A Professionalization view: A Framework for Research on Information Technology and Organizational Form Evolutions The Case of Webmastering

Although the importance of an organization’s information technology (IT) human resources is widely acknowledged, especially in the arena of new technology development, most organizational research has taken a “black box” approach to the study of IT professionals, treating the IT human resource as a relatively homogeneous community that operates as a fixed department or group within the landscape of the business enterprise. Further, the relationship between professionalization of emerging IT occupations and organizational use of IT is not understood. Using three case studies of the emergence of the “webmastering” specialty, we show the interplay between the types of professionalization and the organizational appropriation of web-based technologies. One theoretical paradigm grounds our analysis: Abbott’s [2] concept of jurisdiction in the development of professions. This concept enables us to analyze how the organizational form changes under the impact of IT evolution. We use our case study data to expound a framework of four major professionalization processes: (1) set, (2) amalgam, (3) proactive, and (4) breaking. These represent variations in how organizations have managed the development of web-based capability within their human resources. We then relate these four professionalization processes to three major aspects of web technology appropriation in the firm: (1) attitudes toward the technology, (2) distribution of jurisdiction over web sites, and (3) types of (web-based) technology use. Our results have implications for both scholars and managers interested in the study of new IT jurisdictions in the firm, the professionalization of IT occupations, and organizational use of emerging technologies. Categories and Subject descriptors: H.5.1. [Multimedia Information Systems]: Animations, Evaluation/methodology