Maintaining norms about expressed emotions: the case of bill collectors

Administrative Science Quarterly, June, 1991 by Robert I. Sutton

5. Supervisor interviews. I conducted semistructured interviews with supervisors of buckets two, three, and six and recovery. They had between five and 20 years experience in the industry. In addition to supervising collectors, they routinely gave "manager talk-offs" to recalcitrant or irate debtors. Interviews lasted ninety minutes to two hours and were recorded and transcribed. Prepared questions concerned the supervisors' experience and responsibilities, the kind of person best suited to be a collector, how collectors were treated during the first days on the job, emotions collectors were expected to convey, and expected practices for dealing with different types of debtors. As in group interviews, I pursued other promising topics that arose.

6. Observing collectors. I observed 10 collectors while they worked. I sat alongside five collectors, one each in buckets two, three, five, and six and recovery. Each "side-by-side" lasted one to three hours. I watched the screen and (in four cases) used a headset to listen to calls. The collector and I discussed each call after it ended and communicated during calls via notes, facial expressions, pointing at the screen, and talking while the mute button was engaged. I observed another five collectors through the "spy-and-tell" system, which enabled managers to hear the collector and debtor and to see screens reviewed by the collector. I sat with a manager while she monitored the collectors and provided a running commentary on their performance during a two-hour period.

7. Written materials. I gathered written materials, including newsletters, a training manual, a book describing the corporation's philosophy of lending and its collection operation, annual reports, and flyers about contests intended to motivate employees.

Analyses

The analyses focused on reviewing and summarizing evidence about how this organization sought to maintain espoused norms about emotional expression, given that collectors' expressed emotions also were shaped by their inner feelings, especially feelings about debtors. This was one of several themes that I identified in these data; I was encouraged to make it the central theme here by editorial reviews of an earlier version of this paper. I followed the guidelines suggested by Glaser and Strauss (1967) and Miles and Huberman (1984) to develop an empirically grounded set of insights. The analyses conducted during data collection that are pertinent to the present paper focused on organizational norms about expressed emotions. I used an iterative process in which I developed hunches about these norms, compared these ideas to new data from the site, and then used the new data to help decide whether to retain, revise, or discard these inferences. My initial assumptions were based on Hochschild's (1983) report that the collection agency she visited expected bill collectors to display consistent hostility to debtors. I soon discovered, however, that the collectors in my study generally were expected to express milder negative emotions. Moreover, while Hochschild focused on the general norm of hostility, I identified specific norms about how collectors should adjust their expressed emotions depending on the characteristics of the debtor. More systematic qualitative analyses were conducted after the data gathering was complete. These analyses began by focusing on norms about emotional expression and the means of maintaining such norms. I found a general norm for conveying urgency to the debtor and five norms that were contingent on the debtor's demeanor: (1) displaying warmth to extremely anxious debtors, (2) showing irritation, even anger, to indifferent debtors, (3) showing irritation, even anger, to friendly debtors, (4) showing irritation, even anger, to sad debtors, and (5) remaining calm with angry debtors. Norms were maintained through the selection of new collectors, the socialization of these newcomers, and rewards and punishments. These data are summarized in Table 1 in a within-site display (Miles and Huberman, 1984) indicating the extent to which the three proposed means of maintaining the one general and five contingent norms were grounded in each data source. Multiple and unambiguous examples of the norm and its maintenance in a data source were taken to be strong evidence; a single and unambiguous example in a data source indicated modest evidence. I then focused on the feelings that collectors had about debtors. I identified six kinds of debtor demeanor that usually generated different kinds of inner feelings in bill collectors: (1) mildly irritated and mildly anxious debtors elicited mild irritation, (2) extremely anxious debtors elicited warmth, possibly sympathy, (3) indifferent debtors elicited irritation, possibly anger, (4) friendly debtors elicited neutrality, possibly sympathy, (5) sad debtors elicited neutrality, possibly sympathy, and (6) angry debtors elicited irritation, possibly anger. Table 2, a second within-site display, presents the six categories of debtor demeanor and the associated inner feelings that bill collectors usually had toward such debtors, summarizing the extent to which these inferences were grounded in each data source and, again, categorizing the evidence as strong or modest. These within-site displays are useful because the process of constructing them assured that I reviewed all seven data sources before reaching firm conclusions about norms and collectors' feelings. These displays also inform readers about the extent to which such conclusions are grounded in evidence. Nonetheless, as with any means of reducing and showing qualitative data in tables, these displays cannot convey the richness of these data or the nuances of the conceptual perspective. Thus, the text of this article presents data and inferences in addition to those summarized in Tables 1 and 2.