What Happens When The Phone Goes Wild

Journal of Management Studies 35:2 March 1998
0022-2380
`WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE PHONE GOES WILD?': STAFF, STRESS

AND SPACES FOR ESCAPE IN A BPR TELEPHONE BANKING WORK
REGIME*
DAVID KNIGHTS
University of Nottingham
DARREN MCCABE
Manchester School of Management
ABSTRACT
This paper explores the experiences of sta working under a business process reengineering (BPR) work regime. We examine the nature of work within a teambased, multi-skilled and empowered environment within nancial services. Despite
mixed responses our case study indicates that for those employees who remain in
employment after `re-engineering', working conditions may become more stressful
and intensive. Although some sta may welcome those elements of a BPR work
regime that facilitate a more varied work experience, the possibilities for satisfaction are often curtailed due to management's preoccupation with productivity and
`bottom line' results. In practice BPR is neither as simple to implement nor as
`rational' in its content as the gurus would have us believe. Partly for these reasons
it is also not as coercive in its control over labour as some critics fear. While
managers may only want to encourage employee autonomy that is productive to
its ends, we identify a number of occasions where autonomy is disruptive of
corporate goals. The paper seeks to add to our understanding of `stress', `resistance' and management `control' by considering the ways in which sta engage in
the operation of BPR so as to maintain and reproduce these conditions. This
dynamic cannot be understood, however, outside of the relations of power and
inequality that characterize society and employment.
INTRODUCTION
Much of the labour process literature since the early days of the conferences in the
UK has been concerned to expand both empirically and theoretically the various
critiques (e.g. Aronowitz, 1978; Edwards, 1978; Elger, 1979; Stark, 1980)
concerning the deterministic assumptions in Braverman's (1974) attempted resuscitation of Marx's thesis. In particular, it has been concerned to demonstrate how
capital and management are neither as homogeneous, omnipotent or omniscient
as depicted in Labor and Monopoly Capital and that, partly as a consequence, labour
is not as degraded and dominated a victim of capitalism as critics sometimes
Address for reprints: Darren McCabe, Manchester School of Management, UMIST, PO Box 88,
Manchester M60 1QD, UK.
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and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
164
DAVID KNIGHTS AND DARREN MCCABE
claim. A number of studies suggest a greater degree of uncertainty and ambiguity

in the labour process and indicate a broader range of tensions and divisions
including those of age, career, gender, politics and race as well as class (Collinson,
1992; Deetz, 1992; Knights and Murray, 1994; Watson, 1994). They have begun
to question the degree and intensity of management control as well as to highlight
areas of employee resistance (see also Edwards, 1979; Friedman, 1977; Willis,
1988; Zimbalist, 1979). While recognizing that since the early 1970s when
Braverman was writing, a New Right politics in Western economics has generally
strengthened the `hand' of management and weakened the formal or institutional
powers of labour, there always have been and continue to be `spaces' and opportunities where both managerial and non-managerial employees can resist management control (Collinson, 1992, 1994; Knights and McCabe, 1994, 1997; McCabe,
1996; McCabe and Knights, 1995a; Roberts, 1984). The objective of this paper is
to add to these insights by exploring further some of the `spaces' and opportunities
for resistance within a business process re-engineering (BPR) work regime in a
nancial services company.
BPR is the latest in a long line of management innovations designed to render
organizations more exible and responsive to customers, ecient and cost
eective. It re-engineers the structure and functions of the organization around the
`processes' that link production to nal consumption. The advocates of BPR
(Davenport, 1993; Hammer and Champy, 1993; Johanasson et al., 1993) believe
that it is the only way of breaking down the inecient and bureaucratic departmental and specialist divisions that are the preoccupation and playground of
internal vested interests. Despite what already has been said about recent studies
recognizing the uncertainty and ambiguities within the labour process, some critics
seem to be returning to the pessimism of Braverman, arguing that BPR is little
more than an excuse for the destruction of jobs and the intensication of work
(Grey and Mitev, 1994, 1995; Willmott, 1994, 1995a, b; Willmott and Wray-Bliss,
1995). Because there is often an association between job losses and BPR, some of
the critics are inclined to impute a causal relation, suggesting that an underlying
objective of BPR is work intensication and redundancies. While acknowledging
that there may be a considerable shedding of labour associated with BPR, in our
view the situation is not quite as straightforward or unidirectional as the critics
seem to imply. While BPR may reinforce such trends, it is not the only nor necessarily even the most signicant impetus for job cuts. Nor is it necessarily the
intention of management or the gurus to intensify work and cut jobs. In the
nancial services, recession as opposed to re-engineering seems to have had a
more signicant impact in reducing employment numbers and increasing work
loads. Moreover, the spate of mergers which have recently occurred following
deregulation have added to these trends and pressures. It could be that labour
shedding and work intensication would not necessarily be the outcome in the
absence of these other pressures operating in this direction.
Not all critics share the same approach or believe that BPR has exactly the
same eects. It seems to us that there are roughly two approaches or positions,
although inevitably there are some overlaps. Willmott (1994, 1995a, b) and Grey
and Mitev (1994, 1995) broadly follow a labour process or critical organization
theory analysis in their approach towards BPR, arguing that BPR generally means
work intensication and job losses. Their work can be understood as an attempt to
# Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE PHONE GOES WILD?
165
encourage a greater degree of reection on the potential impact of BPR on

employees for purposes of promoting an awareness of, and resistance to, its darker
side (see also Fincham, 1995, 1996; Gunge, 1995). While this critical stance is a
welcome counter to the hype of the gurus, in reaching their conclusions about
work intensication, these critics tend not to question the degree of coherence,
continuity and consistency in and between the intentions of management (or the
gurus) and their practical eects. Though highly critical of the control and work
intensication impact of guru and other consultant prescriptions, the critics' fears
can lend support to the very same universalistic and decontextualized perceptions
of BPR advanced by the gurus. It is for this reason that we think it important to
study BPR in empirical situations to avoid treating it as an abstraction from the
specic conditions of its implementation and development. Clearly, the critics risk
ascribing too much power and planned control to management and though anticipating resistance, provide no detailed examination of its form and content.
Consequently, there is a considerable limitation in the debate that is currently
emerging, where in response to the gurus' hype about the benets of BPR, these
critics oer a pessimistic counter-interpretation. The problem is not that the critics
fail to appreciate the hype; they are indeed scathing of the claims that BPR will
empower individuals and enrich the work experience of employees. But while
entirely sceptical about the positive impact of BPR on employees, they are in no
doubt of its negative impact in intensifying work and eliminating jobs. Even
though our research endorses some of the conclusions of the critics regarding work
intensication and job losses, we think that it is not always or necessarily most
directly a function of BPR. Other forms of reconstruction within a capitalist
economy have often been the greater perpetrators of such crimes against
employees, especially in the eld of nancial services, where our research has
taken place. But another point that leads us to this contrary view is the apparent
failure, according to many commentators, of BPR to full its expectations
(Mumford and Hendricks, 1996; Wellis and Rick, 1995). If BPR cannot deliver its
professed positive benets, then equally it might not also have precisely the same
negative consequences. There is considerable room for debate in the area of BPR
since it could also be argued that inexible bureaucracies are as negative for
labour as unadulterated BPR programmes. While providing a welcome counter to
guru evangelism, attention needs to be given to the particular circumstances of the
development of BPR and, in particular, the èxperiences' of those who are
involved in its practical implementation and adaptation.
A second group of theorists led largely by Keith Grint (e.g. Grint, 1994; Grint
and Case, 1995; Grint and Willcocks, 1995; Grint et al., 1996; Taylor, 1995)
adopt a perspective that draws more directly on an analysis of relations of power,
knowledge and plausibility at a particular stage of history and an actor-network
analysis. Their approach, though equally concerned with how BPR will impinge
on employees, is less explicitly focused on work intensication and more
concerned with the politics of information technology management or, more
precisely, mismanagement. By focusing on the socially constructed nature of
technology, power as a relationship and the predominance of politics within
organizations, they suggest that the outcomes of BPR are far from certain, a view
which our empirical analysis also endorses. Although we share many of the
concerns of both sets of theorists and therefore see this paper as a contribution, we
166
also feel there is a paucity of detailed critically informed empirical research to

inform such critical debate.
A review of the literature reveals that what is missing from both the accounts of
the supporters and critics of BPR is a detailed èmpirical' examination of what
BPR will mean for shop or oce oor employees. Although there is a growing
body of empirical research it tends to be of a survey-based nature (Drew, 1994;
Fielder et al., 1994; Hall et al., 1993; Willcocks, 1995) and therefore it is unable to
provide detailed insights as to the implications of BPR for employees, and/or it is
written from a managerialist perspective which focuses on the problems of implementation for management rather than the experiences of employees (Ascari et al.,
1995; Bartlett and Ghoshal, 1995; Cooper and Markus, 1995; Dixon et al., 1994;
Fitzgerald and Murphy, 1996; Keeble, 1995; Kennedy, 1994; Martinez, 1995;
Short and Venkatraman, 1992). To give just a few examples, Willcocks and Smith
(1995, p. 279) investigate `how BPR can be delivered to organizations' and
endeavour to teach management how to manage organizational politics. Similarly,
Caron et al. (1994, p. 233) seek to clarify how business re-engineering can eectively be used in an organization, as well as the conditions necessary for its success.
The result is ten lessons by which management can succeed in re-engineering.
Besides being managerialist, many empirical investigations are also technicist in
nature, ignoring fundamental conicts of interest within the workplace and
relations of power and domination. In addition, this kind of literature divorces
technology from the social setting of its conception and operation and, in so
doing, imbues it with an untenable neutrality. Thus according to Wastell et al.:
Process improvement from a social perspective involves changes to jobs and the
social structure in order to increase motivation, to reduce stress and to improve
performance by empowerment, i.e. giving people the skills, information and
authority to take greater responsibility for their work. (Wastell et al., 1995,
p. 29)
While these views may reect the well-meaning intentions of IT specialists, organizational change consultants or BPR advocates, there is little or no consideration
given to the experiences of sta or shopoor employees to assess how BPR's
prescriptions are operationalized. Nor is there any account of the structural
tensions within capitalist organizations that bear heavily on the nature of work
regimes, management control and indeed the success of management's strategies.
The paper is organized as follows. The rst section provides a brief summary of
what we understand by the term BPR, followed by an exploration of the type of
work regime elaborated by the popularizers of BPR contrasted with the concerns
of some of its critics. In the second section, we present our case study ndings,
which focus on employees' èxperiences' of a BPR work regime. The empirical
material is structured so as rst to consider the sta's experiences as collected
through semi-structured interviews. Then we present material that arose during
sta team meetings as gleaned through observational research which provides for
a more ùncut' insight. Thirdly we consider the `spaces' where sta can exercise
an admittedly `limited' autonomy and resist some of the work intensication
pressures of a BPR regime. Finally, in a summary and conclusion we draw out
what we see as the more signicant ndings of the research. The paper does not
167
attempt to make any grand theoretical claims although it is informed by theoretical ideas about the danger of doing so. In so far as it makes a theoretical
statement beyond the analytical arguments concerning the empirical data it
examines, it is merely a plea to examine the complexity of working practices
before reaching a judgement on the positive, negative or neutral consequences for
the various parties of implementing particular managerial innovations or technologies.
BUSINESS PROCESS RE-ENGINEERING
BPR is by far the most popular and widespread innovation within UK nancial
services, with 75 per cent of organizations having introduced it (McCabe et al.,
1994, 1997). Yet there is considerable confusion as to its content and character
such that `the concept remains surprisingly ill-dened' (Jones, 1994, p. 358). Some
who use the term business process re-design noting that `there is not even an
agreed name for this ill-dened idea' (Edwards and Peppard, 1994, p. 252). Others
suggest that BPR is merely the latest manifestation of total quality management
(TQM) `which encompasses BPR' (Schonberger, 1994). The proponents or gurus
of BPR have discussed the term in a number of dierent ways, varying from a
fairly rigid conception couched in an evangelical language (Hammer, 1990;
Hammer and Champy, 1993) towards a more pragmatic and exible approach
that refers to such developments as `process innovation' (Davenport, 1993). In
contrast to these gurus, Johanasson et al. (1993) place much less emphasis on IT,
as the distinctive feature of BPR; instead they concentrate more on the radical
nature of the changes that need to be made, above and beyond those oered by
TQM/ just in time (JIT). It is important, therefore, not to simply lump the gurus
together. For some, BPR is `the fundamental rethinking and radical design of
business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical, contemporary
measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service, and speed' (Hammer and
Champy, 1993, p. 32). Others use the term `process innovation', arguing that it is
wider than re-engineering, and is concerned with the design of new processes,
which èncompasses the envisioning of new work strategies, the actual process
design activity, and the implementation of the change in all its complex technological, human, and organizational dimensions' (Davenport, 1993, p. 2).
Even BPR's critics are divided, ranging from those who see BPR as simply
another fad or the latest management panacea (Grint and Case, 1995) that oers
a `rhetorical vision' (Jackson, 1996, p. 586) to those who see it as an essential
element within a new epoch of capitalism (Francis and Southern, 1995), or as
something which `will have a deep and lasting place in management applications'
(Taylor, 1995, p. 83). A number of critics have noted that BPR is frequently
presented in a non-sector specic way and as a universalistic set of practices
(Francis and Southern, 1995; Grint et al., 1996; Taylor, 1995), which makes its
form and application all the more dicult to comprehend. None the less, while
there is a lot of `hype' surrounding BPR, its attention to `macro changes' might
mean that it will have `more signicant and longer lasting eects' than other
innovations (Avgerou et al., 1995).
Although it is impossible to nd a consensus among the various writers on
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BPR, Grint (1994) suggests some common features that include: the switch from
functional departments to process teams; from simple to multi-tasked work; a
reversal of power relations from superordinate to subordinate; towards the
empowerment of employees; changes in employees' focus away from a hierarchical concern with one's boss towards customers; changes in management's
behaviour from that of supervising to coaching; and the attening of hierarchies.
Many of these changes in employment could be equally identied with other
managerial innovations such as human resource management (HRM), JIT or
TQM. Critically, the distinctive character of BPR is its packaging together of
these initiatives in combination with an intensied use of information technology
(Conti and Warner, 1994) to produce radical rather than merely incremental
shifts away from functional towards process management in ways that previously
were not viable.
In sum, BPR is an amalgam of recent innovative initiatives brought together
and integrated through the radical use of information technology or, as Earl and
Khan (1994) describe it, à synthesis of recent and not so recent ideas' (p. 20).
What is new is the emphasis on `processes, seeking radical, transformational
performance improvements, and embracing information technology in combination' (p. 29). Òlder' ideas relating, for example, to `change management and
systems analysis' (p. 29) are retained as part of what is required to implement a
BPR programme. While our case study described below reects these developments, BPR can also be understood more broadly as `the enhancement of crossfunctional organizational processes' (Wastell et al., 1995) or as part of the recent
move towards `radical' change by many nancial services companies to enhance
`competitiveness' (Ascari et al., 1995; Drew, 1994).
The implications of BPR for people's working lives is a key source of contention
within the literature and, in our view, it will impinge heavily upon levels of organizational resistance, and the degree to which individuals are prepared to support
the new `team' and `customer' based discourse associated with this innovative
package. For if BPR has à real and, invariably deleterious impact on the lives of
those who work in organizations' (Jackson, 1996, p. 587), then it seems to us that
resistance is likely to occur. Critics warn of large-scale job losses and work intensication for those who remain in employment: `BPR can legitimately claim to be
distinctive in the scale of human misery which it promises to produce. BPR is to
be dierentiated from mere downsizing because along with unemployment there is
also an intensication of work' (Grey and Mitev, 1995, p. 11).
Similarly, others suggest that BPR: `Promotes the continuing contraction of
employment as organizations (continuously) reengineer their processes. Those who
remain are obliged to work at an ever quickening intensity and pace. For this elite,
there is the prospect of eventual burnout and disposal' (Willmott, 1995a, p. 40).
Such assertions imply a weakening of employee autonomy and an enhancement of
control for management, and this is important not least because a loss of control is
generally understood to be an important indicator of work-related stress (Wastell
and Newman, 1993, p. 128). Although the supporters are all aware of (if not
advocating) large-scale job losses following the introduction of their prescriptions,
the image of work they present for those remaining in employment are mixed and
often contradictory. Certainly some argue that after re-engineering, `work becomes
more satisfying, since workers achieve a greater sense of completion, closure and
169
accomplishment from their jobs' (Hammer and Champy, 1993, p. 69). Acknowledging job losses, it is suggested that BPR will result in fewer `more highly skilled
people doing more complex work' (Hammer, 1993, p. 48L). Other writers show
greater ambivalence, arguing that if technological innovations enable greater
`worker empowerment and autonomy', then the òrganizational culture must be
adjusted' accordingly (Davenport, 1993, p. 96).
The opposite also applies, however, for if innovations do not allow empowerment then the culture needs to be `control' based (Davenport, 1993, p. 96). Team
working is seen none the less as a key means through which to improve the
quality of working life since it facilitates a development of the social side of work,
and process innovation is argued to oer the potential for an enriched work
experience: `Process innovation is by no means a simple extension of Taylorism.
The human contribution to work is to be celebrated and optimized rather than
eliminated. Innovative process designs can leave room for creativity and worker
autonomy' (Davenport, 1993, p. 316). Of course, this tends to contradict the above
scenario of a `control' based culture. People are seen to revel in the trust that BPR
aords them; for as `case managers' they `can see a task through to completion . . .
[they] . . . gain self-esteem from their employers' trust in their ability to make the
right decisions and actions' (Davenport and Nohria, 1994, p.15). It is recognized
that such work has the `potential for low job satisfaction' (Davenport and Nohria,
1994, p. 15), because of the sense of isolation that stems from VDU work.
However, this is to be resolved through encouraging team working, which allows
for a retention of `functional identities' (Davenport and Nohria, 1994, p. 15).
Johanasson et al. (1993) are self-confessed followers of Michael Hammer, and
likewise paint a glowing picture of life after BPR for employees, who:
will have broadened skills, including analytical and interpersonal skills, a
commonality of language across the organization, an appreciation of each
others' needs, and a better understanding of how things t together. They will
be linked by common values, and be highly motivated. (Johanasson et al.,
1993, p. 202)
The advocates of BPR tend to assume that work which involves a greater variety
of tasks, rather than fewer tasks, will be more satisfying. Grint (1994) has
questioned such assumptions, suggesting that if task variability results in work
intensication, jobs may become distinctly less satisfying. It is our view that multiskilling at least possesses the potential to oer a more rewarding form of work,
though how this potential is realized remains to be seen in operation. Undoubtedly
it will be constrained by the pressures of capital accumulation which, as the critics
suggest, is reinforced by BPR's prescriptions for ever more change so as to
enhance protability (Grey and Mitev, 1995). There is no question that BPR, like
most management innovations, is expected to contribute to the `bottom line' of
the balance sheet. However, within nancial services prot pressures have intensied recently much more as a consequence of economic deregulation and the
merger mania that has followed in its wake.
A central feature of BPR is èmpowerment'. Some gurus suggest that empowerment will lead to a more rewarding work experience: `People who once did as
they were instructed now make choices and decisions on their own' (Hammer and
170
Champy, 1993, p. 65). Other writers, however, are again more ambivalent
suggesting that the applicability of empowerment will reside in whether one
pursues a control or participative culture (Davenport, 1993, p. 105). A key to
empowerment is seen as `clarity' in communicating `roles' and `decision making
authority' which is to be secured through managers placing their `trust' in
employees `to follow the system's recommendations and override them when
necessary' (Davenport, 1993, p. 257). The suggestion is that IT can be deployed in
such a way as to lead to greater empowerment by allowing individuals to
innovate. Davenport and Nohria (1994) warn that `managers who ignore this
dimension risk failure of redesigned processes for organizational and motivational
factors' (p. 15).
Critics argue that empowerment, as the prescriptive literature refers to it, will
entail an ìntegration of tasks' rather than `the expansion of discretion' or
ìncreased task variety' (Willmott, 1994). Indeed, rather than a more team-based
and autonomous form of working as promised by the gurus, critics point to the
possibility that work will now be `continuously monitored, albeit indirectly, by
information systems' (Willmott, 1994). Here `VDU operators (`case managers') are
stuck in dead-end jobs that in all likelihood have become more intensive, routine
and isolating' (Willmott, 1994, p. 211). Thus empowerment is really à form of
control':
bestowed on individuals, rather than acquired . . . Employees are told to be
empowered so that, on the one hand, they may acquire a (misguided) sense of
`motivation' and, on the other hand, so that they are able to use `their' discretion to obviate the need to employ an overseer. Empowerment is stripped of
any emancipatory meaning and reduced to the part-tragic, part-pathetic level
of grovelling to the customer for the greater glory of the corporation. (Grey
and Mitev, 1995, pp. 1314)
Or it is understood as an advanced form of Taylorism:
The implementation of business processes based on advanced information technology, produces new possibilities of controlling and disciplining the workforce
. . . facilitates internalization of bureaucratic rules and control . . . where
informal aspects and tacit practices have been rationalized in order to enhance
calculability and predictability. (Gunge, 1995, pp. 1315)
In sum, these critics generally conclude that the introduction of BPR will create a
situation characterized by enhanced management control and work intensication
and, it might be argued thereby, the experience of increased work-related stress.
In our view, BPR is a far from certain cocktail, the outcome of which will depend
to a considerable extent on the specic organizational mix management deploy
and its operation combined with existing cultural traditions.
Of course, the implementation of management strategy is rarely a smooth or
unproblematic process. The `processual' school has highlighted how strategies tend
to arise in an emergent fashion (Mintzberg, 1994; Mintzberg and McHugh, 1985;
Mintzberg and Waters, 1985; Pettigrew, 1985), and early labour process theorists
argued that organizational forms and innovations tend to occur within a
171
`contested' terrain (Edwards, 1979) where the outcomes of management's strategies

are rendered uncertain, and subject to considerable resistance. This suggests that
there may be room for employees to manoeuvre so as to shape the eects during
both the implementation and operation of BPR. Commentators have contrasted
the prescriptions of the BPR literature concerning the key role of visionary
managers with what happens in practice (Francis and Southern, 1995). Although
the supporters suggest that internal factors are the drivers of BPR, these
researchers found that the external environmental and competitive pressures were
more important in practice. Often BPR is simply a label given to what companies
are doing, or is used to legitimate what they intend to do, suggesting a far more
èmergent' approach than is implied by guru prescription. Indeed, BPR strategies
often fall short of their radical intentions because of the priority given to bottom
line and short-term considerations (Coombs and Hull, 1995). Grint and Willcocks
(1995) have indicated how the asocial conceptions of IT implementation embodied
in the BPR literature fail to take into account the politics of organization and
hence the problematic nature of change.
The advocates of BPR are oblivious to the conicts of interest within employment and the opportunities and resilience of labour to resist and retain autonomy
in the face of management control. Resistance in the eyes of the gurus, as Grey
and Mitev (1995) argue, is seen as èither emotional, implying some irrationality or
maladjustment, or political, implying here some instrumental protection of turf.
The notion that resistance to change may have any legitimacy is quite ``lacking'' '
(Grey and Mitev, 1995, p. 12). Yet it has been found that companies experience
diculties in developing `shared norms and beliefs' and in translating these
`values' into `co-operation and commitment' (Grint and Willcocks, 1995, p. 106).
Similarly, Willmott (1994) has argued that with BPR `people are deemed to be
malleable, predictable and willing to be programmed' (p. 210). In practice,
however, it is suggested that `people are unpredictable, wilful and recalcitrant'
(Willmott, 1994). These statements challenge the gurus' beliefs that the behaviour
of employees is predictable or that their compliance will be unproblematic. Ethnographic eldwork is needed to tease out the indeterminate and often clandestine
ways in which employees can and do resist on the oce or shop oor.
Through our empirical research we aim to provide some insights as to the
opportunities for sta to resist certain aspects of BPR. The indeterminacy of
labour (Cressey and MacInnes, 1980; Edwards, 1979; Gottfried, 1994) alone
always ensures that such spaces remain whether there is an intention on behalf of
labour to resist or not. Thus by subjectively interpreting management's necessarily
ambiguous or contradictory commands and rules (Roberts, 1984), labour can
retain some autonomy, while further spaces and dierent ways of resisting may
gestate following the introduction of technology innovations and new patterns of
work organization. If it is the case, as the BPR advocates contend, that workers
are given more duties, albeit more of the same (Willmott, 1994), then this may
aord workers a greater opportunity to ìnterpret' and mould organizational
outcomes. For the use of such space by employees cannot be guaranteed to benet
management exclusively. One distinctive feature of BPR is that control is likely to
be extended through information systems (Willmott, 1995b) but it may also create
additional spaces for escape, and, following Grint (1994, pp. 1856), we will
describe some instances which challenge the `reengineering assumption . . . that
172
power ows downwards . . . [for] . . . subordinates are always in a position to refuse

any commands'.
The autonomy and space through which employees resist management control
has been discussed frequently by labour process theorists (Cressey and MacInnes,
1980; Friedman, 1977; Gorz, 1976; Littler, 1982), especially where there has been
an attempt to correct the over-deterministic approach of Braverman (1974) and it
is this tradition that we broadly follow. Yet, as Collinson (1994, p. 26) argues,
while this literature oers a welcome counter to the neglect of resistance in
Braverman it provides little by way of a detailed empirical analysis of the conditions, content and consequences of specic examples of resistance. Moreover, a
subsequent critical literature (e.g. Burawoy, 1979; Clegg, 1989; Edwards, 1986;
Manwaring and Wood, 1985; Rose, 1989; Sewell and Wilkinson, 1992; Sturdy et
al., 1992; Willmott, 1993) has focused primarily on `the manufacture of consent,
the (self)-discipline of subordinates and the outanking of resistance' (Collinson,
1994, p. 26). Both traditions are apparent in the existing critical BPR literature
and consequently, there is still a requirement for further research of a kind which
is located within an empirical investigation (Collinson, 1992, 1994; Hochschild,
1983; Pollert, 1981; Roberts, 1984) to which this paper seeks to make a small
contribution.
In addition to their neglect of empirical research on resistance, critical
researchers on organizational analysis have given comparatively little attention to
the stress that work intensication may generate. Perhaps this is partly because
stress has been appropriated by psychologists (Cooper, 1986; Sloan and Cooper,
1987) who largely study the problem from precisely the same individual perspective that currently is seen as one of its causes. That is to say, Cooper's (1986)
explanation of stress suggests that it stems from the character defects of individuals
and their inability to cope with organizational life. Equally individualistic solutions
are oered and in a recent Sunday Times editorial Cooper and Williams (1997)
discussed solutions such as training and education in life management, counselling
and support, stress proles covering issues such as tness, drinking and smoking
habits. As of late there seems to be an emerging recognition that stress may be
something more than an individual phenomenon, hence it was suggested that
`companies need to take some responsibility for managing pressure in the
workplace' (Cooper and Williams, 1997). While refraining from endorsing this
kind of layperson approach to sociology, it does indicate the space for an alternative, less individualistic approach by which to study stress. One such development
has occurred in the work of Tim Newton (1995) and others (Fineman, 1995;
Handy, 1995) whose ideas we loosely follow in questioning popular notions of
stress, which present it as a natural, apolitical, individual, and ahistorical experience.
For us, stress cannot be understood as an individual phenomenon the symptoms
of which can be cured by equally individual means such as exercise, time-management or changes in one's diet. Instead our case study locates stress within a
framework that emphasizes the interrelationships between structural relations of
power and the subjective interpretations and actions of employees. By contrast to
some of BPR's critics, who, by implication, adopt a Marxist critique, we explore
`stress', `resistance' and management `control' by considering how a complex web
of conict and collusion, combined with the subjective interpretations and agency
173
of labour and management, maintains and reproduces such conditions. We

examine how these conditions operate so as to produce a vicious circle (Gouldner,
1949, 1954).
Critical to understanding how such a vicious circle is produced and reproduced
is a consideration of employee subjectivity in a context of contradiction (Handy,
1995). For as `self-conscious subjects' (Roberts, 1984) or as `thinking beings'
(Foucault, 1988) employees are forced to interpret the often contradictory
demands management place upon them. Thus, contradictions, for instance, over
service quality versus the quantity of work output, in a context of intense management control, serve to generate both stress and resistance (see Handy, 1990;
Satyamuri, 1981) and a continuing imperative for management to gain or regain
control (Knights and Roberts, 1982). The paradox is that acts of `resistance' or
even attempts to work within the existing parameters of contradiction maintain
and reproduce stress, resistance and attempts by management to enhance control
(see Handy, 1990; Hochschild, 1983; Pollert, 1981; Satyamuri, 1981). Employees
collectively reproduce working conditions they already experience as stressful
(Handy, 1995, p. 96) or from which they feel the need to escape (Roberts, 1984).
An understanding of this dynamic needs to be located within existing organizational power relations and structures of inequality because `most' employees
obviously do not `choose' to be unnecessarily stressed nor `wish' management to
exercise extensive control over them. For us, expressions of `resistance' cannot be
understood without recourse to the agency and subjectivity of labour. It is only
through examining the ways in which sta interpret and respond to the demands
made of them that resistance makes any sense. It is perplexing to us, then, that
one set of commentators attribute `the marginalization of misbehaviour' to a shift
towards `post-structuralist perspectives' (Thompson and Ackroyd, 1995, p. 622).
While Foucault (1980) had been concerned of how a focus on resistance can lead
to a co-optation by those powers that it is perpetrated against, there is nothing
within `post-structuralist' perspectives that legislates against a study of resistance.
Indeed, as we have already argued, `modernist' or `structuralist' social science has
hardly been excessive in its determination to study resistance empirically. But since
Thompson and Ackroyd (1995) conate `post-structural' perspectives with a focus
on subjective àction' or agency, it is dicult to take their admonitions seriously.
Only perspectives subscribing to humanistic enlightenment philosophies would
elevate agency in this way; a preoccupation of post-structuralist theories is to
eradicate dualisms altogether whether they elevate àgency' or `structure' or any
other binary opposition (Heckman, 1990; Knights, 1997). For just as resistance
makes little sense without a consideration of subjectivity, likewise its reproduction
cannot be understood without locating employees within a context of power and
inequality. However, none of these representations can readily be located on one
or other side of an agencystructure dualism since they are mutually implicated
and constitutive of one another.
THEORY AND METHODOLOGY
There is not space within a journal paper that reports extensive empirical research
located within a specic literature to discuss a theoretical perspective in any depth
174
and indeed recent post-structural critiques have argued against grand theoretical
designs (Foucault, 1980, 1984) in favour of a micro-politics of localized interventions. However, the paper is informed by an understanding of organizations as
comparatively precarious by virtue of the continuous struggles for power,
autonomy and identity (Knights and Willmott, 1985, 1989) among their members
and the changing conditions of their reproduction through economic competition,
political interventions and cultural transformations. Against this background, the
focus of the paper is simply the impact of a BPR innovation on the employees of a
retail bank and how they resist, albeit in a limited way, some of the pressures and
stresses it imposes on them. The concern is to examine working practices before
reaching a judgement on the positive, negative or neutral consequences of the
introduction and implementation of particular managerial innovations such as
BPR.
Although part of a more broad-ranging study of re-engineering, this paper
focuses on a case study of an established medium-sized clearing bank to which we
give the pseudonym Probank (short for Process Bank). The bank has a nationwide
branch coverage currently employing approximately 4,500 employees at a variety
of locations. We focus our research on a single back oce site which employs 600
sta who are largely female processing sta. In the late 1980s the bank centralized
its branch administration and this resulted in a 25 per cent reduction in sta
numbers within the branch network. It was able to do so through the use of online customer databased technology and telecommunication networks.
The case study was conducted over a six-month period in two back oce sites
of the bank although this article reports on the ndings in only one of these
locations. It involved an intensive period of interviews with 25 sta, ve team
leaders, four customer service managers, and ve senior managers within the
bank. These involved formal recorded interviews that explored a number of issues,
including the extent and depth of changes in the nature of work, organizational
structure, employee involvement, communication, management styles, organizational culture and managementsta relations. In addition, there were many
informal conversations with sta, team leaders and management. Documentary
investigation included access to sta guides, training manuals and materials, and
strategy statements. Observational research was also possible through attending 10
hour-long weekly team meetings that included 1015 sta and their team leaders.
In addition, ve meetings of ten team leaders with their customer service manager
were attended. During these meetings the researcher made copious notes of the
conversations that ensued, which provided a dynamic insight into the nature of
work and managementsta relations. The aim was `to gather rst-hand information about social processes in a ``naturally occurring'' way' (Silverman, 1993,
p. 11). This triangulation or multiple methods research approach (Denzin, 1978)
allows for comparisons to be made so as to gain greater insights of particular work
regimes.
Clearly a case study approach cannot, and does not claim to be representative
of the larger population from which the case is drawn (see Dalton, 1959;
Pettigrew, 1985). While some case study researchers seek to emulate positivist
social scientists in pursuing multiple cases that claim through random sampling to
represent larger populations (Yin, 1989), other researchers recognize the futility of
such a strategy. Apart from various epistemological objections to the positivist
175
paradigm that have been well rehearsed (Douglas, 1970; Giddens, 1977; Winch,
1958), a major problem with representational social science is its faith in the moral
and political neutrality of its `truth' claims. As Callon et al. (1986) argue, `the idea
that there is a special scientic method, a realm where truth prospers in the
absence of power, is a myth'. Since this would be the case with respect to natural
science how much more relevant is it for the social sciences? Once it is recognized
that the social scientist is not a neutral mediator between `truth' and the external
world but an active participant in its construction, the preoccupation with representational or statistical generalization disappears. Research then focuses on analytical insights that do not depend on representative random samples, neutral
techniques of data collection, and empirically exhaustive, totalizing accounts of the
phenomenon under investigation. We do not attempt to provide an exhaustive
account of organizational `reality', for in describing any phenomenon we have
already begun to construct it if only by virtue of the selection we must make to say
anything at all. In presenting a picture of the unfolding events within Probank, we
are simply constructing a reality through our own observations/interpretations of
change, and our interpretations of those provided to us by key actors within the
company (Knights, 1996). The intention then, is to oer ànalytical' as opposed to
`statistical' insights concerning re-engineering processes.
THE CASE STUDY
Within Probank, BPR was by no means an overnight transition. In 1994 the bank
began restructuring one of its back oces to remove a functional organization of
work where separate areas dealt with telephones, direct debits and standing orders,
correspondence, opening and closing accounts. It moved towards a `multi-skilled'
environment where `teams' of workers now perform both processing work and deal
with telephone enquiries. This phase of change was undoubtedly a calculated move
towards BPR. Neither sta nor teams are required to perform all processes and
therefore multi-skilling has been limited and specialization remains (McCabe and
Knights, 1995b). The back oce was restructured into teams, each with approximately 15 team members, of which there is a senior team member, who reports to
the rst-line manager: the team leader. Teams are clustered so that six team
leaders report to one of ve customer service managers who, in turn, reports to the
back oce manager. Team meetings were introduced to improve communication
between sta and management, which was a considerable bone of contention in
the past. Overall, following the move towards multi-skilled teams, sta numbers
within the back oce have not fallen signicantly. This is because a large proportion of the workforce (one-quarter) left the organization following an initial period
of restructuring in 1989 when the customer service back oce was formed.
All sta perform telephone work, which is subject to a high degree of control, as
sta are individually measured according to wrap, idle and live `time'. In theory
sta are allocated two, two-hour periods during the day, when they must be
available to deal with telephone calls. Direct customer contact time is known as
`live' time. If there are queries that cannot be answered within 20 seconds, any
additional time that it takes the sta to make a note of the query is known as `wrap'
time. Sta must make notes, rather than deal with queries immediately, so as to
176
maximize direct customer contact time, during their allotted period. Only when the
member of sta is relieved, can they deal with queries. Ìdle' time refers to the times
when an individual needs to use the toilet or goes for coee. Probank is currently
seeking to reduce `wrap' time as this detracts from productivity, which is only
measured in terms of `live' time. Productivity being measured by the amount of
time an employee is engaged in answering calls divided by the number of calls
received. Thus there are pressures on sta to continually answer telephone calls.
Sta respond when customer demand necessitates it. Sta are tasked to respond
to a series of ashing lights which depict how busy the lines are. Even if sta are
not allocated to be on the phones, when demand dictates they are obliged to take
customer calls. Providing us with an excellent title for our paper some sta
complained: `What happens when the phone goes wild?' At the time of the
research, the teams were experimenting with various means to reduce stress and
improve productivity. A number of teams were considering whether it would be
possible to develop a more accurate and consistent method of allocating the time
between telephone and process work. The aim is to prevent sta being put on to
the phones arbitrarily as telephone work is stressful and switching from processing
to telephone work is additionally stressful and problematic. Currently, team
leaders receive instructions as to how many sta they should have on the phones
throughout the day, which is calculated by a computer system called Tele-ready.
This analyses customer call trends and seeks to calculate how many sta are
required on the phones at any one time, but, as we shall see, the application of the
system makes no allowance for sta absences a problem that seems to be
increasing as a result of the pressure/stress of telephone work. Moreover, it cannot
predict with any certainty the ow of calls from customers.
WORKING UNDER MULTI-SKILLED CONDITIONS
Sta comments as to their work experiences were mixed. Overall there was a sense
that working conditions had become more intensive, although this was experienced dierentially. For those sta who had previously worked in the processing
areas whether on direct debits, opening accounts, correspondence, or closed
accounts, the direct contact with customers via the telephone was often daunting.
For some sta, combining both processing work and telephone calls was highly
stressful. For those sta who had previously spent all of their time working on the
phones, the opportunity to take time o to process work was considered to be a
relief. Janet, who had previously worked seven hours a day on the phones,
remarked as to the changes since multi-skilling:
Ìt's got better recently because you're not on the phones all the day. You do
halfy, halfy really. It's a lot better, a lot less stress.'
Maureen, a former member of the telephone banking sta, explained that she
enjoyed `talking to people'. However, even she considered that:
`Seven hours on the phones is too stressful . . . I'm getting less stress now
because I'm doing other jobs besides the phones. But other people, who have
177
only ever done paperwork, are really stressed out after doing two hours on the
phones.'
Not everyone is pleased with the changes, especially former processing sta. Rita
has worked at the bank for nine years and worked on standing orders prior to
multi-skilling. She explained her work experiences:
`We keep getting pulled o to work on the phones all the time, which is
making it harder for the processing work, which has got backlogs . . . you
cannot sit and get on with processing . . . You feel like you are working harder
because you are doing so many things, in your own job you can't really get your
teeth into it. (Our emphasis)
Rita's comments clearly indicate that she identies with the processing work rather
than the telephone work. The latter was considered to be a hindrance to `her'
work which was perceived as the `processing of standing orders'. Part of the
problem can be seen as a concern to `shift backlogs' (Sturdy, 1992) as part of
maintaining an identity of competence and the disruptive impact of telephone
work on that concern. Of course, managerial demands for reduced backlogs is a
constant concern. The potential of multi-skilling to make work more interesting
due to increased task variety was also undermined because of the lack of sta
training, which means that only certain individuals can do certain jobs. Therefore,
Rita continues to be responsible for the task of processing of standing orders
which few other sta can perform. Of course, such training constraints reect
business and bottom line pressures. The variety of telephone and processing tasks,
combined with volume pressures, often leads to a dizzying array of work with
which to cope. This was frequently more stressful rather than satisfying, as job
enlargement and enrichment or BPR advocates would have us believe. Rita
explained that being pulled o the processing work to answer telephones results in
backlogs and this means more phone calls and more irate customers. None the
less, sta continue to go on to the phones even though this contributes to
increased stress. Yet one needs to recognize that, in practice, employees have little
choice but to comply with management's demands since it is their perception of
how hierarchy and power works. Anne, a member of sta for 15 years, remarked
of her work experiences:
`The phones are ne, no problem, I mean sometimes they are a refreshing
break. It's not the going on the phones, it's not the dealing with the customers,
it's the length of time you're spending on them. If you go on for two to three
hours you're ne, you get into four, four and a half, ve it is wearing. I
suppose that's where the stress level comes into it. Maybe I handle it dierent,
but if I've got someone shouting down the phone at me the rst thing I do is
stand up. Even though I'm sat at my desk I stand up, because I feel physically
challenged so I'm responding to them and I keep control of it then. But if I
was to stay sat down I'd be kicking the desk.'
Here we see Anne devising a way in which to escape the stress of work by
standing up when dealing with angry callers. Customer animosity, rather than
178
being directed at the management/shareholders, is being diused and redirected at sta. Clearly, Anne adopts an individual way of coping with what is
a collectively shared work experience. Such stress cannot be understood as
reecting Anne's inability to correctly manage her time (or her failure to
successfully meditate during her spare time) because she is on the receiving end
of a work regime that she has had little or no part in constructing. Anne's
technique of coping, however, is likely to sustain, rather than alleviate, the
conditions of stress. For in managing her own stress as an individual, she
lengthens the period in which she is able to cope with it rather than question
the conditions of its continuity. Of course, this is individually a better strategy
than `breaking down' since the latter is usually interpreted as a function of
personal inadequacy rather than unacceptable work demands. In this way sta
(re)produce the conditions of their own stress. Only by recognizing the collective
nature of this work experience and challenging those who decide on manning
levels well below that required could the situation be changed. Moira has
worked for the bank for nine years and is currently an acting Senior Team
Member. She explained that though sta responses are mixed, there has been
an overall increase in stress levels:
`. . . all dierent, some people think its a great opportunity, they can learn how
to process, they can learn telephones. Others nd telephones they can't cope
with. Stress levels have gone up, the sickness in the place is phenomenal.'
Although the conditions of stress seem to have increased for all sta, they are
experienced dierentially depending on previous work experience.
THE TEAM EXPERIENCE
By sitting in on a number of team meetings is was possible to observe that they

do indeed provide an eective forum for communication, especially concerning
the work pressures that are an increasing concern facing sta. At each meeting
team leaders provide feedback to sta regarding the team's work performance:
including productivity gures and backlogs. Clearly, the intention is to encourage
sta to identify with their work and the new team-based approach. There were
signs that the team-based discourse has begun to inltrate the sta's identity;
however, there were numerous instances when conicts of interest arose, for
instance, over work pressures, which belied the notion of the wider corporate
team. At one meeting high levels of sickness were discussed and the team leader
explained that sickness is going to be monitored in the future. This was not,
however, to assess possible stress levels but to increase management's control,
and to legitimize/rationalize work output levels to senior management, as the
following discussion reveals:
Team leader:
Sta:
Às you know we have to ring in sick, and we're going to have a
register so that when senior management come down, and ask why
there are backlogs, then we can explain.'
Ìt's all the stress.'
Team leader:
179
`We the green team have the worst sickness, it's at 11 per cent . . . In
the future, all complaints will be logged, and it means that we'll have
to deal with less crap because we can go back to who did it . . . If we
can get rid of that backlog next week it would be wonderful.'
It is important to note that the team member's comments regarding stress were
dismissed. The team leader is clearly highlighting to the sta that sickness levels
have to be reduced. There is an underlying coercion in the suggestion that when
senior management enquire why there are backlogs, the team leader will answer
by highlighting who is o sick. However, she is doing so using the team discourse
of `we' the team to support this argument. The team leader's comments also
reect a concern to isolate individuals who may be responsible for customer
complaints. It was sold again, however, through deploying the team discourse as a
means whereby the `team', or more precisely conforming team members, can
escape blame in relation to problems for which they are not responsible. It seems
that management adopted a `purely technical' (Roberts, 1984, p. 294) approach
that either ignores or seeks to deny the ìnterdependence of self-conscious subjects'
(p. 299) that is a `condition of all social life' (p. 299). Thus, sickness is communicated in individual terms as if it is unrelated to the nature of work or to the wider
team's experience. Yet, the sta's reaction clearly reveals the transparency of such
a dichotomy. Management have a tendency `to ignore or attempt to circumscribe
the subjectivity of their sta' (Roberts, 1984, p. 298) when it poses a challenge to
management's existing agenda, as can be seen in the rejection of `stress' as an
explanation for absenteeism. By deploying the team discourse, management action
has the eect of chasing out the interdependence of social relations, thus rendering
employees individualistically isolated. Herein lies a fundamental contradiction for
there is an ìnclusion' of interdependence when management endeavour to control
others and an èxclusion' of interdependence when they are confronted with any
form of resistance or challenge. So, for example, management stated we have to
ring in sick and we have to explain why there are backlogs. Yet, when the `we'
refers to social relations which embody `stress' or `sickness' then the `social' is
denied in favour of purely individual weaknesses or responsibility. The royal `we'
is inclusive only of the management or corporate world-view but denied or
displaced where it relates to anything that might be seen as a challenge to management or existing practices.
Clearly, managerial accountability ensures that productivity issues are at the
forefront of team leaders' attention. A similar managerialism seems to dismiss the
view that productivity may be hampered by stress levels. Team leaders elevate
productivity/customer complaints above the related concern of stress levels. Sta
stress, then, is seen as a distraction for managers whose identity, as competent/
hard-headed extensions of the service machine, apparently renders them impervious to such `human' issues. Issues such as stress, or the quality of working life,
are therefore sidelined and chased out by productivity concerns. Yet the two are
obviously related. Many sta explained that as a consequence of the incessant
demand from customer phone calls, they are unable to concentrate adequately on
the processing work. Ostensibly, this is shifting the focus of control away from
managers towards customers, even though management set stang levels and
productivity targets, and therefore, create the conditions wherein employees must
180
respond to customers. That sta continue to try to process and answer phone calls
perpetuates the stress they experience. For only through challenging existing
conditions could such stress be removed or eliminated.
Tensions were apparent between teams as some concentrate on processing
work, and therefore have high processing productivity levels, while others have a
predominance of former telephone sta, who answer incoming calls quickly, which
impinges on their processing productivity levels. Thus inter-team tensions seem
also to perpetuate the system. This is because it deects and thereby obfuscates
the source of frustration from the management regime. None the less, some sta
do escape control by being slow to respond to telephone calls. In other cases,
however, former telephone sta, who enjoy taking telephone calls, or want a break
from processing work, can also escape control by responding to calls immediately.
All of this tends to reinforce both the conditions of stress and also the need for
some employees to resist management control. Of course, in turn this re-establishes
management's preoccupation with control. The sort of problems emerging can be
seen in the following extract from a team meeting:
Sta:
Sta:
Team leader:
Sta:
Sta:
`There's loads of negative things and they never get changed . . . like
the times on the phones.'
Òther teams have people on the phones for two hours, but I am
only o for two hours.'
Ì go to other sta on teams and say ``get on the phone'' and they
say `Ì'm on my time o '' '.
`But we go on the phones if we're asked. We watch the lights. It's
other team leaders not looking at the lights.'
Ì think it's because we have more armchair banking sta who are
used to being on the phones.'
Interestingly, it seems that both sta and team leaders are resisting other sta and
team leaders by not going on the phones. This ensures that some teams are able
to maintain high productivity levels in terms of processing work and keeping their
backlogs to a minimum. Team leaders clearly do so because being seen to be òn
top' of things gives a good impression to those àbove' them. Sta responses reect
their earlier experience in positions of either processing or telephone work. Those
used to telephone work will tend to `watch the lights', since they have internalized
the discipline or simply enjoy taking calls. Sta identity-based interests therefore
serve to resist or support the preoccupation of team leaders with processing or
telephone work. At one meeting, the following conversation ensued, giving some
indication of the aws and problems in the Tele-ready system, which should
balance telephone calls with stang levels:
Sta:
Sta:
Sta:
`The problem is Tele-ready works out gures and then we have 30

sta o so it's all hands on the phone, and none of the work
processes are being done.'
`Joan is responsible for Tele-ready . . . she's always screaming and
running about there's no need for that.'
Ì nd I've got queries [to follow-up from the phone call] and then
I've not got time to work on processes.'
Sta:
Team leader:
Sta:
Team leader:
Sta:
181
`Do they [management] want quality or . . . ?'

`You can have both.'
`What happens when the phone goes wild?'
`Don't think you're not appreciated . . . telephone backlogs are
down.'
`But they're down because we're not doing processes.'
Here we can see some of the dynamics of team meetings, which though clearly
providing a forum for a discussion of sta preoccupations, is used by team leaders
to enhance management control. Team leaders seek to reduce conict by
promising a brighter tomorrow, and team meetings in this context can be understood as a mechanism of control. At issue here is the work demands placed on
sta during the day and it seems that management are unable to predict customer
demands accurately. If this ùnpredictability' is àn endemic feature of social life',
as some have suggested (Roberts, 1984, p. 288), then clearly the Tele-ready system
is ìrretrievably awed' (p. 288) and as such the stresses and strains it induces are
likely to continue. There are tensions between team members and between the
operations sta who are responsible for allocating calls. Operation sta begin
`screaming and running about' when `the phone goes wild' in the sense of a
backlog building up. Intriguingly, this intra-group conict seems to deect tensions
which could be directed at management. The comments during the team meetings
reveal the contradictions and tensions between the team leader's claims to be
reducing the time that sta spend on the phones, with the lived work experiences
of sta. Such tensions seem unlikely to go away for the Tele-ready system and the
indeterminacy of sta embody uncertainty. Management's identity is such that
they need to appear to be in control, competent, and responsive to their team's
needs. In view of this, team leaders are at pains to soothe their sta's concerns, to
oer solutions, to promise a brighter tomorrow, to encourage unity and motivate
sta. Like clockwork mice, they continue to do so irrespective of the reality they
confront, as expressed and experienced by sta. Yet work pressures render them
unable to deliver. It is here then that the unifying discourse of BPR falls short, and
is contradicted in practice. Under such conditions, it is unlikely that the discourse
could simply reconstitute individuals into corporate devotees, as it has little to do
with their lived-through work experiences. These competing tensions of promised
certainty and the uncertainty of social life will continue to generate both stress and
resistance given management's endeavour to procure increased prots through
reduced inputs. Moreover, as was indicated when one of the above sta asked
whether management wants service quality or not, quality and work intensication
are often mutually exclusive. Clearly, sta face some fundamental contradictions
over unity versus conict, uncertainty versus certainty, quality versus quantity and
these are at the heart of the reproduction of stress, resistance and control which
we shall explore below.
THE SPACES FOR ESCAPE
Irrespective of the increased control over sta through information technologybased surveillance and monitoring systems, management is able neither to secure
182
total control nor to eradicate the spaces of employee resistance. The above discussion reveals how, even when ostensibly conforming to management controls, there
are numerous means by which employees are able to retain or create some autonomous space. They can do this simply by making choices about how to perform
their allotted work for instance, with enthusiasm, detachment, or indierence.
However, there is ambiguity and indeterminacy within most roles and tasks that
allow for a degree of interpretation on how to perform them. Thus, one can
concentrate on processing work versus answering phones. Even in terms of
answering the phone one can be pleasant, cool or disdainful; one can pick up the
phone immediately, let it ring twice, a number of times, or ignore it. All of these
limited variations in combination give an indication of the myriad ways in which
one can interpret commands which appear clear on the surface, while competently
performing one's job, according to management's requirements. Hence, sta both
constitute the world in which they reside as well as being constituted by it. A particularly innovative means of escape was revealed during one team meeting when
sta only àppeared' to be answering the phone when the lights were ashing.
Instead, they simply put their head-sets on, and mouthed words so as to escape
control. The team leader explained that they sit there like sh `mouthing words'
while continuing to process work or simply have a rest. One team leader, not
without humour, conveyed to her team that she was aware of this ploy:
Ì asked everyone to put their head sets on, and to log on . . . I've seen that
some are not logged on and they're talking to themselves . . . their mouths are
going and they're talking to themselves . . . it might be funny but not if it
aects you lot.'
Clearly, this is a jocular, but serious warning, that management are aware of this
`space'. Interestingly, the team leader deployed the team discourse so as not to
appear to be disciplining her team. Thus it is the òther' teams that do this type of
thing, not òur' team. The warning is just the same, however. Through the
discourse, the team leader seeks to obfuscate the immediate antagonisms within
the relationship between herself and the team, though of course this is an attempt
to relieve the tension in an otherwise awkward situation. Through deploying the
team discourse, team leaders adopt `the appearance of having the others' interests
at heart' (Roberts, 1984, p. 297). Yet this yields ònly a very transient advantage',
for, in turn, sta `manufacture the appearance of being personally committed'
(Roberts, 1984, p. 297). Although `mouthing words' as an expression of resistance
is clearly a demeaning dramaturgical exercise, rather than an overt challenge to
management, it is none the less an act of deance. Thus, we can see that there are
cycles of control and resistance wherein management feign concern with the
welfare of employees while seeking enhanced control, and employees feign compliance while often resisting some of the demands of management.
Sta can also escape control by cutting customers o if a call is going to take
too long, is taking too long, or if the customer is particularly oensive. Management is rarely able to follow up such actions or, indeed, is aware of them. One
member of sta explained that customers may be cut o if sta are worried about
their productivity gures. Clearly, we can see the contradictory position in which
sta are placed, being tasked as they are, with providing a high quality customer
183
service while management limit their ability through work intensication to

provide such a service. So we can see that by placing too much emphasis on
quantity, and keeping stang levels to a minimum, management may directly
undermine customer service. Asked whether the increased use of statistical information has increased management's control over sta, Joan remarked:
`Figures are ddled . . . I can do 58 correspondences in an hour, because . . . it
is just a matter of turning them over, but because . . . I'm only supposed to do
20 in the hour, I make certain that I stretch it out.'
This concealment from management of knowledge that could help the organization raise its productivity signicantly, is a clear indication that BPR cannot
remove or control the resources (e.g. knowledge and autonomy) that facilitate
employee resistance. It also indicates the ineciency born of a system which
denies ìnterdependence' within and between sta and management and instead
focuses on the instrumental and manipulative control of individuals as òbjects'
rather than `self-conscious subjects' (Roberts, 1984).
Ostensibly management control has increased. However, while management
may have increased control in certain detailed areas (e.g. number of telephone
calls per hour), it can have several unintended consequences that undermine the
objectives (i.e. customer service) of these controls. One example is the active
subversion of management's control through manipulating productivity gures.
Also as a consequence of the more intensive work regime both for sta and team
leaders, some sta argued that team leaders are now so busy that they are unable
to keep as close a check on sta performance as they once could. According to
Jane:
`When it was just telephone banking, your supervisor had more control over
you. Now she has that much work on her, you can blind her with science, as
to what you are doing.'
It seems that while management is achieving increased control in one way, they
are losing it in another. Management had more personal or `direct' control before
and could isolate individuals' movements, now control has shifted towards more
statistical or ìndirect' means. The diculties facing control issues are exacerbated
by employing increased numbers of part-time and temporary sta, as found
elsewhere (O'Doherty and Clark, 1995).
Thus management can pinpoint their sta 's productivity in terms of idle, wrap
or live time; however, statistics can be, and are being, manipulated by sta.
Especially this is so because sta now move from processing to telephone work.
Sta can manipulate their performance gures in a number of ways, as they have
a considerable amount of customer information available at their nger tips.
Through utilizing on-line customer databases, sta can be selective in terms of the
information they provide to customers. For instance, they can answer a customer
request for a balance by stating that the customer is 3 in credit, without
conveying the further information that an unpaid cheque exceeding that balance
is being returned. This will end the call quickly and contribute to the productivity
targets. In terms of customer service sta should release all relevant information
184
but doing so will extend the call, so they sometimes choose only to answer the
question asked of them. It is not just their productivity that comes into the
equation when having to make such choices; they also know that such information
usually invites an unpleasant customer response which will be stressful and is
therefore to be avoided if possible. Accordingly, sta can also control their stress
levels by being selective with the information they oer. Joan explained:
`You can make a problem . . . if you tell them that you are returning a cheque
today for 20 then he may hit the roof and try to give you an explanation as
to why, and you are lengthening the call that way.'
Of course, the customer may well ring back and complain. It is rare, however,
that they will come back to the same member of sta, and even rarer for
management to trace a complaint to an individual member of sta. Even if they
can trace particular complaints to individual members of sta, a claim that the
customer was given the information requested i.e. a balance cannot be
challenged. Of course, if sta are being measured on the number and not the
quality of calls taken, it is in their interest to limit the information given out. This
reduces, or at least does little to enhance, customer service. Management can
trace who has individually responded to a given call, as sta are required to log
in a code when going into a customer account, and this identies which member
of sta has had access. However, a way around this for sta is to exploit aws in
the computing systems. Thus additional codes can be used which allow the sta
to avoid having their names recorded. Sta are therefore aware of aws in the
IT systems because of their expert user knowledge, which allows spaces for
escape. Susan remarked:
`You can go into a 612 which gives you your previous statement, and then
when you go back into your 610, which gives you their address, your name
doesn't come up there. So I mean if you don't want your name on it there's
always ways . . . A lot of people do it that way because they're frightened.'
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
This brief selection from a case study on BPR suggests that it may lead to a more
intensive rather than satisfying work experience which lends support to the fears of
some critics. The way in which such a regime impacts on sta may, however, be
uneven. Employees' interpretations of the work regime reected their previous
work experiences, and sta's identities were bound up with these experiences,
inuencing their reactions to multi-skilling. Former processing sta, irrespective of
the stress, were often resentful that their processing work was being interrupted by
periods on the telephone. By contrast, former telephone sta tend to react more
speedily to phone calls because of having internalized the norms of customer
service relating to `low waiting times', and identifying themselves to be telephone
banking sta (many enjoyed taking calls). The bulk of sta suggested that rather
than a more enriched and satisfying working experience, work was often less
enjoyable and was indeed more stressful. This in part stemmed from the stress of
185
having to deal with customers directly; but also from the diculties experienced in
constantly switching from one job to another.
One commentator has labelled the empowered form of working oered by
BPR's advocates as `functionalist humanism' (Willmott, 1995b). This refers to job
enrichment or enlargement programmes that seek to humanize the working
environment but do so only in so far as such programmes serve management's
ends, and is contrasted with `democratic (anti) humanism'; which is associated
`with an expansion of processes of self-determination' (Willmott, 1995b, p. 92).
Functional humanism, it is argued, is ùnlikely to proceed without resistance and
complications' (p. 93) for two reasons. First, because employees are unaccustomed
to discretion and autonomy, and second, ìn the absence of a shift in power
relations . . . empowerment will be assessed as a patronizing act of false charity'
(p. 93). We agree that functional humanism is often little more than a sharing of
power with employees (empowerment) largely for purposes of regaining managerial control (Fox, 1974). It is also the case that some employees will resist the
demand to be more autonomous partly because they have learned to distance
themselves from the work process and do not want the activity to invade their
minds as well as their bodies or vice versa (Collinson, 1992; Gouldner, 1954).
Others may see it as a patronizing act of false charity. The clear value of such
critique is that it displays the organization of work as much more complicated
than a hierarchical control model suggests. But in asserting that functionalist
humanism `nurtures a deep and more insidious exercise of control' (Willmott,
1995b, p. 95), there is a danger of closing o some of the complexities that have
already been acknowledged. So, for example, not all sta in our research resisted
greater autonomy or saw it as patronizing; some welcomed it, others discovered
new forms or spaces for resistance through it and yet others recognized it directly
as an intensication of control. Also, given the ineradicable character of tacit
knowledge (Collinson, 1994; Manwaring and Wood, 1985), it is rare to nd
employees totally unaccustomed to some degree of autonomy or discretion. What
was clear from our study, however, is that even the most limited increase in
employee autonomy created diculties for management seeking to co-ordinate
individuals pursuing a multiplicity of tasks.
Some commentators suggest that BPR endeavours to deny or displace organizational cultural traditions (Grint and Willcocks, 1995). They warn of `the envisioned
eects of BPR induced, IT-enabled amnesia. Uncertain, displaced and deracinated
entities wander aimlessly in worlds void of organizational and cultural meanings'
(Grint et al., 1996, p. 55).
Even if BPR could be enacted in full, which we doubt, there are considerable
dangers involved in doing so because if an organization's memory is obliterated by
shifting sta from job to job and/or removing several of them, all tacit skills not
only have to be relearned but there will also be a dearth of resources available to
manage even the most limited kind of crisis. In a similar way Fincham (1996,
p. 15) asserts that `like magic, re-engineering is part of a self-perpetuating total
discourse that excludes alternatives and neutralizes dissent' (Fincham, 1996, p. 15).
Grint et al.'s analysis is highly sceptical that employees will succumb to this
onslaught on their historical and cultural memory and, likewise, our research
indicates that Machiavelli does indeed live on. Our ndings also suggest that while
BPR is persuasive and potentially totalizing in its eects, `for many, commitment
186
to the organization is likely to remain partial and conditional, if not narrowly

instrumental' (Willmott, 1995b, p. 95).
Through detailed case study work, we have attempted to provide insights into
the `lived experience' of those involved in a BPR work regime. In doing so, we
have been able to expose the obvious aws in the claims of BPR advocates who
believe it enriches work. Work is not nearly so satisfying and apolitical as the
promoters of BPR would have us believe. Employees are not like lumps of clay, to
be readily moulded into shape as part of a corporate programme of reengineering. Nor, as we have sought to demonstrate, will employees simply
become shackled and oppressed as some critics fear. The penetration of the BPR
discourse into `the domain of employee subjectivity' was limited in our case study
company. Employees' played the team game, interpreted ambiguous job controls
and work situations, found spaces when necessary to escape management's more
overt forms of control, and voiced their concerns about work intensication during
team meetings. Employees did, however, share in common a team spirit, identifying with other team members, and were also concerned with productivity levels
and customer service. On occasions sta even questioned the commitment of
management to service quality, suggesting a greater internalization of BPR values
and team working than some of the critics suppose. None the less, the important
point is that sta generally were able to retain control over some areas of their
work whether by management design or default, and this provided an important
channel through which sta stress levels were contained if not diminished. Indeed,
team meetings oered an important vehicle for expressing stress and discontent.
As we have argued, within what might be seen as `functionalist humanism', an
enlargement of the range of tasks that employees are required to perform results,
at best, in a fairly limited degree of autonomy or empowerment. However, it is
not possible to predict how or to what purpose such limited autonomy may be
used. So, for example, as a result of the expansion of the range of work tasks, sta
may be able to manipulate their performance to benet themselves rather than
management. Employees may perform some work quicker than the times
prescribed, and thereby build up a further pocket of autonomy. They can switch
to using the phones or avoid doing so; they can do so quickly or slovenly.
Paradoxically, it was to avoid precisely such a (mis)use of employee autonomy that
Taylor's Scientic Management technique of restricting employees to the
execution of tasks and giving management the monopoly over conception or the
organization of work was developed (Braverman, 1974). Theoretically, BPR's use
of IT should counter the autonomy enshrined within less atomized work. Yet, as
we have seen, new technology often presents workers with new opportunities to
maintain control over their lives, be that through manipulating aws in the inbuilt control mechanisms of the IT, by choosing how to respond towards
customers in terms of enthusiasm or disdain, by restricting the information oered
to customers or indeed even cutting them o. Sta may also evade controls by
concealing what they are doing through `mouthing words' to a ctional telephone
caller or by constructing a reality that mysties supervisors.
The case study also oers some indication as to how technology, which has
been designed or introduced by managers to control or facilitate work processes,
can be manipulated by employees to their own purposes that may or may not
coincide with those of management. Such spaces arise not least because of the
187
dierences in perception of those who `design', in contrast to those who ùse',

technology. Moreover, new technology provides creative opportunities for
operators to deploy it to their own ends. Their daily use of the system provides
them with insights about the limitations of the in-built controls of a technology,
that are far beyond those who have spent months or even years designing it.
Whether this autonomy could be developed more positively to engender organizational change that is more genuinely democratic rather than autocratic cannot
easily be ascertained. With the current mixture of restructuring, employee displacement, cost-cutting and the granting of highly circumscribed employee
autonomy, history would seem to be on the side of the critics. While the `spaces'
for employee escape and autonomy are clearly limited, we would not want to close
the door on particular changes a priori for the picture is much less clear-cut than
either gurus or critics envisage.
New technology is capable of increasing surveillance over how many tasks are
performed and the time it takes to perform them. Yet, as we have demonstrated, it
is not capable as Newton (1995) and others (Sewell and Wilkinson, 1992) suggest,
of revealing whether employees are cheating the system. Newton (1995) is correct
to recognize, however, that technology cannot indicate how employees `feel' about
the system. Team meetings, when viewed as a `stress management' technique can
`give employer's representatives a direct line to the soul of their employees'
(Newton, 1995, p. 66). But we would question whether it could confer upon
management the ability to `play the kind of celestial power game' (p. 66) that
Foucault's (1979) Panopticon has often been interpreted as implying. Indeed, team
meetings could promote dissent when employees collectively share their work
experiences which is how it diers sharply from individual counselling. For, as
Fineman (1995) suggests, `stress interventions . . . may succeed in ironing out some
of the interactional wrinkles, but they act as a cosmetic in social structures within
which people continually reinforce the same conditions of stress' (p. 127). By
suppressing surface dissent, team meetings could generate a more deep-rooted
resistance. Indeed, recent research has found that even individual peer reviews
cannot `smother dissent and resistance' (McKinlay and Taylor, 1996, p. 289).
Under conditions of excessive stress, if sta are unable to assess information
accurately and make informed decisions, work performance and customer care is
likely to suer. Yet, our research indicates something of even greater concern to
potential employers and BPR advocates; for before such a situation is reached, in
order to reduce their stress levels, employees may decide to cut customers o, or
adopt other methods that damage customer service. Management concerned with
thwarting such situations by designing ever tighter controls may generate yet more
instances of resistance, as sta endeavour to subvert management's designs that
serve to stress them further. Sta who were unaccustomed to answering the
telephone or did so for a considerable length of time tended to suggest that they
experience òverload'. Other sta expressed discontent at having to switch from
one task to another, and this reveals that responsibilities had become more
onerous for some people due to increased `role conict' or àmbiguity'. Multiskilling cannot therefore simply be equated with more rewarding work, as the
gurus suggest. Stress, however, was not simply to do with work intensity but also
concerned the loss of a sense of identity for some workers. None of the sta interviewed or observed appeared to be, or expressed that they were àt the end of
188
their tether' or òn the edge' in such a way as to capture `the essence of stress, the
vertiginous presentiment of imminent disaster' (Wastell and Newman, 1993,
p. 126). But this largely reected the ingenuity of employees in being able to
massage the experience of work pressures and limit the impact of work intensication.
In our case study, it was not possible to draw out any simple unilinear route
towards work intensication following BPR, even though overall there were signs
of increased stress. On the one hand, team-working generated antagonisms and
rivalry between teams while, on the other, it enhanced solidarity within teams
and, through team meetings, improved relations between team leaders and sta.
Role conict and ambiguity resulted from job switching between processing and
phone work. This was a problem for some but not for others. It is therefore
impossible to make universal statements about the impact of BPR in the bank
other than to say that where it was stressful, sta usually found ways of ameliorating its full impact.
As we have also sought to illustrate, sta are not simply victims of management
control, but are often active participants in the conditions that maintain and
reproduce control and the stress and resistance that may follow as a result.
Through engaging in ways to alleviate stress, often through resistance but also
through individual stress-management techniques, sta sustain the conditions of
its reproduction. Stress, in this context, needs to be understood as a collective
experience that is far from `natural' but reects the power relations and political
conditions of employment. The collective dimension of the reproduction of stress
is present in the `good-will' of sta who continue to balance the demands of
service quality with the incessant demand for calls to be taken. If there was a
collective rejection of quantity, and everyone concentrated on quality, then
perhaps management would be forced to recruit more sta. A useful form of
resistance then would be for employees to engage in a quality strike. The various
ways in which some sta resisted management such as cutting customers o or
being economical with the truth also adds to stress from irate customers ringing
back. Indeed, as these employees resist it may lead management to develop new
tighter regimes of control and so the cycle continues. We are not suggesting that
employees happily, willingly or knowingly engage in the conditions that generate
tighter controls, work intensication and stress. Nor are we suggesting that sta
are somehow locked within this cycle and cannot break out of its suocating
downward spiral. Indeed, it is our intention to suggest precisely the opposite but
collective awareness can be the only basis for change. This is not simply to
suggest that employees need to take up arms against management. Clearly,
lasting change will only be achieved through management's involvement and cooperation. On reading this alternative insight into the impact of BPR at work,
both managers and sta may be persuaded to reect on the practices they adopt
in relation to one another and other stakeholders. For unacceptable levels of
stress are not only inhumane but also inecient and counter-productive towards
the goal of service quality and ultimately `bottom line' results. The listening and
the ethical bank should be complemented by the `low stress' bank. It is ironical,
however, that concern with customers does not seem to be matched with an
equal concern with employees, but perhaps the greater irony is that the two are
seen as distinct.
189
In conclusion, this paper has been written with the intention of clearing a more
empirically informed pathway through the paradise gardens of the gurus and the
beastly jungles that some critics fear, so as to provide the basis for a less polemical
debate on BPR than has so far been evident. Having said that, we are certainly
more in agreement with the insights of the critics, and our empirical observations
conrm their anxieties more than they support the views of the gurus. But by
questioning theoretically and empirically the extent to which BPR actually has the
eects intended of it, our work suggests a slightly more restrained critique. If
management realize the downside of work intensication, stress, excessive control
and employment insecurity, BPR may begin to have the kind of positive eects for
those who remain in employment in the form of empowerment and creativity that
its supporters espouse. None the less, this will oer little comfort for those whose
jobs have been re-engineered out of existence or for those, in a re-engineered
form of working, who currently ask, `What happens when the phone goes wild?'
In practice, however, we are doubtful of change in a more positive direction
because the prevailing structures of power and domination within society militate
against it. Yet this is not to rule out the possibility of change per se for power only
exists in a relative sense as a relationship, the continuity of which depends as
much on those over whom power is exercised as those who exercise it.
NOTES
*We acknowledge funding from the ESRC L125251061. We also thank the anonymous
JMS reviewers for comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
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What Happens When The Phone Goes Wild

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Journal of Management Studies 35:2 March 1998

`WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE PHONE GOES WILD?': STAFF, STRESS

DAVID KNIGHTS AND DARREN MCCABE

claim. A number of studies suggest a greater degree of uncertainty and ambiguity

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE PHONE GOES WILD?

encourage a greater degree of reection on the potential impact of BPR on

DAVID KNIGHTS AND DARREN MCCABE

also feel there is a paucity of detailed critically informed empirical research to

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE PHONE GOES WILD?

DAVID KNIGHTS AND DARREN MCCABE

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE PHONE GOES WILD?

DAVID KNIGHTS AND DARREN MCCABE

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE PHONE GOES WILD?

`contested' terrain (Edwards, 1979) where the outcomes of management's strategies

DAVID KNIGHTS AND DARREN MCCABE

power ows downwards . . . [for] . . . subordinates are always in a position to refuse

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE PHONE GOES WILD?

of labour and management, maintains and reproduces such conditions. We

DAVID KNIGHTS AND DARREN MCCABE

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE PHONE GOES WILD?

DAVID KNIGHTS AND DARREN MCCABE

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE PHONE GOES WILD?

DAVID KNIGHTS AND DARREN MCCABE

By sitting in on a number of team meetings is was possible to observe that they

# Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE PHONE GOES WILD?

DAVID KNIGHTS AND DARREN MCCABE

`The problem is Tele-ready works out gures and then we have 30

# Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE PHONE GOES WILD?

`Do they [management] want quality or . . . ?'

DAVID KNIGHTS AND DARREN MCCABE

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE PHONE GOES WILD?

service while management limit their ability through work intensication to

DAVID KNIGHTS AND DARREN MCCABE

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE PHONE GOES WILD?

DAVID KNIGHTS AND DARREN MCCABE

to the organization is likely to remain partial and conditional, if not narrowly

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE PHONE GOES WILD?

dierences in perception of those who `design', in contrast to those who `use',

DAVID KNIGHTS AND DARREN MCCABE

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE PHONE GOES WILD?

DAVID KNIGHTS AND DARREN MCCABE

COLLINSON, D. (1994). `Strategic resistance: power, knowledge and subjectivity in the

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE PHONE GOES WILD?

FINEMAN, S. (1995). `Stress, emotion and intervention'. In Newton, T. (Ed.), Managing

DAVID KNIGHTS AND DARREN MCCABE

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE PHONE GOES WILD?

services'. Research Report, Financial Services Research Centre, Manchester School of

DAVID KNIGHTS AND DARREN MCCABE

# Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998

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