Does Contact Between Employees and Service Recipients Lead to Socially More Responsible Behaviours? The Case of Cleaning

Placide Abasabanye (1) , Franck Bailly (2) , François-Xavier Devetter (1)

1 CLERSÉ - Centre Lillois d’Études et de Recherches Sociologiques et Économiques - UMR 8019
2 LASTA - Laboratoire d'Analyse des Sociétés, Transformations et Adaptations

Cleaning occupations, which in recent years have accounted for a not inconsiderable share of employment and job creation in France, are characterised by particularly bad working conditions and low pay. Is this situation inevitable? Are there not in fact mechanisms that might lead employers in the cleaning sector to adopt socially more responsible behaviours towards their employees? After all, the literature on corporate social responsibility suggests that the actions of consumers could be one of these mechanisms. The aim of our paper is to test the impact on job quality of contact between cleaning workers and service recipients. To this end, we analyse data from a survey carried out by the French Ministry of Labour and supplemented by interviews. Our results indicate that contact with service recipients does indeed have an influence.

Domains: Quantitative Finance [q-fin]

Placide Abasabanye, Franck Bailly, François-Xavier Devetter. Does Contact Between Employees and Service Recipients Lead to Socially More Responsible Behaviours? The Case of Cleaning. Journal of Business Ethics, 2018, 153 (3), pp.813-824. ⟨10.1007/s10551-016-3390-5⟩. ⟨hal-02445893⟩