An-Najah Staff

This paper presents a comparative study of two service system designs, i.e., mechanistic and organic, in a public sector call centre environment. It explores the impact of each of these service designs on employees' affective commitment and on service performance. Thirty-nine interviews were conducted in mechanistic call centre and 16 in organic call centre. A nine-item organisational commitment questionnaire was also administered among employees in both places to measure affective commitment levels. The comparison revealed significant improvement in employees' affective commitment level using systems thinking design to create an organic structure when contrasted with employees working under mechanistic structure design. Further, systems thinking has been found of particular benefit to the service performance in terms of departmental communication enhancement and service waste minimisation. The value of this paper is the identification of alternative service design models applied to call centre operations that will leverage employees' affective commitment to improve service performance and enhance customer loyalty.

This paper explains the leveraging of affective commitment among call centre front-line employees through the improvement of service operations design in a manufacturing enterprise through systems thinking approach. A case study was carried out using face-to-face interviews, structured questionnaires, and observation methods to collect data at managerial and operative front-line levels. The case study finds a strong relationship between the level of affective commitment among front-line employees and the form of service operations system. The study has many implications for the manufacturing enterprises embracing a call centre to improve productivity and working experience. A higher level of affective commitment is likely to mitigate turnover and absenteeism in these service departments.