are user friendly Managing for customer- oriented people especially on the frontline (Gilson and khandelwal, 2005). These models further argue that it is important for the components strategy, operations and people are all compatible but most literature show an indication of incompatibility. CHALLENGES OF MANAGERS/SUPERVISORS IN A CALL CENTRE Managers are faced with a number of challenges of which the most common and prevalent ones include: The conflict of quality versus quantity: In call centres, this conflict is at the core of many other related problems (Frenkel et al, 1998; Callaghan and Thompson 2002 dean, 2002). Measurement of both quantity and quality in most cases is based on performance. Research has shown that although management values quality, they tend to focus more on measurement and statistics which is as a result of the large amount of information provided to them. Information provided to them such as the number of calls per agent; the percentage of calls answered within a specified time frame; the average speed calls are answered, hence the shift of attention to quantity (Robinson and Clive, 2006). This has attributed to the high reliance on information systems to govern the pace of work in the call centre, provide the means to access the work of the call agents as well as monitor them. Information system can therefore be said to have shaped the social and organizational structure of the call centre (C alloghan and Thompson, 2001). But the negative consequence of this especially on the call agents include exhaustion, stress which should be of great concern to management. Organizations stress the need for customer satisfaction and have an overall strategic intent to acquire and retain their customers through high quality interfaces or interaction. But it has been observed that the aspect of quality in some case is given low priority than the efficiency of processing customer interactions (number of calls) at call centres (Mahesh and kasturi, 2006). Mahesh (1995) commented on the tendency of most organizations to move from high labour intensity and customization position of professional services to standardization and low labour intensity service. The origin of such problems could be traced back to the genesis of call centres and the reason for their rapid growth which is to reduce cost and increase efficiencies. The conflict of Control versus Empowerment: this is another common conflict observed in the call centre. According to Houlihan (2002), the orthodox design of the call centre is rooted in a control paradigm. Early literature on call centres abound with keywords such as blue-collar work; taylorism; battery farming; mental assembly line; worker resistance control and emotional labour (Fernie and Metcalf, 1997; knights and McCabe, 1998). Recent literature on the other hand has indicated the need for empowerment in service, but organisations specifically in the call centre still ignore this despite the fact that studies have indicated positive outcomes from increased empowerment. Empirical data also shows that call agents perceive themselves as less empowered than other workers in traditional office environment (Holdsworth and Cartwright, 2003). Thus the control paradigm of call centres seems to extend to the area of job design as well. Researchers also argue that the frontline agents pla y a critical role in service delivery in which their skills, knowledge motivation and loyalty are important factors to be managed by the organization (Sergeant and Frenkel, 2000). But the mass production model used at many call centres for operational efficiency assumes that jobs can be designed to be turn-over proof with workers as replaceable parts (Batt and Moynihan, 2002). Hence Wallace et al, 2000 labelled this as sacrificial HR strategy. Other common problems management is faced with in the call centre according to Taylor and Bain (1999) include: High rates of absence due to sickness High labour turnover Problem with motivating and keeping the employees committed to their jobs Lack of promotion opportunities especially in flat organisational structures. Loss of staff following investments in training. CALL AGENTS AND JOB STRUCTURE The general basic idea of a call centre operator or call agent is any worker with a telephone and a computer. This has led organisations in an attempt to differentiate their operations and services, come up with names such as Customer Service Centre or Customer Satisfaction. Various literatures have shown that agents usually work in large, open-plan offices seated in cubicles that are divided shoulder-high partitions. They are wired or connected to an integrated telephone and a computer system when they put on their headphones. In the researcher?s opinion, the job function of a call agent is basically to: Provide customers with detailed product and procedures involved Process customer transactions Attend to customer queries in an approachable, accurate and timely manner. Deliver standard service at all times to customer when interacting with them which is usually in accordance to specified service standards (scripts). In a call centre, the use of scripts either in the form of typewritten prompt or on screen template is an attempt to structure the speech of workers into a series of predictable and regulated routine queries and responses (Taylor and Bain, 1999). This could be regarded as another distinct feature of the call centre in terms of Communication between an agent and a customer. The call agents are expected to read and enter data into the computer system that is networked within the organization while interacting with the customer. This enables any other employee to easily access and retrieves the customer?s profile as well as their record history. Other expectations of call agents in relation to their work include: The call agent is expected to acquire and use lower-order and higher-order contextual knowledge in accomplishing their task (Deery et al, 2002). The lower-order contextual knowledge is knowledge about the company information; specific products; procedures; software practices an d people which may be in other departments on whom the call agents depend on for updated information as well as solution for more complex problems of the customer. While the higher- order is basically a deeper understanding of the lower, although this is not acquired during training but rather it is as a result of experience. Agents with such knowledge are seen to be more confident when dealing with the customers. But it should be noted that most of the knowledge required by the agents is embedded as information either as hard copy reference manuals or available online. The call agent is expected to display some skills when executing their duties. These skills include the computer skills which have to do with inputting data; word processing and navigating through several systems. The other skill is the social skill which is used mainly when relating to customers and other staff. A lot of attention is paid to the latter skill than the former because the social skill involves the abil ity to remain calm under pressure especially when faced with a continuous stream of customer calls; positive and tactful attitude when executing their duties as well as not getting personally engaged which protects them from customer abuse (Kinnie et al, 2000). In general, the call agent has to be systematic; creative and know who to depend on for more complex customer queries. Call centre jobs are highly specialized and simplified, thus there is a high level of division of labour which has its advantages. But there are also disadvantages such as low task variety (monotony of work), low task complexity, low utilization of educational qualification which are most times overlooked. Call agents are known to have no influence or control over their work in terms of the pace of their work (duration of calls, how many calls they receive) and also the planning and organisation of their work. These disadvantages are some of the factors that lead to depression among call agents and monotony o f their work is one of the most frequent reasons call agents quit their jobs (Deery et al, 2002). SUMMARY This chapter has defined discussed what a call centre is and highlighted the different perspectives of call centres found in literature. It identified the theories on which the analysis of this dissertation is based on, although it is further explained in the next chapter. It also discussed the call centre from different points of views such as technology which mentioned the fact that it still requires human interaction for any organisation to achieve its maximum potential, management who determine the work pace of the call centre. Although highlighting the challenges they are faced with, it also identified areas where they need to place more attention (i.e. control vs. empowerment). Lastly it discussed the general idea of call agents? job descriptions. This has served as a background to further explore in this research the working conditions of the call centre and determine the effect of information systems on their jobs. THEORY AND RESEARCH METHODOLOGY INTRODUCTION This chapter discusses the research approach adopted for this research based on the chosen theory. It also highlights the research methodolo

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