Depending on Smiles. Functions and Meanings of Customer-worker Interactions for Front-line Service Workers

• In Event: 413 - Section on Organizations, Occupations and Work Refereed Roundtable Session. Table 01. Culture and Organizations
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 15. Emotion Work

Abstract

The paper analyses how front line service workers (FLSW) perceive the interactions with customers. The aim is to investigate the ambiguities of these interactions, which are instrumentally commodified relations but, at the same time, human interactions with interesting multidimensional and contradictory features. Drawing on interviews with FLSW employed in large stores located in Italy, the analysis highlights three key aspects that are only seldom considered by the literature: (1) the strength and the multidimensionality of human interactions, (2) the process of self-identification with customers deployed by FLSW, and (3) the characteristics of workers that may influence their expectations and their lived working experiences.

Authors

• Giovanna Fullin, University of Milano Bicocca

• Diego Coletto, University of Milano Bicocca