The customer in the sociology of work: different ways of going beyond the management–worker dyad

Abstract

Customers play a key part in the working experience of a significant proportion of the working class in contemporary service work. This e-special issue features articles selected from previous issues of Work, Employment and Society which have made significant contributions to our understanding of the role of the customer within the social relations of interactive service work. This introduction argues that the literature in this area is implicitly comprised of three approaches: an approach which sees worker–customer relations merely as an additional dimension; an approach which sees the customer’s role as having knock-on implications for a limited number of dimensions of work organization; and an approach which sees implications of the customer across the whole of work organization. The contributions of the e-special articles are brought out by positioning them within these approaches. This introduction ends with a consideration of strengths and weaknesses in the three approaches.