The role of ICTs in the servitisation and degradation of IT professional work

Abstract

Recently IT work has been subjected to management approaches that apply production methods to service work. Specialised information and communication technologies (ICTs) used by IT professionals have played an important role in this ‘service turn’, but this has not been adequately explored in the literature. Via a qualitative study of IT professionals situated across the servitised IT functions of five UK‐based organisations, this article considers how these ICTs are inscribed with managerial logics that afford control benefits to managers while undermining professional autonomy and job quality. The article makes two main contributions to the literature. Firstly, it sheds light on how ICTs introduced into organisational IT functions support managerial control objectives and impact the job quality of IT professionals. Secondly, it suggests that ICTs may infect the logic of professionalism that takes pride in the quality of the work performance with a dominant managerial logic that places an emphasis on meeting management objectives.

Offshore outsourcing of R&D to emerging markets: information systems as tools of neo-colonial control

“…The emphasis of LIMS on Outsourcing of R&D to emerging markets supporting the fulfilment of managerial control objectives also creates lab workflows that are highly target-driven and repetitive. R&D work is thereby rendered largely devoid of worker discretion, with little importance attached to professional (scientific) expertise (Braverman, 1974;Trusson et al, 2018) and little space in which to pursue the professional objectives of individual scientists. This suggests that, when transferred to developing countries through outsourcing, the supposed high-end nature of scientific work looks remarkably more like outsourced low-skill, repetitive work than knowledge-intensive work (Vora, 2013).…”

Eine Frage der Kontrolle? Betriebliche Strategien der Digitalisierung und die Autonomie von Beschäftigen in der Produktion

“…Gandini 2019; Shapiro 2020) sowie in Bezug auf die Standardisierung von Wissensarbeit (u.a. Huws 2014Trusson et al 2018) behandelt, fokussiert die deutsche Debatte auch Veränderungen in der Industriearbeit. Der Begriff der "Industrie 4.0" fungiert hier als eine Art Leitmotiv.…”

Varieties of flexibilisation? The working lives of information and communications technology professionals in the United Kingdom and Germany

“…Tremblay and Genin's (2010) study of self-employed ICT contractors demonstrates that while they might enjoy a degree of 'strategic' autonomy, through the capacity to negotiate the terms of work assignments, their 'operational' autonomy or the freedom to determine how such assignments are carried out is often highly constrained. Much ICT work appears to have been degraded (Trusson et al, 2018), with the diminution of autonomy seemingly a function of technological change, rendering workers less valuable to employing organisations (Boes & Kämpf, 2018). Polarisation is apparent, with those in 'professional' ICT roles enjoying greater discretion than workers employed in more operational 'technical' functions Tremblay & Genin, 2010).…”

“…Our research builds on their contribution by investigating comparative variation in independence and autonomy among both selfemployed and directly employed ICT professionals. Trusson et al (2018) document the degradation of IT professional work. Our research has a broader focus, one which is concerned with ICT professionals' experiences of work and employment, and their engagement with flexibilisation, not just the nature of their work processes.…”