Work and Life in the Global Economy

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1 Work and Life in the Global Economy

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3 Work and Life in the Global Economy A Gendered Analysis of Service Work Edited By Debra Howcroft and Helen Richardson

4 Selection and editorial content Debra Howcroft and Helen Richardson 2010 Individual chapters the contributors 2010 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act First published 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number , of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN ISBN (ebook) DOI / This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

5 Contents List of Tables Notes on Contributors vii viii 1. Introduction 1 Debra Howcroft and Helen Richardson 2. Women as Knowledge Workers: From the Telegraph to the Computer 15 Alison Adam 3. Respectability and Flexibility in the Neoliberal Service Economy 33 Carla Freeman 4. Are you married? Exploring Gender in a Global Workplace in India 52 Marisa D Mello 5. Gendered Hierarchies in Transnational Call Centres in India 78 Kiran Mirchandani 6. Domestic Labour The Experience of Work in India s Other Call Centre Industry 99 Phil Taylor, Premilla D Cruz, Ernesto Noronha and Dora Scholarios 7. Caring Professionals: Global Migration and Gendered Cultural Economy 124 Shoba Arun 8. The Crisis of Care, International Migration, and Public Policy 142 Lourdes Benería 9. Reflections on Gender and Pay Inequalities in the Contemporary Service Economy 165 Diane Perrons v

6 vi Contents 10. Clerks, Cashiers, Customer Carers: Women s Work in European Services 185 Juliet Webster 11. An ICT Skills Model of Inclusion: Contemporary Distortions of Equity in British Network Engineer Training 209 Hazel Gillard 12. The Isolated Professional: Conflict, Fragmentation and Overload in UK Financial Services 226 Leo McCann 13. Cultural Constraints: Japanese Mothers Working in a Multinational Corporation 253 Barbara Crump and Rachel Crump Index 277

7 Tables 6.1 Top 10 domestic outsourced call centre companies Sample characteristics Call volumes and duration Degree of pressure as a result of work on a normal day Aspects which contribute to pressure of work Working conditions which would make BPO employees join UNITES by gender (mean rating of importance) Latin American women immigrants to Spain; selected countries, Capabilities and public policies Mean levels of agreement with statements about causes of stress Demographic profile of Impac Japan women 260 vii

8 Contributors Alison Adam is Professor of Science, Technology and Society at the University of Salford. Her research interests include computer ethics, gender and information systems, philosophy of artificial intelligence, sociology of forensic sciences, and privacy and information technologies. She is researching the last area as part of the collaborative EPSRC VOME project (Visualisation and Other Methods of Expression). Recent publications include Gender, Ethics and Information Technology (Palgrave Macmillan 2005). Shoba Arun is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. After completing her MPhil in Applied Economics from India, she obtained her PhD in Sociology, from the University of Manchester, UK. She has over 10 years of teaching experience in the field of sociology, cultural and global studies. Her research interests are in the field of globalization, gender, information and communication technology, labour market and employment, global migration and poverty studies. She has published widely on gender and globalization issues in various journals and books. She has served on Boards such as the Women s Commission and One World in Northern Ireland. Lourdes Benería is a Professor at Cornell University and holds a joint appointment with the City and Regional Planning Department and Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies. Her work and multiple publications have focused on issues related to labour and the informal economy, women s work, gender and development, globalization, and Latin American development. Recent books include: Gender, Development and Globalization, Economics as if all People Mattered (Routledge 2003); Global Tensions. Challenges and Opportunities in the World Economy (with Savitri Bisnath, Routledge 2003); and Rethinking Labor Market Informalization: Poverty, Precarious Jobs and Social Protection (with Neema Kudva, The Internet- First University Press 2006). Barbara Crump is a senior lecturer in information systems of the Department of Management at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand. Her research addresses the digital divide within communities, participation and work life balance of ICT professionals, and the viii

9 Contributors ix computing learning environment. She is interested in collaborative, cross- discipline and cross- national research and has publications relating to Malaysia and Japan. Her teaching currently focuses on social media and online communities and information systems in business. Rachel Crump recently completed a Master s degree at Waseda University s graduate School of Asia Pacific Studies in Tokyo. Her thesis presented the results of a comparative study of working mothers in the Japan and New Zealand branches of a multinational corporation. She works for the New Zealand Embassy in Tokyo. Premilla D Cruz is Associate Professor of Organizational Behaviour at the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad. Her research interests include emotions in organizations, workplace bullying, self and identity, organizational control, and ICTs and organizations. She has been involved in several studies of the Indian ITES- BPO industry, including studies of employee work experiences and collectivization. Marisa D Mello has a doctorate from the Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture (TIK), University of Oslo, Norway. Her doctoral project, completed in 2006, examined identities of Indian Information Technology (IT) workers and their relationship with globalization processes, mobilities, culture, gender and organizational practices. Marisa s postgraduate degrees are in Psychology from India and the USA. She has been a Lecturer in Psychology for several years in Mumbai as well as a Human Resources professional in the IT industry in India. Currently, she is an independent organizational consultant and researcher in the IT industry in Mumbai. Carla Freeman is Winship Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Women s Studies at Emory University. Her publications include a book entitled High Tech and High Heels in the Global Economy: Women, Work, and Pink Collar Identities in the Caribbean (Duke University Press 2000) and numerous articles focusing on globalization, gender, and changing relations of production, consumption and social class. She is completing a new book, Neoliberal Respectability: Entrepreneurship and the Making of a New Caribbean Middle Class, and is researching transnational circuits of IT labour and the expanding phenomenon of white- collar outsourcing and insourcing. Hazel Gillard has a background of some 30 years lecturing in a wide range of subjects in Adult Community, Further and Higher Education in London, UK, and completed her PhD in Information Systems at the London School of Economics in Her interests in the philosophical

10 x Contributors and material manifestations of our gendered relations with information and communications technologies, and in how political agendas and the labour market influence pedagogic content and processes, emerged from her personal work experiences in local government managing the implementation and training requirements of new housing systems after completion of an MSc in Computer Science. Trained in structural social anthropology and critical research during the 1970s, she seeks to unify the theories of that period with today s privileging of personal narratives. Also a shiatsu and auricular acupuncture practitioner, she has worked in a drug and alcohol rehabilitation programme that has also supported sex workers in West London for the last 10 years, and is currently studying Chinese medicine and acupuncture. Debra Howcroft is Professor of Technology and Organisations at Manchester Business School and a member of the ESRC- funded Centre for Research on Socio- Cultural Change (CRESC). Broadly, her research interests are concerned with the drivers and consequences of socioeconomic restructuring in a global context. She is co- editor of The Handbook of Critical Information Systems Research: Theory and Application (Edward Elgar Publishers 2005), Social Inclusion: Societal & Organizational Implications for Information Systems (Springer- Verlag 2006); and Foundations, Philosophy and Research Methods (Sage Publications 2008). Leo McCann is Lecturer in International and Comparative Management at Manchester Business School. He completed his PhD at the University of Kent, and previously taught at the University of Cardiff. His research focuses on how large- scale economic restructuring impacts on working life in a range of countries, especially as regards white- collar and managerial labour. He has published several articles about white- collar working life, which have appeared in journals such as Journal of Management Studies, Organization Studies and British Journal of Industrial Relations. He is also a co- author of Managing in the Modern Corporation, published by Cambridge University Press. Kiran Mirchandani is an Associate Professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. She has published on home- based work, telework, precarious work, entrepreneurship, transnational service work and self- employment. She teaches in the Adult Education and Community Development Program and is the Director of the Collaborative Program in Workplace Learning and Social Change. She offers courses on gendered and racialized processes in the workplace; critical perspectives on organizational development and learning; and technology, globalization and economic restructuring.

11 Contributors xi Ernesto Noronha is Associate Professor of Organizational Behaviour at the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad. His research interests include ethnicity and diversity at work; labour relations; downsizing; organizational control; and ICTs and organizations. He has extensively studied the Indian ITES- BPO industry, including studies on employee work experiences and collectivization. His other research work has been on labour issues in Indian ports and ethnicity in Indian organizations. Diane Perrons is Professor of Economic Geography and Gender Studies at the London School of Economics. She published Globalization and Social Change; People and Places in a Divided World (Routledge 2004) and co- edited the anthology Gender Divisions and Working Time in the New Economy Changing Patterns of Work, Care and Public Policy in Europe and North America (Edward Elgar 2007). Diane s research focuses on the social and spatial implications of global economic restructuring, paying particular attention to the changing composition of employment, gender and regional inequalities, and the social reproduction of daily life. Helen Richardson is a Senior Lecturer in Information Systems (IS) and joined the University of Salford in 1998 after a varied career including working in the field of Social Care and running a Research and Training Unit promoting Positive Action for Women at Work. She works in the Research Centre for People, Work and Organization and is engaged in Critical Research in IS, including issues of gender in the ICT labour market and the global location of service work. Phil Taylor is Professor in Work and Employment Studies in the Department of Human Resource Management at the University of Strathclyde. He has researched and published extensively on work organization and employment relations in call centres, and has recently conducted several investigations into offshoring and the globalization of business services. Other interests include occupational health, worker experiences of privatization and the implementation of lean in the public sector. He is currently co- editor of Work, Employment and Society. Dora Scholarios is a Reader in Organisational Behaviour at Strathclyde University. Her research interests span the areas of employee well- being, identity, and recruitment and selection, with a specific interest in attitudes, well- being and conceptions of skill in call centres and software work. Dora is currently reviews editor of Work, Employment and Society. Juliet Webster s main research interest is in the employment and working lives of women across the European Union, and the actions and

12 xii Contributors policies necessary to improve their working conditions and prospects for advancement. Her past research has focused mainly on women in IT professions, and on women s employment in routine service jobs. She is the author of Office Automation: The Labour Process and Women s Work in Britain (1990) and Shaping Women s Work: Gender, Employment and Information Technology (1996), and co- editor of The Information Society in Europe: Work and Life in an Age of Globalisation (2000).