CALL CENTERS (CENTRES) - Faculty of Industrial Engineering and ...

tation. S-R models hypothesize that decision makers choose an action option based on their
anticipation of its success. Decision makers learn by accumulating evidence over action options
and combining that evidence with prior expectations. This study examines a standard S-R
model and a simple variation of this model, in which past experience may receive an extremely
low weight, as explanations for decision makers’ adaptation in an evolving Internet-based bargaining
environment. In Experiment 1, decision makers are taught to predict behavior in a
bargaining task that follows rules that may be the opposite of congruent to, or unrelated to a
second task in which they must choose the deal terms they will offer. Both models provide a
good account of the prediction task. However, only the second model, in which decision makers
heavily discount all but the most recent past experience, provides a good account of subsequent
behavior in the second task. To test whether Experiment 1 artificially related choice behavior
and prediction, a second experiment examines both models’ predictions concerning the effects of
bargaining experience on subsequent prediction. In this study, decision models where long-term
experience plays a dominating role do not appear to provide adequate explanations of decision
makers’ adaptation to their opponent’s changing response behavior.
23. Holman, David, Clair Chissick and Peter Totterdell. The effects of performance monitoring on
emotional labor and well-being in call centers, Motivation and Emotion, 26 (1), 2002, 57–81.
Abstract. Investigated the relationship between performance monitoring and well-being. The
study also examined a mechanism (emotional labor) that might mediate the relationship between
them, assessed the effect of the work context on the relationship between performance monitoring
and well-being, and examined the relative effects of performance monitoring and work context
on well-being. Three aspects of performance monitoring were covered, namely, its performancerelated
context, its beneficial-purpose, and its perceived intensity. Subjects were 347 customer
service agents (70.6% female and 29.4% male, aged 19–57 yrs). Regression analyses revealed
that the performance-related content and the beneficial-purpose of monitoring were positively
related to well-being, while perceived intensity had a strong negative association with well-being.
Emotional labor did not mediate the relationship between monitoring and well-being. Work
context did not mediate the relationship between monitoring and well-being, but job control and
supervisory support did moderate the relationship between perceived intensity and well-being.
Perceived intensity showed stronger associations with emotional exhaustion, while job control
and supervisory support showed stronger associations with depression and job satisfaction
.
24. Torre, I. Users modeling for adaptive call centers, Proceedings of the Second International Conference,
AH, Adaptive Hypermedia and Adaptive Web-Based Systems, Lecture Notes in Computer
Science, Vol. 2347, Springer-Verlag, Germany, 2002, 603–607.
Abstract. The project described in this paper applies the principles of adaptivity to a “traditional”
call center in order to support the operator in the interaction with the customer. The
system uses the models of both the customer and the operator and builds up the stepwise answer
through an adaptive workflow.
25. Whalen, Jack, Marilyn Whale and Kathryn Henderson. Improvisational choreography in teleservice
work, The British Journal of Sociology, 53 (2), 2002, 239–258.
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