Diaries, Dunnies and Discipline: Resistance and Accommodation to Monitoring in Call Centres

Management's use of technology has fuelled debate about employee resistance. This paper explores the interplay of resistance and accommodation. It does this by developing the concepts of dignity and self-preservation. Findings from the study of three call centres suggest that, although the technology in use has potentially augmented management's control over the labour process, this development has not gone unchallenged. Employees found ways to manipulate the technology and exploit its weaknesses, thereby gaining a measure of control over what was often seen as unfair managerial practice. Employee responses to technology were complex and contradictory. Some welcomed performance monitoring, not out of unquestioning acquiescence, but in an attempt to control the use of performance statistics and the activities that were monitored Employees utilised accommodation and resistance both separately and concurrently as circumstances dictated. An explanation of these seemingly contradictory responses may lie in notions of self worth and self preservation.