Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
groundbreaking study of the organizational politics of professional
development, this technique of reducing the contributions of competing
groups to the merely technical is a time-honored strategy for defending
occupational and professional boundaries.
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We have already seen some
of the ways in which the rhetoric of management literature reinforced
the notion that computer specialists were self-interested, narrow techni-
cians rather than future-minded, bottom-line-oriented good corporate
citizens. “People close to the machine can also lose perspective,” main-
tained one computer programming “textbook” for managers. “Some of
the most enthusiastic have an unfortunate knack of behaving as if the
computer were a toy. The term 'addictive' comes to mind.”
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Managers
emphasized the youthfulness and inexperience of most programmers.
The results of early aptitude tests and personality profi les—those that
emphasized their “dislike for people” and “preference for . . . risky activ-
ities”—were widely cited as examples of the “immaturity” of the com-
puter professions. In fact, one of the earliest and most widely cited
psychological profi les of programmers suggested that there was a nega-
tive correlation between programming ability and interpersonal skills.
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The perception that computer programmers were particularly antiso-
cial, that they “preferred to work with things rather than people,” rein-
forced the notion that programming was an inherently solitary activity,
ill suited to traditional forms of corporate organization and management.
The same qualities that had previously been thought essential indicators
of programming ability, such as creativity and a mild degree of personal
eccentricity, now began to be perceived as being merely unprofessional.
As part of their rhetorical construction of the applications crisis as a
problem of programmer management, corporate managers accused pro-
grammers of lacking professional standards and loyalties: “Too fre-
quently these people [programmers], while exhibiting excellent technical
skills, are non-professional in every other aspect of their work.”
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Another common strategy for deprecating computer professionals was
to challenge their technical monopoly directly. If working with comput-
ers was in fact not all that diffi cult, then dedicated programming staffs
were superfl uous. One of the alleged advantages of the COBOL pro-
gramming language usually touted in the literature was its ability to be
read and understood—and perhaps even written—by informed manag-
ers.
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The combination of new programming technology and stricter
administrative controls promised to eliminate management's dangerous
dependency on individual programmers: “The problems of fi nding
personnel at a reasonable price, and the problem of control, are both
