This paper presents a profit-oriented shift scheduling approach for inbound contact centers. The focus is on systems in which multiple agent classes with different qualifications serve multiple customer classes with different needs. We assume that customers are impatient, abandon if they have to...

Social incentives like employee awards are widespread in the corporate sector and may be important instruments for solving agency problems. To date, we have little understanding of their effect on behavior. Unique panel data from the call center of a Fortune 500 financial services provider allow...

Prologue: one world, diverse itineraries -- Glimpsing an urban future : divergent tracks of Gurgaon -- Inside a call center: otherworldly passages -- Neutral accent -- System identities : divergent itineraries and uses of personality -- Nightly clashes : diurnal body, nocturnal labor, neutral...