The Customer Orientated Bureaucracy
Introduction
Customer Oriented Bureaucracy (COB) is an amalgamation of the two conflicting images of service work these being new service management (NSM) which suggests a win:win:win relationship between customers, employees and employers against the more negative aspect of service work brought forward by Ritzer which suggests that service work has become McDonaldised and is fake, demeaning and highly routinised. The original ideas were seen by Korczynski as being half right yet had their downfalls. The main flaw in the NSM was their use of the satisfaction mirror. This stated that the interests of the frontline worker were the same as the customer. This was conceptually flawed as research showed that employees want more pay and better working conditions and customers are looking for lower prices. Korczynski also looked in great depth at the McDonaldisation idea of service-work. Although retail-work does have the three dimensions of McDonaldisation these being efficiency, calculability and predictability its place as being totally rationalised was not seen in all organisations. This can be proven in my example of a supermarket where an employee is expected to follow protocol but use their experience and expertise to solve problems without having to get a supervisor.
These criticisms led to Korczynski proposing the innovative idea of the COB. The idea of this theory being that it is infused with two logics, these being that of the customer orientation, alongside that of rationality and efficiency. In effect these logics do contradict each other e.g. in terms of management, in the retail sector their will be variability and unpredictability, i.e. a customer at a supermarket wanting to have something ordered specially yet an employee will have the logic of rationalisation meaning that they have to act in certain ways. As well as this there is also the experience of retail workers. These workers have the conflicting thoughts of either following the logic
Customer Oriented Bureaucracy (COB) is an amalgamation of the two conflicting images of service work these being new service management (NSM) which suggests a win:win:win relationship between customers, employees and employers against the more negative aspect of service work brought forward by Ritzer which suggests that service work has become McDonaldised and is fake, demeaning and highly routinised. The original ideas were seen by Korczynski as being half right yet had their downfalls. The main flaw in the NSM was their use of the satisfaction mirror. This stated that the interests of the frontline worker were the same as the customer. This was conceptually flawed as research showed that employees want more pay and better working conditions and customers are looking for lower prices. Korczynski also looked in great depth at the McDonaldisation idea of service-work. Although retail-work does have the three dimensions of McDonaldisation these being efficiency, calculability and predictability its place as being totally rationalised was not seen in all organisations. This can be proven in my example of a supermarket where an employee is expected to follow protocol but use their experience and expertise to solve problems without having to get a supervisor.
These criticisms led to Korczynski proposing the innovative idea of the COB. The idea of this theory being that it is infused with two logics, these being that of the customer orientation, alongside that of rationality and efficiency. In effect these logics do contradict each other e.g. in terms of management, in the retail sector their will be variability and unpredictability, i.e. a customer at a supermarket wanting to have something ordered specially yet an employee will have the logic of rationalisation meaning that they have to act in certain ways. As well as this there is also the experience of retail workers. These workers have the conflicting thoughts of either following the logic
Bibliography: Chapter on call centre work Customer Oriented Militants = Paul Brook Manchester University Korczynski, M. 2002 ch. 3