Transformations of Human Employees’ Voice in the Service Industries: Contributions to Theory and Practice – THEVOICES

Public and private service organizations are faced with a situation where an increasingly important part of their value is generated by distant, voice-based operations. These operations occur in a technological landscape where potentially any conversational parameter can be optimized and personalized with voice technology. Yet little is known about whether, why and when these parameters impact the outcome of the conversation for employees and their organization, and the ethical and societal questions raised by the use of these technologies. THEVOICES project brings together an interdisciplinary group of researchers to address these important gaps.It investigates the managerial impact of innovative voice technologies at the size and complexity of real service interactions, while offering strong theoretical guidance for their effects. The project addresses key unanswered questions and aims to make a significant breakthrough in the design of the service systems of the future. The project also aims to advance the state of art by studying the ethical and social acceptability towards an AI technology, voice transformation, at the
upstream phases of its development and deployment.