Exploring the public sector copy shop: from investigation to solution

• Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology

Over two years, we investigated a nationwide public sector copy shop with the goal of improving their customer service. Exploratory field visits to regional centers across the country and concentrated visits to shops within the state enabled us to gather ethnographic observations, audio- and videotape recordings of employee-customer interactions occurring face-to-face and over the telephone, and documentation of how the organization was transitioning to a web-based order submission process. Our analysis revealed the need to create stronger intra-organizational relationships and knowledge sharing among employees who are geographically distributed, consequently we co-designed an on-line employee-created and employee-supported knowledge sharing communication tool.

citation

Szymanski, M. H. ; Moore, R. J. ; Plurkowski, L. ; Whalen, M. Exploring the public sector copy shop: from investigation to solution. Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology; 2006 March 28 - April 2; Vancouver; Canada.