Role Stress in Call Centers: The Effects of Role Stress on Performance and Satisfaction

Call centers have become an important customer access channel as well as an important source of customer-related information. Frequently, call center employees experience role stress as a result of the conflicting demands of the company, supervisors, and customers. In this article, antecedents and consequences of role stress in a call center setting are examined. Specifically, we investigate which forms of empowerment and leadership styles decrease role stress and how this subsequently effects job satisfaction, organizational commitment, performance, and turnover intentions. It was found that particularly the autonomy dimension of empowerment has a role-stress-reducing effect. Interesting substantive direct positive effects of empowerment competence and leadership consideration on job satisfaction were found. Job satisfaction was found to be conducive to job performance. Furthermore, it was found that job satisfaction reduces turnover intentions, directly and indirectly via organizational commitment.