Abstract
This paper aims to understand how organizationally contingent practices develop in professional knowledge work through developing the concept of tensions in practice. Based on an in-depth case study focusing on one form of professional knowledge work, the inspection of taxation in corporate bodies, the paper aims to increase our understanding of the inherent incoherences and tensions withing work practices. The results describe eight underlying tensions between two different stances on essential features of the practice that relate to the inherent ambiguities that describe knowledge work: ambiguity about knowledge, ambiguity about what is done, and ambiguity about results. The presented analysis shows how historical developments in the organization of work can increase these tensions, through which divergence in practices and organizationally contingent practices can develop.
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