Role transition management: Issues and control in a call center

In networked collaborative virtual environment, users from dispersed locations can work as a group. Each user holds certain roles along with responsibilities and access to resources. However, the virtual environment is dynamic and users have to change their roles frequently. The process is called role transition and currently it is managed by users manually or handled by specific domain applications automatically. In manual management, users are burden with unnecessary workload and the role transitions are prone to errors, whereas the automatic handling is limited to its preset role transition capability. This research aims to explore the provision of role transition management. This exploration will uncover the vital patterns for structured and flexible role transition management. In order to achieve the objective, this research has chosen a call centre in a leading banking system to capture real-life scenarios via observation and interviews. For immerse and deep understanding of role transition, personas have been utilized as a mechanism of illustration to demonstrate the complex role transition in the call center. All factors gathered in the study will provide strong foundation in the design of an automated system for facilitating role transition management that will balance the workload of an authorized human and an automatic programmable technical element in a system.