Nursing on the line: Experiences from England and Quebec (Canada)

Abstract

Some industries, like telecommunications, finance and retail, have been operating call centres for several years and there has been growing academic interest in exploring the work experience of employees taking calls and answering telephone queries assisted by computers. Nurses who staff telephone centres in the healthcare industry are different from their counterparts in other fields. These are highly qualified workers with a strong occupational identity and distinct spheres of competence. However, occupation is not a constant as a mediator of technology and it is argued that the extent to which nurses were able to shape their call centre work differed cross-nationally owing to the simultaneous interplay of different societal constructions of nursing and the national-historical development of tele-health centres. This article uses cross-national qualitative case study research to examine the different effects of occupation, nation and timing of industry formation on the design and experience of call centre work in the healthcare industry.