Emotional suppression and deviant behaviour in the call centre environment.
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Date
2008-09-10T12:35:55Z
Authors
Dockrat, Shaakirah Ismail
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Abstract
The present research aimed to analyse whether the emotional regulation or suppression of
call center employees in response to customer aggression or abuse contributes to deviant
behaviours, given the demands for friendly service in the work environment.
A call centre in Johannesburg, South Africa was used to conduct this research. This call
centre provides leading client service to Retail Banking, Corporate Banking and Business
Banking chosen markets. A qualitative study was conducted. Data was gathered by
interviewing participants working at this call centre. A non - probability purposive
sample of call centre employees was used. A sample of n = 17 was obtained for this
research.
Data was analysed using both content analysis and thematic content analysis. The present
research underscores the importance of exploring the aspects of emotional suppression
and deviant behaviour of call centre agents in the workplace. Furthermore, the present
research provides strong evidence for deviant behaviours engaged in which are often only
assumed as a matter of a priori reasoning or vague allusion. This research has found that
due to emotional suppression, certain call centre employees in this sample do engage in
deviant behaviours at work and make attributions outside of work.