ILPC 2026

Automatisation changes the way in which service is conducted. This simple observation is the starting point of the here presented empirical case study: In 15 interviews with employees, the workers council and managers from different hierarchical levels, and additional ethnographic fieldwork in selected departments of an insurance company, I investigate the impact of the time-shifted implementation of new software technologies (including an artificial intelligence tool) to the service work process. This approach aims to address the following questions: To which extend are these technologies already used in daily work routines? What are the consequences for organisational structures and intra-organisational boundaries? And how does the work process change in the context of automatisation? 

First empirical results show that simple customer inquiries are processed automatically by the systems in some departments, while more complex inquiries are handled by the employees - with the support of different software tools (e.g. the artificial intelligence analyses the content and linguistic behaviour, while improving its analysis in the course of time). The reasons for the implementation of technologies are - according to the management - an envisaged reduction of costs and a higher level of work quality. As a consequence, the rising degree of automatisation leads to more complex tasks on the one hand, as the simple and ease-to-solve problems are processed by the computer. On the other hand, the total amount of service work that needs to be done by the employees decreases, due to the rising share of inquiries that are processed by software systems. In some cases, the employees need to develop strategies to trick the system, as the rule-based software-systems do not allow certain procedures that comply with the rules but are not implemented yet. 

The usage of these technologies leads to a shared vision of employees, the workers council and the management: the work content of the employees will change completely in the future from processing customer inquiries to a more consulting role.

The empirical data will be analysed with approaches from organisational theory, in order to understand the changing power relations and intra-organisational boundaries in the context of the technology implementation process. However, a theoretical explanation can be drawn through the adaption of labour process theory: The control over the work process and the results is transferred from the service employees to the actors capable of controlling the software tools. Furthermore, the rule-based handling of customer inquiries leads to the requirement of substantiation in case of exceptions, what increases the managements control capability with regard to the work process.  

This contribution is work in progress: while the interviews have already been conducted, the ethnographic fieldwork will be completed in autumn 2017 and followed by an in-depth and systematic analysis.