The Emergent Evolution of Human Risks in Service Companies Due to “Control Industrialization”: An Empirical Research

Service enterprises have traditionally used organizational models from the manufacturing and industrial sectors, incorporating ideas such as hierarchy, task repetition, and standardization of procedures. These disciplined production systems tend to use humans more than machines in the production of services, 2 however, which we posit may lead to significant organizational problems. Consequently, we conducted an ethnographic study on the notion of “human risks” in service companies from the Geneva region, which is known primarily for its banking sector. Our study is based on transcripts from more than sixty semidirected interviews conducted over the last two years. Our findings and analyses indicate that service companies are indeed quite “industrialized,” and that “process normalization,” which is intended to mitigate operational risks in service industries, is actually at the core of significant organizational risks.