Documents in Operations: A Case Study of Multimedia in Avis Europe

Geographically-dispersed, global service organisations must find cost-effective ways of delivering consistent service quality while recognising local differences in service culture. For such organisations, the management of operations cannot be separated from issues of training, corporate culture, and organisational identity. This paper presents an analysis of the experience of Avis Europe, a leading car rental firm, in developing a multimedia system for training frontline staff. The case illustrates how multimedia technologies enable a new sort of organisational text that has implications for the way in which operations may be documented and enacted. In particular, multimedia allows texts that are complex enough to address issues of what Hochschild describes as “emotional labour” in service operations. These developments have great significance for both practice and research in operations management