Technical rationality and the is specialist: Power, discourse and identity

Abstract

Drawing on theories of subjectivity this paper examines the constitution of workplace identities with specific reference to IS specialists; a group of specialist staff and managers who share a number of important occupational characteristics with accountants. It argues that identity is an important if unstable and socially derived mechanism through which actors sustain a sense of material and psychic security. Further, this sense of identity is formed through structural and discursive relations of power subject to change over time. The paper explores these issues through contextually situated interview material. In doing so it focuses on problems of choice and resource allocation in the development of computer-based systems and attempts to illustrate how particular identities are formed through dominant discourses and organizational practices. Its main concern is to reveal the tensions that develop between the strong technical rational ideals that underpin one IS specialist's identity and the changing organization practices through which he attempts to realize and reproduce his sense of identity. “Being an analyst is a young man's job; on guard in his lab within the fortress of his minuscule speciality, since the analyst is by definition infallible; and derided and regarded with a hostile eye outside the lab just because of his virtues as an incorruptible guardian, a severe, pedantic, unimaginative little judge, a stick poked in the wheels of production” ( Levi, 1986 , p. 155).