Knowledge work as occupational strategy ... - Wiley Online Library

New Technology, Work and Employment 21:1 ISSN 0268-1072

Knowledge work as occupational strategy: comparing IT and management consulting Robin Fincham Information technology and management consulting are two classic areas of knowledge work. Analysing them not in terms of ‘essential traits’ but occupational strategies addresses the problem of virtually all expert labour in the so-called information society being seen as ‘knowledge work’ of one sort or another.

In much recent research, expert labour is seen as an array of disparate types of jobs and is pervaded by assumptions about the so-called knowledge society. In particular, categories of ‘professional’ and ‘knowledge work’ tend to be used interchangeably in the post-modern or post-bureaucratic age (Morris, 2000: 139; Peiperl et al., 2000: 123), while terms like the ‘new professional or knowledge worker’ are applied across many expert occupations. In part at least, this confusion results from attempts to pinpoint ‘essential’ occupational attributes and define static forms of occupational classification. Possession of problem-solving skills, abstract reasoning and skills of mediation between user and client groups define a broad assemblage of designers, researchers, marketers and media people. Any differences—knowledge workers not being accredited or organised in the same ways as traditional professionals—are noted but seen as unimportant in the rush to unite all knowledge-based labour (e.g. Reich, 1991). This paper attempts to overcome problems of overarching occupational categories by developing an alternative focus on the occupational strategies that define knowledge work. This more critical perspective abandons attempts to define inherent and unchanging occupational traits, and draws a distinction between knowledge work and professions as separate expert groupings. Knowledge workers as a segment of expert occupations and knowledge work strategies are seen as distinct from strictly professional strategies. Nevertheless, this approach borrows a leaf from the debate on

❒ Robin Fincham ([email protected]) is Professor of Organizational Behaviour at Stirling University. His research interests are based around management knowledge, including management fashion/ideas, management consulting and occupational aspects of knowledge work. © Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2006, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

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professions, as much current thinking on knowledge work resembles a stage of theorising the professions that came prior to a period of critical revision. It is widely recognised that the study of professions advanced to a more critically informed stage when the emphasis shifted away from attempts to identify the characteristics of each and every profession. The traditional focus on ‘essential’ occupational traits meant that the standard of professional conduct was seen as an outcome of intrinsic qualities such as lengthy training and accreditation and the importance of ethics and self-regulation, but critics saw this as a static approach mired in functionalist assumptions. Which traits are the core elements of all professions in all circumstances, and which select occupations are to be classified as professions, were questions that ultimately led nowhere (Johnson, 1972: 25). This critical reappraisal paved the way for a view of the professions as a way of organising expert knowledge, and ‘professionalism’ as a strategy of occupational power. In analysing knowledge work, a parallel change of emphasis towards seeing this as the basis of a grouping of occupations marked by alternative strategies of occupational control is put forward. In the paper, rather than focusing on occupational categories and categorising, forms of work are considered that by broad agreement can be seen as typical of knowledge work. The twin cases of the computer-skilled occupations and management consulting, perhaps above all, have been seen as representative types. Consulting engages in problem-solving (i.e. the client’s problems) as well as in the manipulation of symbolic values—both seen as defining aspects of knowledge work— while computing controls the core technology of the knowledge society. Computing and consulting are large and expanding occupational groups with links to the currents and fashions of management, and the sense that they are at the formative edge of change also contributes to the perception of them as archetypes of knowledge work. The paper thus seeks to advance the debate on ‘knowledge work’ by developing a comparative account of computing and consulting. In studying this from a perspective of occupational strategy and control, primary research conducted by the author, as well as a range of secondary sources and existing research on the two occupational areas are selectively drawn on. To begin with, though, the nature of the professional project and alternative knowledge-based strategies and some existing distinctions between these occupational strategies are explored.

Professions and knowledge work In the debate on the professions, the alternative strategic view focused on the power of particular occupations to control their knowledge base and, through that, the demand for their skills. Occupational strategy in general was defined in terms of achieving control over occupational status, rewards and boundaries (Child and Fulk, 1982), while a specifically ‘professional’ strategy meant exclusivity of action and control over the supply and demand of labour. Later research developed other related dimensions. The professions were seen as a ‘project’ of collective mobility (e.g. Larson, 1977; Leicht and Fennel, 2001) and, in particular, the knowledge dimension became the basis of a powerful type of boundary. The ‘theorising’ of a body of abstract knowledge was seen as a form of strategic action in its own right, and a means of investing work with politically defined knowledge (Strang and Meyer, 1993). The strategic perspective thus removed the need to define unchanging occupational features. Within this perspective a pluralist view was implied: professionalism may be just one among several empirically evident and theoretically possible alternatives. In other words, if professionalism is seen as a distinctive occupational strategy (one is tempted to say ‘mere’ strategy), questions about other potential strategies arise, and what type of strategy might be evident in occupations defined as ‘knowledge work’. Unfortunately, in the mainstream debate on knowledge work and knowledge workers, there seems to be no critical breakthrough equivalent to the one in the mature debate on professions. Mainstream thinking in this field basically developed out of the knowledge society thesis (Bell, 1973) with its core principle of ‘knowledge’ being at the centre of all economic and social development. Many accounts of occupational © Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2006

Knowledge work as occupational strategy

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structure, patterns of inequality and so on, partly reflect the working through and refining of this proposition. For Drucker (1969; 1993), who coined the term, the knowledge worker is the ‘typical worker of the advanced economy’ (1969: 251) and accounts for ‘a third or more’ (1993: 57) of the total workforce. They also represent an elite group via the simple formula that they possess knowledge as the new means of production. Similarly, in Reich’s (1991) account, his famous category of ‘symbolic analyst’ reconfigures knowledge, emphasising abstract and symbolic forms that include ‘all the problem-solving, problem-identifying and strategic-brokering activities’ (p. 177) in the new economy. Reconfigured knowledge determines the ‘economic fate’ of nations (p. 196) and the divergence in rewards received for work (p. 208). This too represents a model of occupational expansion and ascendancy, as these job categories, fed by the growing global demand for abstract/symbolic knowledge, expand. However, these accounts develop images of knowledge work and knowledge workers, and attribute levels of influence to them, that betray a limited understanding of wider power discourses. When possession of the key scarce resource is seen as the basis of social capital, ‘knowledge work’ as a category aggregates virtually the entire range of ‘expert’ occupations. As various critics have pointed out, this translates into hopelessly vague criteria for any meaningful work category or any distinctive social role for these occupations (e.g. Kumar, 1996; Warhurst and Thompson, 1998).

Knowledge work and occupational strategy Much of what constructionists and post-modernists say about scientific and technical knowledge has reflected on these problems. Here, concepts of hard knowledge are replaced by more contextualised ideas of ‘knowing’ within systems of social activity, while knowledge is situated in distributed relationships inseparable from the practices that constitute it (Blackler, 1995; Tsoukas, 1996). But even this more nuanced and contextualised rendering of knowledge creation still defines essential attributes such as creativity and powers of abstraction, and sets few limits on the services that knowledge practitioners offer (e.g. Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; Tsoukas, 1996). The new elites and their associated knowledge delineate an array of occupations from which it is hard to exclude any professional, technical, managerial or ‘expert’ group. As Blackler et al. (1993: 858) note, the main accounts of knowledge work still try to classify all manner of jobs under one head and fete the progressive nature of groups. Given the need to shift the terrain of debate, a number of distinctions already made in the field help in differentiating strategies of knowledge work from those associated with professionalisation. For example, Rubery and Grimshaw (2003: 8) stress that any overriding trend towards work organisation based on ‘problem-solving and innovatory capacities’ is overstated and constrained by surviving Fordist/Taylorist systems. Similarly, Warhurst and Thompson’s (1998) critique is aimed specifically at the engrossing tendency of defining vast numbers of jobs as ‘knowledge work’. This produces an ‘entirely misleading appearance of the growth of more knowledgeable workers’ (p. 4). The actual content of much so-called knowledge work is routine information handling and service work. Even the idealised end, where abstract thinking is infused with tacit knowledge and creativity, is not immune from managerial control. And Warhurst and Thompson also stress the limits on knowledge work and a ceiling on the ‘capacity for creativity and intuitive exploration’ (p. 12). Reich (1991) in some ways both exemplifies the tendency to expand the category and makes careful distinctions about the nature of knowledge work. For Reich, the emerging division of labour is a simple affair. There are routine production and routine service jobs (which effectively he lumps together) while the third category is the symbolic analysts; and in singling these out, he stresses the importance of making realistic appraisals of work activities. That said, Reich sits firmly in the ‘knowledge society’ camp. People’s competitive position is determined ‘by the function they perform’ (p. 208) and there is effectively no expert division of labour, only the ‘one job’ of symbolic analyst. 18


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These accounts emphasise the actual activities engaged in by knowledge workers (though Warhurst and Thompson’s focus on knowledgeability means they see these occupations as constrained by power and hierarchy, while Reich sets no limits on their ascendancy). But there is less concern to distinguish knowledge workers’ occupations from those of professions. Reed’s (1996) influential model of the main areas of ‘modern expertise’ is one of the few to distinguish the occupational strategies of knowledge workers. He structures the contemporary expert division of labour into three main types. The first two reflect the familiar distinction between old and new professions (cf. Johnson, 1972), or the traditional liberal professions based on independent practice versus professional groupings developed in corporate settings; the third and newer group is knowledge workers or what he also calls the ‘entrepreneurial professions’. Reed’s model suggests a systematic pattern in which each occupational category is linked to distinctive knowledge forms and power strategies for occupational control. The pattern that characterises knowledge workers is an ‘esoteric and intangible’ knowledge base together with a power strategy of ‘marketisation’—that is acquiring specialist skills with market appeal in particular sectors and domains (1996: 586). The above distinctions challenge assumptions about the possession of knowledge, and the capacity to apply and transfer it, as being what configures ‘knowledge workers’ as an all-inclusive category. Instead, in these accounts, the expertise of knowledge-based occupations is recognised alongside factors relating to the uses to which knowledge is put and the means by which groups influence what is counted as knowledge. The approach adopted here takes these models as a point of departure and, rather than starting from the range of occupations, the complex ways in which knowledge and expertise relate to underlying strategies of occupational control are explored in classic areas of knowledge work.

Computing and consulting expertise A core factor in knowledge work is the notion of ‘expertise’ being exercised, and there are perhaps implicit assumptions about some sort of homogenous skill set existing within the category if this is how the work is being defined. Reed’s (1996) model in particular, while distinguishing elements of expert labour, still ascribed an underlying pattern in the knowledge/expertise base of knowledge workers. However, using the two case study occupations of potential knowledge workers, some major occupational differences regarding skills and how skills are perceived are striking. As regards computing, some doubts circulate about whether this is the type of expertise that professional claims could be built on. Whether computing has an underpinning of abstract principles and a corpus of transferable knowledge is possibly undermined by the pace of technological change and trends like the growth of ‘product skills’. Nevertheless, ‘explicit’ and codified knowledge always has a subjective and applied side, and is only relatively formal. Despite the pace of change of knowledge, computing has to be seen undeniably as an abstract theoretical field. Computing science and studies have a strong affinity with hard technical knowledge and produce a steady stream of skilled labour at graduate and post-graduate levels. The ‘theorising’ of ideas as a distinct stage within the occupational group (Strang and Meyer, 1993) characterises computing as a discipline. A telling indicator of the nature of these skills from the systems literature is reflected in the potential for deskilling. A ‘deskilling debate’ has raged around information technology (IT) work that mirrors all possibilities of the labour process. The idea that programming was in danger of becoming a degraded activity was an early worry. Greenbaum (1998), for example, stresses that, irrespective of the stage of technology— whether old-fashioned mainframes or the Internet—computer systems are designed with only bureaucratic-type domination in mind. More optimistically, Beirne et al. (1998) map a series of rationalising pressures on work in computing, but also stress that these interplay with limits on managerial control, so that the overall picture ‘remains ambivalent’ (p. 146). Yet others challenged classic Braverman-type arguments, and argued that threats of deskilling had been greatly overstated (Friedman, © Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2006


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1989). For our purposes, the outcome of this debate is not particularly important, but certainly the concern around deskilling reflects a view that IT skills are underpinned by solid competencies and a body of theoretical knowledge. Contrast this with management consulting where the literature has never hinted at such problems. Consultants at one level do have formalised techniques (such as SWOT and the Boston Box). But the widespread perception is that these do not amount to a genuine occupational ‘language’ or body of theory (e.g. Alvesson, 1993; Kubr, 2004). Consulting is widely seen as a ‘weak knowledge’ field and classed with business services such as advertising and public relations (Alvesson, 1994; Pieczka, 2002). For management consulting, the problem has been the legitimation of skills—in other words, in contrast to computing where the diminishing of accepted knowledge is the issue, for consulting the issue is the amplifying of weak knowledge. The defining problem of consulting as an activity lies in persuading managerial clients of the worth of their advice (e.g. Clark and Salaman, 2000; Legge, 2002). The different problematics of guarding a body of theory versus verifying lessaccepted skills relate to distinctive usages and narratives built around knowledge. Here Kirk and Vasconcelos (2003) contrasted the ways of working and types of knowledge usage of IT/systems experts and general management consultants and found two distinct approaches. In certain respects, the systems staff seemed closer to a ‘professional’ norm insofar as they protected their expert knowledge; they retained the details of methods internally and developed a language of cryptic phrasing and tacit understanding in client dealings. In contrast, the management consultants formalised more methods; their discourse attempted to be more transparent and developed a ‘sophisticated shared vocabulary’ with the client (p. 40). Other evidence also suggests consultant identity differs from IT in its construction of the client relationship. Anecdotal data suggest consultants in particular are ambivalent towards the professional label—they feel the true identity of consulting is not a professional one and that the clamour for professionalism is outdated (e.g. Kubr, 1996: 119). Partly at least, this reflects an emphasis on understanding clients’ ‘real problems’ and learning how to present their work in ways that are listened to by client management. This was confirmed in Oakley’s (1993) survey of consulting firms. She supports the view that it would hardly be advantageous for consultants to pursue a professional strategy. According to Oakley, the ‘transfer of expertise’ to clients is the management consultants’ trump card and the basis of their occupational standing. We might sound a note of warning here, and be a little more sceptical of ‘partnership’ orientations on the part of consultants. Rather than any well-intentioned concern with caring for clients, two-way learning can also be seen as part of consultants’ rhetorical armoury that reflects their need to gain expertise from experiences with client firms (Fincham, 1999; Alvesson and Johansson, 2002). Nevertheless, the differences in knowledge transfer still point to distinctive expert discourses—one supporting a monopoly of knowledge and another supporting shared learning—hence efforts to define the category in terms of a common knowledge or expertise base (‘esoteric and intangible’) might be mistaken.

Professionalisation in computing and consulting Despite these differences in what might appear to be an essential attribute of knowledge work, similarities in other areas do suggest a common work category. If we consider the power of groups to claim status, perhaps a basic point to clarify, in computer-skilled work and management consulting, is that the extent of ‘professional’ occupational activity is circumscribed. IT and consultants are both groups that are marked by weak professionalisation. Neither is anywhere near controlling occupational entry or the supply of qualified labour, nor do employers require accreditation or place much value on it if obtained. In computing in Britain, formal collective strategies are pursued mainly via the British Computer Society (BCS) (the Institute of Electrical Engineers also organises computer-skilled staff in some industries, but is a much smaller group). The Society 20



has always sought a professional identity. It pursued the professional route through chartered status and affiliation with engineering as a high-status cognate discipline, and it also has a sphere of influence in higher education. In most respects, however, this is a weak framework of representation and the BCS resembles a society of enthusiasts. Awareness of the Society in industry is low and the membership base remains narrow. Chartered status also seems to have achieved little, and in recent years membership has been opened up by simplifying membership grades and switching emphasis to ‘competence’. Now practitioners can become members much earlier in their careers (Computer Bulletin, 2003a). But in bidding for growth and inclusive means to extend membership, the BCS is signalling its failure to achieve exclusivity as the mark of powerful professionalism. In management consultancy, which has a longer occupational history, certain elements have also hankered after professional status. The periodic reviews of the industry conducted by Kubr have been one of the main authorities making the case for a profession. He estimates US and European total membership of professional bodies at 50 per cent, though this figure is given without justification and seems an improbable statistic. Perhaps more realistically, Kubr estimates membership in the UK and USA, the two largest consulting markets, at 15–30 per cent for the UK and a tiny 1–2 per cent for the USA. He also notes that certification and licensing have made little impact and that numbers of certified practitioners remain ‘very small’. As with computing, the trend among professional bodies in consulting has been to make practising as a consultant the main criterion of membership, while putative models for certification and reciprocity between member institutes emphasise competence and ‘time spent’ in the industry (see Kubr, 1996: 143; 2004: 141–145). Effectively, among computer-skilled staff and consultants, professional strategies have been revised beyond the traditional monolithic model of professionalism. Developmental factors like accreditation and ethical aspects cease to be unified with power dimensions and a monopoly of knowledge, and instead all this fragments. Smaller agencies and sole practitioners are interested in professionalism as a way of gaining reputation and legitimacy, but it is an emasculated version that lacks the power to lobby for a whole industry. In contrast, large business service organisations are well known as being hostile ground for professional growth. The large firms are really alternative jurisdictions that pay little heed to professional claims and recruit according to their own criteria (Suddaby et al., 2004).

Expansion of specialties and knowledge The point being argued here is that if groups like systems specialists and consultants are not using professional strategies and have few professional self-images, there is little justification in referring to them as professionals. The fact that this routinely seems to happen may be because there are no other labels or classifications to hand, or because the knowledge worker concept for many is a compromised one. But the strategic perspective encourages us to look for distinctive new forms of social action. In exploring what these might be—what occupational strategies computer-skilled people and management consultants employ—we should start with occupational expansion and differentiation. In these ‘frontier occupations’, the pace of change represents a dominant contextual factor that has profound implications for occupational strategies. Both computing and consulting have developed, especially during the 1980s and 1990s, at a pace that far outstripped general increases in employment (Table 1). Images of these areas growing and diversifying at a spectacular rate, and during times when other strata of management have suffered decline, been downsized or whatever, are firmly fixed as part of their occupational identity. Computing has a history of seismic shifts from hardware to software, from mainframe installations to networking, and recently from functional groups to user control and involvement, which has meant knowledge diffusing from established bodies (Friedman, 1989; Rose, 2002: 157). Similarly, for management consultancy, from the 1960s firms developed techniques © Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2006


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Table 1: Occupational growth in computing and consulting Numbers of employees

Consultancy services (including market research) Computer and related activities All occupations

% increase 1995–2003

1995

2000

2003

163,200

207,100

257,700

58

224,400 214,919

431,600 249,135

485,400 253,534

116 18

Source: Labour Market Trends, various (HMSO: London).

that enabled them to standardise the delivery of strategic advice. At the most visible end, in the global agencies, large-scale change programmes have fuelled expansion so that ‘double digit growth’ has recently defined the industry (McKenna, 2004). As well as growth, high levels of differentiation define both groupings. In computing, the traditional divisions between programmers, systems analysts and computer operations have given way to new work in telecommunications, technical support and Internet skills. A range of jobs like business analysis, databases, data security, network and web development have appeared in recent years, and there are now estimates of upwards of 35 distinct operations or skill clusters in the overall IT function (NCC, 2004: 7). Management consultancy even more resembles a cluster of separate specialties. General management functions, like strategy and change management, combine with other areas of expertise. Some are distinctive occupations (such as finance, HR and of course IT itself) while others tend to be specialties in demand (such as mergers and acquisitions, procurement and project management). Since the inception of commercial computing, the supply of staff never kept pace with the demand for new forms of expertise, and industry surveys continued to trumpet the ‘skills crisis’ right into the late 1990s (e.g. Virgo, 1999). Several observers have linked labour market factors with technological diversification. Here Friedman’s (1989) model of computer systems development stressed that innovation in technology drives the demand for skills and maintains occupational advantage. Friedman even speaks of the ‘autogeneration’ of technology (p. 360), meaning that computer innovation is exceptional in the range of sources it draws on. Systems development does not follow an economic pattern of response to external demand, but new systems actually emerge from within the user community. In consulting, the equally rapid turnover of management ideas plays a similar role. Management consultants are central actors in the spread of management ‘fashion’ and they trade in the ideas that are the lifeblood of corporate processes. Here SahlinAndersson and Engwall (2002) highlight the ‘expansion’ of management knowledge— the ever-widening flow of models for better management that characterise the current era. This proliferation of new knowledge and expanding knowledge supply has direct implications for occupational opportunity. Management fashions translate directly into techniques that are consultants’ stock in trade, whether as the proprietary methods of the particular agency or the generic tools all consultants use (Fincham and Evans, 1999; Scarbrough and Swan, 2001). Thus, the same sense of control over innovations and the demand for skills seems characteristic. Just as the IT community can apparently ‘autogenerate’ technologies, management consultants are seen as active agents of fashion rather than just carriers of new knowledge. Also the skill orientations of business services as a whole—client focus and problem-solving competencies—have been linked with drivers of change and the global integration of production (Rubery and Grimshaw, 2003: 129), while the tendency to ‘aggressively market’ skills is central to occupational strategy (Reed, 1996: 586). On the other side of the coin, discourses of ‘technology’ and ‘fashion’ are both 22



renowned for exaggeration and overwrought claims for success, and in both areas processes of spin and hype imply that only a proportion of new systems ever spread commercially. But even massive failure rates (the computer fiascos and consultant horror stories) are taken as an indelible mark of cutting-edge industries and never appear to dampen the desire for the new (Sauer, 1999: 283).

Acquiring and legitimising expertise In this context, what underpins common strategies is the effort to acquire in-demand expertise (see again Reed, 1996: 586). Whether on internal or external labour markets, careers tend to be built around the acquisition of skills. Skills are legitimised and recognised (the vital political dimension) in technical, organisational and market settings, while the construction of marketable expertise means locking onto and stimulating the seemingly inexhaustible demand for new specialties. Computing In the IT industry, the incidence of outsourcing and the use of contract labour have traditionally been significant, and the option of being an independent contractor has been the choice of many. Large organisations frequently have in-house capacities so that internal labour markets are also the basis of career paths. In many organisational IT divisions, steady growth has mirrored wider occupational growth and differentiation. Here the diverse and extensive management structures of large IT projects bring technical and business staff together. For example, research undertaken jointly by the author (Fincham et al., 1994) focused on perhaps the main innovative capacity of IT, namely systems development. This study was in a large reservoir of systems employment, the financial services industry, and was based on multiple case research. In one case study in particular, the complexities of career formation were revealed in several phases of a large infrastructural project in a Scottish bank (see Ch. 12). In the IT division, among core development jobs such as systems programmers and analysts and project managers, there were blockages and familiar discontinuities between ‘technical’ and ‘managerial’ skills. But there were also different routes out of technical grades of programming and analysis. The basis of progress was the acquisition of industry experience. Formal training and education (with the exception of possession of a degree, which was important), professional qualifications, and even sector-specific experience made little difference to patterns of recruitment and promotion; what allowed specialist staff to develop their careers was experience of jobs in the IT industry as a whole. This also helped to refine the contrast between knowledge workers’ strategies, usually seen as individualist, versus organised professional strategies. The strategies adopted to gain skills in the bank had a collective aspect, but informally collective in the sense that group affiliations greatly assisted career moves. The research identified ‘expert segments’ of common skills and networks of contacts around which complex patterns took shape. It was not just the level or type of skills that defined a segment. The combining of technical and people-handling skills, and other pragmatic abilities such as knowledge of internal systems, played a key role. Also the skills that groups sought to emphasise were not always coterminous with technical skills, instead groups did not seek to validate all their skills but tailored them to the situation. These patterns reflected links between forms of specialisation and the network of contacts. In this distinctive kind of mobility, project expertise was shaped by a merging of organisational strategies to use skills and groups’ own strategies to gain status. This suggestion of a distinctive mobility project resonates with other research. In the typical patterns of professions, it has been argued that forms of elite mobility tend to be based on occupational hierarchies. But rather than an elite demonstrating its potential by Taylorising its own subordinates, another kind of mobility project that enhances occupational circumstances more widely is possible (Armstrong, 1990; Murray and Knights, 1990). The suggestion is that IT careers might approximate closer to this © Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2006


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type, and elite mobility for the few does not prevent a broader expansion of opportunities. Management consulting Further primary research based on interviews with consultants was conducted in three of the very large business services and systems firms (Fincham, 1999; 2002/3). This project focused on discourse and rhetorical themes that revealed the construction of occupational identity. The organisational settings were similar to many large-scale consulting firms where structures and hierarchies tend to be built around a matrix of ‘industry’ and ‘service lines’. These included groups for delivering industry-specific solutions, where expertise and knowledge of a particular sector were concentrated, and competency areas where specialties were developed. Individuals’ appraisals looked for experience within these groupings as well as seniority. As with IT, far greater weight was attached to industrial experience than other forms of qualification. But like the IT contractor role, consultants also have powerful market-based orientations; the top client firms in any given sector represent the cornerstone of consultants’ ability to benchmark leading-edge knowledge. In this sense, consultants developed the expertise to market themselves internally and externally. Strategies for building relevant expertise were also premised on knowledge and knowledge-generation. At one level, agencies formally ‘stored knowledge’ in databases which themselves betokened a well-articulated internal labour market. These held the accumulated experience of past projects and were consulted when new projects were being staffed, so that social capital in the form of experience and reputation was being built up. At another level, knowledge in the form of new management ideas and methods is frequently internally generated. Here, for example, Heusinkveld and Benders (2005) stressed that new concept development within consulting firms was an active political process. Effort in ‘gaining legitimation’ for ideas was simultaneously a career boosting form of organisational work.

Discussion In discussing the above issues, there is a central problem in imagining how a notion of ‘strategy’ might apply to fluid sets of practices. Reed (1996: 586), for instance, refers to the ‘power strategies’ of groups across the expert division of labour. Yet in comparison with the professions, which have defined occupational bodies, it seems much less easy to define intentions and clear discourses for looser groups like knowledge workers. Given this kind of difficulty, it may be useful to seek insights from the broader strategy literature. In an organisational and corporate context, strategy has been critiqued most influentially by Mintzberg and the McGill group. Indeed, their central problem was that of ‘collective intention’, or explaining how groups of disparate individuals might be said to act in some outwardly coherent way (Mintzberg, 1989: 25). Strategy for them was certainly real and observable, in patterns of consistent direction and behaviour, but they saw reality lying in the space between intention and spontaneity. Real-life firm strategies (or realised strategies) became a mix of deliberate planning and emergent/learned responses (Mintzberg, 1994: 23). No matter what the complexities in organisations, or occupational groups, what we might take from these models is that strategies can be defined by intent or simply a collection of discernable activities. Patterns of distinguishable behaviour in themselves reflect ‘strategy’ as this is partly a learned phenomenon. Direct and positivist versions of intentionality thus give way to more nuanced notions of occupational subjectivity. Strategic forms of action are seen as contingent on opportunities available for advancing the interests of knowledge-intensive labour, and are reflected in how occupational groups see themselves and their motives in organising their expertise. The research reviewed above revealed both similarities and differences in the comparisons of knowledge workers (Table 2). Computing and management consulting had similar market-based strategies for occupational control, and both were at the fore24



Table 2: Comparative occupational, knowledge and power dimensions

A rapidly growing and diversifying occupational grouping? An abstract theoretical knowledge base? An occupational power strategy based on ‘marketising’ skills?

Computing

Management consulting

Yes

Yes

Yes Yes

No Yes

front of technological growth and forms of competitiveness based on fashionable knowledge. But there were crucial differences in skills and expertise. Computing and consulting involved very different kinds, while narratives and self-images related to knowledge bases also revealed differences. From survey evidence and anecdote, notions of professionalism appeared irrelevant to consultants, and almost equally unimportant to computer-skilled people (although the idea of the ‘IT professional’ had a degree of resonance). Yet the knowledge base of systems and computing apparently as readily adapted to flows of hyped and transient knowledge as did the relational skills of management consultants. This is significant as the focus on ‘knowledge work’ seems to suggest that the knowledge base should be uniform [indeed, Reed (1996) as we saw assumed knowledge and power dimensions for these groupings would align]. This finding strengthens the case for seeing ‘knowledge work’ as better defined by common power strategies than by intrinsic knowledge. However, certain macro-level changes possibly place fine distinctions between occupations in doubt. While it has been stressed that knowledge work strategies are based on occupational dynamism and expansion, very recently computing and consulting have both shared an almost identical downturn in conditions. In management consulting, in the wake of recent scandals and crisis in international markets, the period of staggering growth in the 1990s now appears in historic perspective (McKenna, 2004). Similarly, if for different reasons, the skills gap in computing that continued to grow into the late 1990s has gone into reverse. The past four years has seen budget decreases and trends like the contracting of work abroad which could lead to classic work intensification if jobs are retained or recaptured (NCC, 2004; also Computer Bulletin, 2003b). If such change becomes the new signature of computing and consulting, concepts of knowledge work may need to be reappraised. This raises some interesting possibilities. We have seen it is the accepted wisdom that an ‘abstract knowledge base’ is linked with professionalised occupations and forms of control. Yet while this may be a necessary condition, it is evidently not a sufficient one. All professional occupations need abstract knowledge, but some (viz. computing) that have abstract knowledge may not employ professional strategies. However, against a background of declining occupational conditions, the appeal of professional strategies may strengthen for groups like computing, not so far noted for exclusivity. IT is possibly a unique occupational cluster insofar as it appears to have the key ingredient for professional claims on status, but so far this potential has not been realised. In the case of management consulting, by contrast, such an option would not appear open. These issues of occupational strategy link back to the wider role of knowledge workers. Some suggest that professional groups and the ‘new’ expert occupations are now hardly worth differentiating. Reed (2004) notably conjures up the modern crisis of expert occupations, as they reel from the mounting forces of the technology revolution and global managerialism. New ‘entrepreneurial’ (i.e. knowledge work) professions are distinctive only because professionalism in any case has had its day. Others, however, still argue that these groups are mediators of distinctive expert knowledge and apply skills in ways that distinguish them from old-style professional patterns (Leicht and Fennel, 2001). Despite a dip in occupational fortunes, expansion © Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2006


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and occupational opportunity may remain central to these areas of knowledge work sustaining their quest for marketable expertise. Debate has also been influenced by the long-held belief that within these groups lurks the embryo of some new occupational elite whose interests will dominate the knowledge society. Mainstream images of the knowledge economy we saw tended to produce ‘nostalgic’ myths about emerging trends. Rather like the pre-industrial craft worker, the knowledge worker once again possesses the means of production and is somewhat oddly elite that is also the mass of employees. Research has explored the possible ‘ascendancy’ of these groups in emergent organisational and social structures. In the case of IT in particular, the extent to which these groups possess forms of power in the corporate setting that are expanding into a wider social hegemony, partly reflects the ‘journey’ IT as a business function has been on. This has seen its organisational power growth from being a ‘mere’ technical service to becoming a powerful function within firms. However, the extent to which IT has actually migrated into the strategic space at the heart of organisational decision making is more in doubt; at best they appear to remain transitional occupations (Fincham, 1994; Bierne et al., 1998). Recently, Rose’s (2002) review of occupational survey data showed there was little to distinguish IT staff from other managerial and technical groups. Rather than exhibiting behaviour that ought to mark out a rising socio-economic group, they retained the image of ‘narrow’ technical people focused on defined problem solving. This pointed to IT as part of a new occupational stratum rather than being an extension of existing professional work.

Conclusion In developing an alternative conceptualisation of knowledge work, this paper took the view that computer-skilled work and management consulting are part of distinctive knowledge industries and share few of the traits of established professions. Drawing on the debate on the professions, critical analysis gave up seeking the essential traits of chosen occupations and emphasised instead strategies of occupational control and attempts by groups to construct jurisdictions of work. In the parallel case of knowledge work, efforts to define inherent traits or types of knowledge have tended to see knowledge work as encompassing virtually all ‘expert employment’ in the information society. By applying a ‘strategic’ approach, the analysis sought clearer distinctions between occupations. Secondary research and empirical studies conducted in computing and management consulting were referred to as classic examples of knowledge work. Occupational strategies for knowledge workers appeared emergent and nothing like as well-formed as professional strategies. Nevertheless, it would be wrong to see these as second-order. As a distinctive occupational formation, knowledge work was based on efforts to acquire marketable skills in the context of fast-expanding and differentiating occupational structures (see Table 1 above). And unlike professional strategies, knowledge work was not formally collective but based on mobilising expert networks, suggesting an intermediate strategy less exclusive than professionalism. More significantly, however, these similarities in occupational circumstances and strategies contrasted with differences in knowledge/expertise (Table 2). IT was defined by theoretical knowledge while consulting knowledge was more relational and implicit. Admittedly, with its technical/abstract base, IT shared certain ‘professional’ traits such as a tendency towards knowledge hoarding. But in both skills, clusters strategies fed off fashion and novelty, hence strategies seemed relatively independent of differences in the knowledge base. In regard to some recent accounts, this evaluation of knowledge work is perhaps untopical. For some, the storm of change in market-driven virtual economies means there can be no successful strategies, only survival tactics on the part of occupations. Others, though, maintain that the new workplaces remain sites of distinctive expertise. The openings and opportunities created by waves of new technology and the displacement and renewal of management ideas continue as the basis of occupational 26



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