유연한 감옥에서 서비스 노동자들은 어떻게 감시 당하는가 –미스터리 쇼핑과 노동과정에 대한 연구

The purpose of this study is to examine the nature of mystery shopping as a workplace surveillance and control mechanism, which is being widely applied to service workers. This study also aims to explore how mystery shopping intervenes in labor process, influences workers’ identity, and affects workers' health. For this research, I conducted in-depth interviews with fifteen full-time and part-time non-regular service workers from distribution, financial, hospital and restaurant sectors for four months from January to April of 2019. The analyses of the collected data show that mystery shopping takes the form of customer-centered bureaucratic control that monitors and controls service workers by service companies, and strengthens the control mechanism through continuous verification of emotional rules and ideological internalization. The analyses also confirm that the mystery shopping intervenes in the labour process, which transforms the interaction of service workers with customers that determine service production, increases the intensity of labor of workers, and influences their identity as workers through evaluation of the labour process and feedback on it. A secrete monitoring of labor and emphasis on a strict bureaucratic rules harm workers' autonomy, which not only adds to the work stress of workers but also limits the body's autonomous movements, leading to physical health problems such as musculoskeletal disorders. Mystery shopping needs to be reconsidered not only in terms of the problems of the workers' psychological and physical health, but also in terms of organizational efficiency and ethical aspects.