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In this article we explore the concept of the customer and its application within the contemporary public sector. While the centrality of the customer ideal to 'the new public management' is clear, the nature, appropriateness and implications of its use are less so. Debates on these issues turn on meanings ascribed to the customer role. In the first part of the article we consider shifting conceptions of the customer appearing in literatures on consumption, organization and the new public management. The second part of the article explores the representation of the customer in an organization emblematic of the new public management in Britain. Jobcentre Plus is an emerging organization charged with delivery of the government's work-focused welfare agenda. The agency is involved in constructing customers from what once were benefit claimants and/or the unemployed. Through analysis of internal and public documents and observation of six sites, we explore the explicit and implicit meanings of the customer as conveyed through language and labelling, operational practices and features of the physical environment. We find a complex interaction of narratives of customer sovereignty and control. In the final part of the article we consider how this case may be read according to the academic narratives previously outlined.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual and empirical analysis of the rationale and enactment of consumer discourses in reformed British welfare administration, through a focus on consumption and the service interaction. The paper aims to explore how administrators use these discourses to manage consumption in particular ways in order to promote individual enterprise and employability, and analyse the pivotal role of front‐line workers in these efforts.Design/methodology/approachThe paper draws from range of data sources collected in a case study of Jobcentre Plus, including analysis of public and internal documents, observation of six public offices and interviews with 13 front‐line staff.FindingsImages of customer sovereignty are used alongside heightened control to try to shape claimants' motivation and capacity for work. Front‐line staff, mainly endorse reformed structures, but their view of claimants is complex, departing from the images fostered by administrators.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper highlights the importance of context‐specific understanding of deployment of consumer discourses in public sector, but interview data are exploratory and further research is needed.Practical implicationsThe paper highlights complexities inherent in customer orientation in welfare administration and the pivotal role of front‐line in reforms.Originality/valueThe paper provides a distinctive approach to analysis of customer concept in public sector reform, through focus on consumption and the service interaction.

This article explores categorization and labelling in organizations through a study of the social construction of clients by service agents in reformed British welfare administration. We analyse the content of client typologies and show how these are embedded in the nature of front-line service work and the organizational context as structured by social authorities. We find a pervasive categorization and valorization of clients according to their perceived attitudes to work, on the reported basis of their body language and demeanour in initial service interactions. This is embedded in a more complex system of social construction, encompassing diverse criteria such as capacity for aggression, gratitude and social status and age. We show how the criteria used by staff to make sense of overlapping groups of clients differs between the main sample in post-reform sites and those working in pre-reform benefit offices. We consider the research and practical implications of our study, the latter relating to the espoused strategy of personalized and flexible treatment of clients in an era of new public management reforms.

PurposeAims to analyse the reactions of front‐line staff to the use of the "customer" label in Jobcentre Plus, the new agency charged with structural and cultural reform of benefit administration in the UK and to highlight some key challenges and possibilities faced by "new public management" reformers in attempts to re‐present recipients of public services as customers.Design/methodology/approachData are drawn from semi‐structured interviews with 39 front‐line workers in 14 public offices, conducted as part of the second phase of a study on staff perceptions of the Jobcentre Plus reform.FindingsThe majority of those interviewed reported awareness of and agreement with the customer label. More substantive views point to the ambiguous and shifting meanings applied by public sector workers to the customer roleper se, and to its complex and multifaceted application to the Jobcentre Plus context.Research limitations/implicationsProvides a systematic account of front‐line workers' attitudinal reactions to the incursion of the customer concept. However, the impact on users of the system is a question for further research.Practical implicationsIdentifies a set of possibilities and challenges inherent in attempts to manage relevant cultural change amongst the front‐line of public service provision.Originality/valueProvides a systematic account of the views of front‐line workers to the customerisation of public service provision, an issue of interest both to researchers and to practitioners.

TQM is generally seen as depending on employees having a high
awareness of quality issues and a willingness to engage in continuous
improvement. Many total quality programmes have, implicitly or
explicitly, attitudinal change as one of their initial objectives.
Reports the results of a study which aims to assess the effects of a TQM
programme in a medium‐sized factory in the North of England. TQM
initiatives are invariably multidimensional and there is here a specific
concentration on assessing the relative impact on employees′ quality
consciousness of the programme′s various components. The results show
that those individuals whose attitudes changed most were more likely to
have been involved in certain aspects of the programme than were others.
In particular they were more likely to have been appraised, made a
suggestion under the revamped suggestion scheme, and to have attended
specific briefing sessions about the aspects of the programme. They were
also more likely to view the regular monthly departmental briefings in a
positive light. This suggests that appraisal, suggestion schemes, and
team briefings in particular, can impact on employees′ attitudes towards
quality, though in the case of the departmental briefings only if they
are done well and viewed favourably by employees.

This edited book is an authoritative and in-depth examination of the relationship between well-being and job performance. It will integrate research on these two issues, which are still seen by some readers as contrasting concepts. The meaning and value of well-being is a critical issue as it crosses cultures, socio-economic classes, and organizational levels. It has implications at the individual, work group, organization, and society level. The examination considers the personal and corporate costs and benefits of well-being and how to improve well-being and organizational performance. The chapter authors are the major scholars in their fields who provide a solid understanding of underlying theory as well as behavioural, job and organization design, and policy interventions to improve quality of life and work performance.