Rationalising Knowledge: IT Systems, Professional Identities and Power

Abstract

This paper explores the impact of a new IT system on the knowledge claims and occupational boundaries made by professional groups within a hospital laboratory setting. Within organizational settings professional groups enjoy considerable power and status through the specialised knowledge claims they make, deploying a variety of material and discursive resources to secure these. However, when organizations introduce new technologies to manage information needs, professional boundaries and claims to expertise may be threatened. This paper examines the strategies deployed by two key professional groups - Medical Laboratory Scientific Officers and medics - to secure their knowledge claims and statuses within the new organizational context shaped in part by an IT system. Though medics were more successful here, they had to accommodate to new demands within the organization. The professional identity and organizational space of the MLSOs were also redefined but, in contrast, by being narrowed. The different experiences and strategies of the two groups reflect their unequal holding of cultural capital and their differential capacity to define their status relative to the organization itself.