Competing Market, Bureaucratic and Professional Work Logics in the Design and Implementation of IT on Professional Work

There is growing evidence that professional work is changing as a result of the application of information technology (IT). However, the impact of information technology on professional work has produced mixed results. Our paper considers the source of these mixed results through a greater analytical attention paid to the nature of professional work. Defined as work involving expertise expressed through abstract and formalized knowledge as well as extensive working knowledge, the professional work logic assumes the greatest autonomy and discretion for workers in collectively controlling work characteristics-division of labor and its permanence, control over education, and control over new entrants and the monitoring and disciplining of existing members. The impact of IT on professional work will be difficult to control and predict without considering the assumptions and tensions within and across the three major types of work logics (Professional, Market and Bureaucratic). Using healthcare as an example, the paper provides various propositions for researching the initiation and effects of ICT design through these three work logics. These propositions illustrate the active role that IS researchers can take in researching an important economic and work-related topic, professional work, and in understanding how ICT affects work-related expertise.