Class Assignment 2

GMP
Business Research Methodology

Class Assignment 2
Q1. Please insert the references within text in APA Style using Mendeley and create an
automated reference list.
My family knows I am Jessica, and my sister teases me as Jessica. Aruna

and Jessica are now the same; I have associated with it for more than a
year. Sometimes I pick up phone at home and say, “Hi − this is Jessica
speaking.” (Female, age 25, tenure 3 years)
To be effective, call center agents who are located in India and service customers in the United
States must present personas at work that are very different from their non-work identities. Such
impression management tactics include using a Western name, embracing a foreign accent, and
following scripts that convey physical proximity to customers (2004 Mirchandani, Pal and
Buzzanell. Impression management serves many purposes in organizations. Individuals engage in
impression management in order to develop a professional image (Ibarra, 1999; Roberts, 2005),
build credibility in a new work role (H Ibarra 1999), and influence interviewer judgments when
applying for a new position (Fletcher C 1991; Gregory SW and Webster 1995). Likewise, service
providers use impression management to smooth relationships with customers (Ashforth and
Humphrey). In this article, I study how call center agents in India use impression management to
induce their customers to pay off outstanding debts.
Ideally, impression management “incorporates and exemplifies the officially accredited values
of the society” (Goffman, 1959: 35). It is a creative endeavor that takes into account both the target
audience and the context of the social interaction (Goffman, 1959). Individuals use audience
reactions to verify their identities (Burke and, 1999; Down Reveley, 2009). In this sense, context
appropriate behavior provides legitimacy and coherence for individuals.
Managing impressions effectively can be a cognitively demanding task in any situation. This is
because it requires exhibiting strategic behaviors (Baumeister al., 1989; Bozeman and Kacmar,
1994) that involve “an attempt to affect the perceptions of her or him by another person” (Schneider,
1981: 25). It may include any behavior by a person that has the purpose of controlling or
manipulating the attributions and impressions formed of that person by others. These demands are
enhanced in situations where individuals must switch back and forth between contexts that are very
different from one another. This is the case for Indian call center agents who must exhibit a “work
identity” that is very different from their “non-work identity.” Work identity, consistent with
Goffman’s interactionist perspective, refers to the self that is present in interactions at work with
The excerpt for this assignment has been taken from Sumita Raghuram’s following paper:
Raghuram, S. (2013). Identities on call: Impact of impression management on Indian call
center agents. Human Relations, 66(11), 1471-1496.
customers and other organizational members, whereas non-work identity refers to the self that is
present in interactions with individuals who are not involved with work.
The use of lean communication media to interact with customers across cultures makes
impression management even more complex. Such interactions are becoming increasingly common
because cost advantages have driven service arrangements to geographically dispersed locations.
Service providers use media such as email and telephones to span time zones and cultures (Aneesh,
2006; Patel, 20145). Lean media are limited in their ability to transmit informational cues, such as
facial expression, visual gaze, or overall demeanor of a person (Buzzanell et al., 1996; Daft and RH
Lengel, 1996). Instead, verbal aspects of impression management become important. Over the tele-
phone, for instance, call center agents must be more attentive to voice and aural cues in order to
reduce social distance with their customers (Giles H, 1973).
The cognitive demands of such attentiveness during impression management are likely to increase
if the audience is perceived to be in a more powerful position (Schlenker 1984). Indian call center
agents perceive power imbalances associated with post-colonial social values as well as
bureaucratic supervisory styles. Some researchers view call center work as the subordination of
Indian workers to the interests of the Western world (2005Taylor and Bain). This effect is rooted
in India’s historical colonization by the British and continues to impact the perception of an uneven
distribution of power in favor of a Western customer (Bhabha, 1994 Said, 1993). The call center
agents feel all the more powerless because of a “Tayloristic” management style that dictates the
speed and quantity of their work (Deery 2002; Noronha and D’Cruz, 2009).
References
Aneesh A (2006) Virtual Migration: The Programming of Globalization. Duke University Press.
Ashforth BE and Humphrey RH (1993) Emotional labor in service roles: The influence of
identity. Academy of Management Review 18(1): 88–115.
Baumeister RF, Hutton DG and Tice DM (1989) Cognitive processes during deliberate self-
presentation: How self-presenters alter and misinterpret the behavior of their interaction
partner. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 25(1): 59–78.
Bhabha HK (1994) The Location of Culture. New York: Routledge.
Bozeman DP and Kacmar KM (1997) A cybernetic model of impression management processes
in organizations. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 69(1): 9–30.
Burke PJ and Stets JE (1999) Trust and commitment through self-verification. Social Psychology
Quarterly 62(4): 347–366.
Buzzanell PM, Burrell NA, Stafford RS and Berkowitz S (1996) When I call you up and you're
not there: Application of communication accommodation theory to telephone answering
machine messages. Western Journal of Communication 60(Fall): 310–336.
Daft RL and Lengel RH (1986) Organizational information requirements, media richness and
structural design. Management Science 32(5): 554–571.
Deery S, Iverson R and Walsh J (2002) Work relationships in telephone call centres: Understand-
ing emotional exhaustion and employee withdrawal. Journal of Management Studies 39(4):
471–496.
Down S and Reveley J (2009) Between narration and interaction: Situating first-line supervisor
identity work. Human Relations 62(3): 379–401.
Fletcher C (1990) The relationships between candidate personality, self-presentation strategies,
and interviewer assessments in selection interviews − an empirical-study. Human Relations
43(8): 739–749.
Giles H (1973) Accent mobility: A model and some data. Anthropological Linguisitics 15(2):
87–105.
Goffman E (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Doubleday Books.
Gregory SW and Webster S (1996). A nonverbal signal in voices of interview partners
effectively predicts communication accommodation and social status perceptions. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology 70(6): 1231–1240.
Ibarra H (1999) Provisional selves: Experimenting with image and identity in professional
adaptation. Administrative Science Quarterly 44(4): 764–791.
Mirchandani K (2004) Practices of global capital: Gaps, cracks and ironies in transnational call
centres in India. Global Networks 4(4): 355–373.
Noronha E and D’Cruz P (2009) Engaging the professional: Organizing call centre agents in
India. Industrial Relations Journal 40(3): 215–234.
Pal M and Buzzanell P (2008). The Indian call center experience: A case study in changing
discourses of identity, identification, and career in a global context. Journal of Business
Communication 45(1): 31–60.
Patel R (2010) Working the Night Shift: Women in India’s Call Center Industry. Stanford:
Stanford University Press.
Roberts LM (2005) Changing faces: Professional image construction in diverse organizational
settings. Academy of Management Review 30(4): 685–711.
Schlenker BR (1980) Impression Management: The Self Concept, Social Identity and
Interpersonal Relations. Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole.
Schneider DJ (1981) Tactical self-presentations: Toward a broader conception. In: Tedeschi JT
(ed.) Impression Management Theory and Social Psychological Research. New York: Academic
Press.
Taylor P and Bain P (2005) India calling to the far away towns: The call centre labour process
and globalization. Work Employment & Society 19(2): 261–282.

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GMP

Business Research Methodology

My family knows I am Jessica, and my sister teases me as Jessica. Aruna

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