179 research outputs found
A very modern professional: the case of the IT service support worker
The IT profession has retained a reputation as a ‘privileged area of the labour market’ (Webster, 2005, p.4; Bannerji, 2011). Workers practicing IT skills have been at the forefront of the competitive drive for innovation and efficiency gains promoted by a neoliberal enterprise ideology (Blackler et al, 2003). In the last two decades, as systems thinking (e.g. Ackoff, 1999) and customer-centric practices (e.g. Levitt, 2006) have converged in a globally powerful IT service management (ITSM) ‘best practice’ discourse (Trusson et al, 2013), the IT service support worker has emerged to be a worker-type of considerable socio-economic importance. Aside from keeping organizational information systems operative, when such systems fail these workers are called upon to rapidly restore the systems and thus head-off any negative commercial or political consequences. Yet these workers are acknowledged only as objectified resources within the ITSM ‘best practice’ literature (e.g. Taylor, Iqbal and Nieves, 2007) and largely overlooked as a distinctive contemporary worker-type within academic discourse.
This paper, through analysis of salary data and qualitative data collected for a multiple case study research project, considers the extent to which these workers might be conceived of as being ‘professionals’. The project approached the conceptual study of these workers through three lenses. This paper focuses on the project’s consideration of them as rationalised information systems assets within ‘best practice’ ITSM theory. It also draws upon our considerations of them as knowledge workers and service workers.
We firstly situate the IT service support worker within a broader model of IT workers comprising four overlapping groupings: managers, developers, technical specialists and IT service support workers. Three types of IT service support worker are identified: first-line workers who routinely escalate work; second-line workers; and ‘expert’ single-line workers. With reference to close associations made with call centre workers (e.g. Murphy, 2011) the status of IT service support workers is explored through analysis of: (i) salary data taken from the ITJOBSWATCH website; and (ii) observational and interview data collected in the field. From this we challenge the veracity of the notion that the whole occupational field of IT might be termed a profession concurrently with the notion that a profession implies work of high status.
Secondly, the paper explores two forces that might be associated with the professionalization of IT as an occupation: (i) rationalisation of the field (here promoted by the British Computer Society); and (ii) formalisation of IT theoretical/vocational education. A tension is identified, with those IT service support workers whose work is least disposed to rationalisation and whose complex ‘stocks of knowledge’ (Schutz, 1953) have been acquired through time-spent practice laying claim to greater IT professional status.
Thirdly, consideration is given to individuals’ personal career orientations: occupational, organizational and customer-centric (Kinnie and Swart, 2012). We find that whilst organizations expect IT service support workers to be orientated towards serving the interests of the organization and its clients, the most individualistically professional tend towards being occupationally orientated, enthusiastically (re)developing their skills to counter skills obsolescence in an evolving technological arena (Sennett, 2006)
The realisation of Benefits from IT Projects: Does Practice makes Perfect?
There is growing agreement that the potential benefits of implementing business technologies will not be realised through the relatively simple act of going live with a new software application. Indeed, there is clear evidence that organisations must explicitly plan for, and proactively manage, the realisation of benefits, if a new technology is to deliver real value to its host organisation. In particular, benefits need to be leveraged through carefully planned and co-ordinated programmes of organisational change, and on-going organisational adaptation. Inevitably these insights have encouraged academics, consultants and practitioners to develop tools and techniques to explicitly support the benefits realisation process. In this paper, we argue that the adoption of any such prescription, tools or panacea is unlikely to be sufficient, as benefits typically arise from the complex interplay between systems, people, contexts and processes, often over significant time-frames. We show, through the use of a public sector case study, that a more robust and effective solution to benefits realisation problem is likely to arise from the development of a capability to support the realisation of benefits, composed of practices, and we then question as to whether it‟s enacted through craftsmen
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Knowledge-based approaches to fault diagnosis. The development, implementation, evaluation and comparison of knowledge-based systems, incorporating deep and shallow knowledge, to aid in the diagnosis of faults in complex hydro-mechanical devices.
The use of knowledge-based systems to aid in the diagnosis of faults in physical
devices has grown considerably since their introduction during the 1970s. The
majority of the early knowledge-based systems incorporated shallow knowledge,
which sought to define simple cause and effect relationships between a symptom and
a fault, that could be encoded as a set of rules. Though such systems enjoyed much
success, it was recognised that they suffered from a number of inherent limitations
such as inflexibility, inadequate explanation, and difficulties of knowledge elicitation.
Many of these limitations can be overcome by developing knowledge-based systems
which contain deeper knowledge about the device being diagnosed. Such systems,
now generally referred to as model-based systems, have shown much promise, but
there has been little evidence to suggest that they have successfully made the
transition from the research centre to the workplace.
This thesis argues that knowledge-based systems are an appropriate tool for the
diagnosis of faults in complex devices, and that both deep and shallow knowledge
have their part to play in this process. More specifically this thesis demonstrates how
a wide-ranging knowledge-based system for quality assurance, based upon shallow
knowledge, can be developed, and implemented. The resultant system, named
DIPLOMA, not only diagnoses faults, but additionally provides advice and guidance
on the assembly, disassembly, testing, inspection and repair of a highly complex
hydro-mechanical device. Additionally it is shown that a highly innovative modelbased
system, named MIDAS, can be used to contribute to the provision of
diagnostic, explanatory and training facilities for the same hydro-mechanical device.
The methods of designing, coding, implementing and evaluating both systems are
explored in detail.
The successful implementation and evaluation of the DIPLOMA and MIDAS
systems has shown that knowledge-based systems are an appropriate tool for the
diagnosis of faults in complex hydro-mechanical devices, and that they make a
beneficial contribution to the business performance of the host organisation.
Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that the most effective and comprehensive
knowledge-based approach to fault diagnosis is one which incorporates both deep and
shallow knowledge, so that the distinctive advantages of each can be realised in a
single application. Finally, the research has provided evidence that the model-based
approach to diagnosis is highly flexible, and may, therefore, be an appropriate
technique for a wide range of industrial applications.Science and Engineering Research Council, and Alvey Directorat
Institutional responses to electronic procurement in the public sector
Purpose: The primary aim of the research presented in this paper is to address the gap in the literature with regard to the factors that affect the uptake and application of e-procurement within the public sector.
Design/methodology/approach: This analysis was achieved through five in-depth case studies – based upon extensive interviews, observation and documentation reviews - conducted within central and local government organisations.
Findings: The study shows that despite being very different in terms of their form and function, each of our five case study organisations had achieved similar levels of progress in terms of their adoption of e-procurement technologies. In short every organisation had already adopted BACS, all five were also actively planning to implement: e-tendering; e-award; e-contract and e-catalogue systems, but none had any intention of adopting e-marketplaces or e-auctions.
Research limitation/implications: The results of this study will help individual organisations to better understand their current situations and the barriers that will need to be overcome before they can significantly expand their adoption of e-procurement technologies.
Originality/value: In addition to presenting one of the first detailed studies of the adoption of e-procurement technologies, this study also breaks new ground through its use of the lens of "Institutional theory" to help interpret the findings
The rhetoric of “knowledge hoarding”: a research-based critique
This paper was accepted for publication in the journal Journal of Knowledge Management and the definitive published version is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JKM-04-2017-0146Purpose - Via a study of IT service professionals, this article responds to a recent trend towards reifying ‘knowledge hoarding’ for purposes of quantitative/deductive research. A ‘rhetorical theory’ lens is applied to reconsider ‘knowledge hoarding’ as a value-laden rhetoric that directs managers towards addressing assumed worker dysfunctionality. Design/methodology/approach - A qualitative study of practicing IT service professionals (assumed within IT service management ‘best practice’ to be inclined to hoard knowledge) was conducted over a 34 day period. 20 workers were closely observed processing IT service incidents and 26 workers were interviewed about knowledge sharing practices. Findings - The study found that the character of IT service practice is more one of pro-social collegiality in sharing knowledge/know-how than one of self-interested strategic knowledge concealment. Research limitations/implications - The study concerns a single occupational context. The study indicates that deductive research that reifies ‘knowledge hoarding’ as a naturally-occurring phenomenon is flawed, with clear implications for future research. Practical implications - The study suggests that management concern for productivity might be redirected away from addressing assumed knowledge hoarding behaviour and towards encouraging knowledge sharing via social interaction in the workplace. Originality/value - Previous studies have not directly examined the concept of knowledge hoarding using qualitative methods, nor have they considered it as a rhetorical device
Measuring the defect structure orientation of a single NV- centre in diamond
The negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy (NV-) centre in diamond has many exciting applications in quantum nano-metrology, including magnetometry, electrometry, thermometry and piezometry. Indeed, it is possible for a single NV- centre to measure the complete three-dimensional vector of the local electric field or the position of a single fundamental charge in ambient conditions. However, in order to achieve such vector measurements, near complete knowledge of the orientation of the centres defect structure is required. Here, we demonstrate an optically detected magnetic resonance (ODMR) technique employing rotations of static electric and magnetic fields that precisely determines the orientation of the centres major and minor trigonal symmetry axes. Thus, our technique is an enabler of the centres existing vector sensing applications and also motivates new applications in multi-axis rotation sensing, NV growth characterization and diamond crystallography
Nanoscale detection of a single fundamental charge in ambient conditions using the NV - Center in diamond
Single charge nanoscale detection in ambient conditions is a current frontier in metrology that has diverse interdisciplinary applications. Here, such single charge detection is demonstrated using two nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond. One NV center is employed as a sensitive electrometer to detect the change in electric field created by the displacement of a single electron resulting from the optical switching of the other NV center between its neutral (NV0) and negative (NV-) charge states. As a consequence, our measurements also provide direct insight into the charge dynamics inside the material
Electronic structure of the neutral silicon-vacancy center in diamond
The neutrally charged silicon vacancy in diamond is a promising system for quantum technologies that combines high-efficiency optical spin initialization with long spin lifetimes (T2≈1ms at 4 K) and up to 90% of optical emission into its 946-nm zero-phonon line. However, the electronic structure of SiV 0 is poorly understood, making further exploitation difficult. Performing photoluminescence spectroscopy of SiV0 under uniaxial stress, we find the previous excited electronic structure of a single 3A1u state is incorrect, and identify instead a coupled 3Eu−3A2u system, the lower state of which has forbidden optical emission at zero stress and efficiently decreases the total emission of the defect. We propose a solution employing finite strain to define a spin-photon interface scheme using SiV 0.This work is supported by EPSRC Grants No.EP/L015315/1 and No. EP/M013243/1, and ARC Grants
No. DE170100169 and No. DP140103862
Continuous-wave room-temperature diamond maser
The maser, older sibling of the laser, has been confined to relative
obscurity due to its reliance on cryogenic refrigeration and high-vacuum
systems. Despite this it has found application in deep-space communications and
radio astronomy due to its unparalleled performance as a low-noise amplifier
and oscillator. The recent demonstration of a room-temperature solid- state
maser exploiting photo-excited triplet states in organic pentacene molecules
paves the way for a new class of maser that could find applications in
medicine, security and sensing, taking advantage of its sensitivity and low
noise. However, to date, only pulsed operation has been observed in this
system. Furthermore, organic maser molecules have poor thermal and mechanical
properties, and their triplet sub-level decay rates make continuous emission
challenging: alternative materials are therefore required. Therefore, inorganic
materials containing spin-defects such as diamond and silicon carbide have been
proposed. Here we report a continuous-wave (CW) room-temperature maser
oscillator using optically pumped charged nitrogen-vacancy (NV) defect centres
in diamond. This demonstration unlocks the potential of room-temperature
solid-state masers for use in a new generation of microwave devices.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure
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