It was not unusual for participants to have held a number of roles, moving on when the role had come to an end. The nature of project work with short term contracts had led some to opportunistic careers. Between roles, identity work was focused on technical skills development. Outsourced and consultancy work led to long commutes for Andrew and Ian. The IT sector’s recent move towards outsourcing and away from in-house development teams (for example, Grimshaw & Miozzo, 2009) was mentioned by five participants. For Andrew, outsourcing changed the nature of his organisational identity and impacted on his identity salience and he created a status seeking narrative based on being invited to join new projects and loyalty was closely aligned to project teams. James mentioned that within his sector, few places now have a development “very team.” Studies have shown feelings of powerlessness and vulnerability when working in areas prone to outsourcing (for example, Gunz & Gunz 2007; Hickson et al., 1971). Working within a global organisation was mentioned by Ian, Andrew and Adrian. Andrew and Adrian mentioned excessive workloads necessary to interact across time zones and having to adapt their leadership styles to suit local working practices. Overall a picture of uncertainty of career progression within and outwith organisations emerged and may be a contributing factor in the lack of identification with the IT profession. 5.4.4 Mechanism 4: IT project failures All participants had to justify IT and experienced a weight of expectations in return for project spending. Although the workforce is generally considered highly skilled there has been a number of high profile public sector IT project failures including the NHS National Programme for IT project which was abandoned in 2011 after costing £12.7bn. The project suffered from years of delay and made little progress, citing technical difficulties (Campbell, 2011; Sampson, 2012). Other examples include the benefits card project which started in 1996 and abandoned three years later as project outcomes could not be delivered within budget or timescale (National Audit Office, 2000). In 1999 the passport office oversaw a largely unsuccessful IT rollout (Cross, 2005). On investigation, Cross reported that the factors behind lack of success included: IT projects which were overly ambitious in
It was not unusual for participants to have held a number of roles, moving on when the role had come to an end. The nature of project work with short term contracts had led some to opportunistic careers. Between roles, identity work was focused on technical skills development. Outsourced and consultancy work led to long commutes for Andrew and Ian. The IT sector’s recent move towards outsourcing and away from in-house development teams (for example, Grimshaw & Miozzo, 2009) was mentioned by five participants. For Andrew, outsourcing changed the nature of his organisational identity and impacted on his identity salience and he created a status seeking narrative based on being invited to join new projects and loyalty was closely aligned to project teams. James mentioned that within his sector, “very few places now have a development team.” Studies have shown feelings of powerlessness and vulnerability when working in areas prone to outsourcing (for example, Gunz & Gunz 2007; Hickson et al., 1971). Working within a global organisation was mentioned by Ian, Andrew and Adrian. Andrew and Adrian mentioned excessive workloads necessary to interact across time zones and having to adapt their leadership styles to suit local working practices. Overall a picture of uncertainty of career progression within and outwith organisations emerged and may be a contributing factor in the lack of identification with the IT profession. 5.4.4 Mechanism 4: IT project failures All participants had to justify IT and experienced a weight of expectations in return for project spending. Although the workforce is generally considered highly skilled there has been a number of high profile public sector IT project failures including the NHS National Programme for IT project which was abandoned in 2011 after costing £12.7bn. The project suffered from years of delay and made little progress, citing technical difficulties (Campbell, 2011; Sampson, 2012). Other examples include the benefits card project which started in 1996 and abandoned three years later as project outcomes could not be delivered within budget or timescale (National Audit Office, 2000). In 1999 the passport office oversaw a largely unsuccessful IT rollout (Cross, 2005). On investigation, Cross reported that the factors behind lack of success included: IT projects which were overly ambitious in
an-exploration-of-professional-identity-in-the-information-technology-sector.docx