Edinburgh Napier University

  The global call center sector has emerged as a vibrant and economically successful industry in recent decades. Training and development of employees is acknowledged as a key component of call center strategy in facilitating the utilization of new technologies, enhanced customer service, and profitability. Relatively little is, however, known concerning how training roles and structures are configured in call centers. Here, we explore competitive, institutional, and coevolutionary drivers of training and development roles and structures in European call centers. Drawing on qualitative data gathered from 20 call centers and multiple respondents located across Europe we found greater evidence of variation than similarity, indicating the importance of strategic choice and coevolutionary influences. The findings highlight the importance of institutional processes in understanding the similarities observed. The interaction of institutional, strategic choice, and coevolutionary factors is, however, extremely complex and requires further investigation.