Premilla D'Cruz

The workplace bullying-organizational change interface: emerging challenges for human resource management

Though previous research has established organizational change as an antecedent of workplace bullying, issues about the source, aetiology, target orientation and level of organizational involvement and the role of HRM remain unstudied. Addressing these gaps through a hermeneutic phenomenological inquiry of Indian IT sector employees laid off during the 2008–2009 financial recession, downwards depersonalized bullying rooted in the organizational context, stemming from the implementation of the change endeavour and indicating the complicity of HR managers emerged as predominant. Apart from adding the perspective of workplace bullying to the lay-off literature, the study proposes the concept of ‘compounded bullying’ and has implications for the definition of workplace bullying, the legitimacy of organizational power and the scope of HRM.

Engaging the Professional: Organising Call Centre Agents in India

The extremely challenging external environment poses numerous challenges to union formation among call centre agents in India. Complicating matters is the acquired professional identity of call centre agents. In this scenario, the union organising call centre employees envisaged that partnership with employers was the only possibility acceptable to call centre agents, employer organisations and society at large, enabling them to regain some acceptability and credibility for the heretofore tainted Indian trade union movement.

Doing Emotional Labour

A qualitative study undertaken in Bangalore and Mumbai, India, on subjective work experiences of call centre agents, uncovered four major themes addressing agents’ perceptions of and responses to emotional labour demands. These include reorienting self, balancing expectations, neutralizing stress and humouring irate customers. The findings further our understanding by highlighting the presence of normative control, the relevance of dispositional factors, the implications of coping mechanisms and the complexities introduced by global outsourcing.

Technical Call Centres: Beyond 'Electronic Sweatshops' and 'Assembly Lines in the Head'

Views on call centres as work systems represent a dichotomy. While, on the one hand, call centres are seen as conforming to an engineering or mass service model, on the other hand, they are described as high commitment service organizations. Technical call centres, studied as part of a larger qualitative study on experiences of working in call centres, back offices and medical transcription in Mumbai and Bangalore, India, were found to resemble high commitment service organizations. Task complexity, variety and autonomy were distinguishing factors in technical call centre jobs, the presence of which promoted employee well-being and satisfaction. At the same time, the emotional labour required by front-line service work remained an important part of the job profile. The emergence of cross-cultural interactions in call centre work, stemming from the contemporary outsourcing trend, is highlighted.

Target experiences of workplace bullying: insights from Australia, India and Turkey

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore target experiences of workplace bullying across Australia, India and Turkey, uncovering cross-cultural convergence and divergence. Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire-based qualitative data survey of business school students with current/prior work experience (n=399) was undertaken. In total, 114 respondents (57 Australian, 34 Indian, 23 Turkish) identified themselves as targets of workplace bullying. Close-ended data pertaining to sociodemographic details were analysed via Statistical Package for the Social Sciences for descriptive statistics while open-ended data pertaining to experiences of bullying were thematically analysed against pre-figured categories derived from literature. Findings – Manifestations of, etiology of and coping with workplace bullying were similar across all three countries, highlighting cultural universals. Clear variations in source of bullying behaviour and availability and use of formal interventions as well as more s...

The experience of work in India's domestic call centre industry

Research on Indian call centres has focused almost exclusively on international-facing operations, at the expense of its domestic sub-sector, which is driven by different economic dynamics, namely the expanding Indian ‘new economy’ and the growth of discretionary spending by the countrys new middle class. The paper breaks new ground with its detailed examination of the experience of work in this domestic sector and draws upon extensive employee survey and interview data. The findings demonstrate that Indian domestic work lies at the extreme quantitative end of the call centre spectrum – its employees subject to tight controls, extensive work hours and authoritarian management practices in common.

High commitment management practices re-examined: The case of Indian call centres

Considerable debate exists in the West about the effectiveness of high commitment management (HCM) practices in reducing the negative features associated with work in mass-production call centres. This debate has been glossed over the Indian context. Addressing the gap by critically examining the role of HCM practices in Indian call centres, this article highlights the crucial influence of the organizational agenda and the Indian sociocultural milieu. The findings support the crossvergence thesis while confirming that HCM practices rarely undermine the organizational imperative of control. Indeed, organizational interests prevail, being manifest via the ‘sacrificial HR strategy’. Clearly, employer organizations committed to promoting employee well-being and reducing attrition need to examine issues of job design, task demands and psychological contract obligations apart from implementing HCM practices.

Workplace bullying in the context of organisational change: the significance of pluralism

The presence of depersonalised bullying during organisational change, highlighted through empirical research on lay-off procedures in Indias information technology sector, underscores the rhetoric of unitarist human resource management and reinforces the importance of union action and co-worker mobilisation. The findings support the emergent view that collectivisation is the only solution to workplace bullying.

target experiences of workplace bullying on online labour markets: uncovering the nuances of resilience

Purpose The paper reports a study of bullying on online labour markets/OLMs, highlighting how abuse unfolds in digital workplaces and depicting the trajectory of target resilience. Design/methodology/approach Adopting van Manen’s hermeneutic phenomenology, targets’ lived experiences of bullying on OLMs was explored. Data gathered from Indian freelancers located on Upwork via conversational telephonic interviews were subjected to sententious and selective thematic analyses. Findings tThe core theme of ‘pursuing long-term and holistic well-being’ showed how targets tapped into yet augmented their resilience while navigating the features of OLMs as they coped with their experiences of bullying. The interface between targets’ internal and external resources, including platform support, vis-a-vis the concreteness and permanence of the site as targets asserted agency, sought control and realized positive outcomes while preserving their reputation, relationality, success and continuity was captured. Research lim...

Sociocultural dynamics in whistleblowing: insights from India

Purpose – Through state-of-the-art insights on whistleblowing in India, the purpose of this paper is to highlight the role of sociocultural dynamics in whistleblowing. Design/methodology/approach – A review of literature on wrongdoing and whistleblowing in India revealed various aspects of the national context pertinent to different stages of the phenomenon. Thematic analysis of these dimensions, allowing for a nomothetic approach, resulted in identifying six sociocultural themes common across wrongdoing and whistleblowing. Findings – Sociocultural dynamics impacting the emergence, persistence and recognition of wrongdoing, the decision to blow the whistle, engagement in whistleblowing and the outcomes of whistleblowing encompass social relationships, power distribution, materialistic considerations, sense of propriety and fairness, public/civic orientation and ideological leanings. These factors coexist with international influences, institutional framework, workplace ethos and individual orientation. Th...