India, often referred to as the 'electronic housekeeper of the world', is home to the largest number of offshored call centres. This makes it very important to understand how BPO providers in India manage their human resources. The key message from recent empirical studies on Indian call centres/BPO is that human resources are at once the greatest strength and the greatest challenge confronting this new industry. Many of these studies are, however, based more on polemics and managerial rhetoric as opposed to the systematic empirical investigation of the employment relationship. This first-of-i.