Carreri Anna, Gosetti Giorgio, Masiero Nicoletta
Department of Human Sciences, University of Verona, Verona, Italy.
School of Social Sciences, University of Hasselt, Hasselt, Belgium.
Front Sociol. 2023 Mar 30;8:1141879. doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2023.1141879. eCollection 2023.
The article aims to shed light on the process of shaping the relational space of work in the service triangle through the progressive digitalization of work in retail banking industry. It addresses the following research question: how do technological shifts affect the relationships and interactions (a) between employees and supervisors, and (b) between employees and customers? Through a close examination of the redesign of the interpersonal relationships from the subjective viewpoint of front-line workers across these two levels, the paper contributes to advancing the understanding of the impact of technologies on surveillance practices, work identity and professional ethics in a key working sector with regard to digitalization and changes in professional requirements.
The question is addressed through a qualitative case study of retail banking in Italy. In the (retail) banking sector, the redesign of the relations between supply and demand for services is more sensitive to the changes afforded by digitalization and learning algorithms. The study was conducted with the involvement of workers and trade unionists, with whom we embarked on a constant work of re-articulation through data collection, analysis, and conceptualization. We collected a multiplicity of data for triangulation: interviews, focus groups, documents, and ethnographic notes.
Data analysis shows how work processes and interpersonal relationships start to be redesigned across the two levels. At (a) level, two main aspects are found: the measurement of individual performance within the logic of quantification, which reduces employees to a set of measured dimensions, pushing workers into conditions of stress and competition; new surveillance practices and forms of organizational control enabled by technologies and learning algorithms. At (b) level, from being an expert with specific knowledge in the financial sector the bank employee turns into a kind of seller of any product that the algorithm decides to sell, thus ignoring the value of situated experience held by embedded, embodied social actors. Moreover, algorithms enter jurisdictional spaces traditionally controlled by knowledge workers and produce unknown outcomes concerning to whom to sell which products that cannot be clearly understood by workers.
Technology contributes to engendering complex identity constructions to maintain, protect, and revise professional identity.
本文旨在通过零售银行业务工作的逐步数字化，阐明服务三角中工作关系空间的塑造过程。它探讨了以下研究问题：技术变革如何影响（a）员工与上级之间以及（b）员工与客户之间的关系和互动？通过从这两个层面一线员工的主观视角对人际关系重新设计进行深入研究，本文有助于增进对技术在一个关键工作领域中对监督实践、工作身份和职业道德在数字化及专业要求变化方面影响的理解。
该问题通过对意大利零售银行业务的定性案例研究来解决。在（零售）银行业，服务供需关系的重新设计对数字化和学习算法带来的变化更为敏感。该研究在员工和工会成员的参与下进行，我们通过数据收集、分析和概念化与他们展开了持续的重新阐述工作。我们收集了多种数据用于三角测量：访谈、焦点小组、文件和人种志笔记。
数据分析表明工作流程和人际关系如何在这两个层面开始重新设计。在（a）层面，发现两个主要方面：在量化逻辑内对个人绩效的衡量，这将员工简化为一组可衡量的维度，使员工陷入压力和竞争状态；技术和学习算法带来的新监督实践和组织控制形式。在（b）层面，银行员工从金融领域具有特定知识的专家变成了算法决定销售的任何产品的某种销售人员，从而忽视了嵌入其中、体现出来的社会行为者所拥有的情境化经验的价值。此外，算法进入了传统上由知识工作者控制的管辖空间，并产生了关于向谁销售哪些产品的未知结果，员工无法清楚理解这些结果。
技术有助于产生复杂的身份建构，以维持、保护和修正职业身份。
