The Spin

All too often people in other divisions of a business believe that information technology practitioners are horrible communicators. Many clients hold the same opinion. I’ve been working on a project examining communication, stress and emotional labor regarding front line IT workers and have found this belief to be wrong in both theory and practice. The research makes a number of contributions to organizational research, particularly regarding the IT profession. First, through interviews I studied the stories of those living and working in the IT profession, providing a more complete picture of previous statistical analysis regarding stressors, burnout and communication. Second, I examined how department-wide communication may lead to employee disidentification and eventual turnover.

These interviews illustrate that managerial communication is of paramount importance to IT employees, as is follow-through by the management. Negative perceived organizational support is constituted through organizational and managerial communicative practices. The lack of managerial support is one facet of the IT professionals working lives, exemplified by the personal disconfirmation by management of performed work. No IT employee wants to be disrespected, especially when that disrespect comes from a manager or superior who does not understand the fundamentals of the IT job.

Many scholars continue to insist that good communication is necessary in organizations. “Good” communication is seen as effective, open, clear, and concise However, Eisenberg (2007) noted that clear communication is not necessarily beneficial in all cases. Clear communication used by IT management was neither interpersonally beneficial within the superior-subordinate dyad, nor advantageous for IT professionals’ organizational identification.

Likewise, it has been proposed that increased integration within organizational communication networks is positively related to organizational commitment. As boundary-spanners the IT professionals are highly integrated in networks with other members in the university. However, this research suggests that working across occupational culture boundaries, and the continual need to perform emotional labor, may be a variable that mitigates the positive influence of network integration on employee commitment and turnover.

Emotional labor certainly applies to interactions between IT professionals as they work with their customers or clients. IT professionals frequently encounter situations where dissatisfaction, annoyance, and frustration are likely to be the dominant emotions, leading them to enact emotion work as part of their position. IT professionals are required to display only emotions that are part of their work role: technological adeptness, pleasantness, and cheerfulness, while hiding emotions of anger, disdain, and irritation. They display organizationally desired emotions during unpleasant situations in the front stage, regulating and relegating negative performances including outbursts of anger and negative story-telling to the backstage, either alone or in tandem with only other IT professionals.

These incidents also make crystal clear the authority and power structures of institutions like universities. The power relationship between IT professionals and tenured faculty is deeply asymmetrical. For the IT professional there are few options for angry replies, questioning or confronting a faculty member. The various power relationships affect everyday performances. The important point in this study is that IT professionals work in one occupational culture, yet as boundary-spanners they come into contact with clients who work in a different occupational culture.

IT professionals recognize the power differentials between their positions and the positions of faculty members. Most faculty and IT professionals come into contact when a problem needs correcting. In many instances this situation causes a lot of inconvenience for both sides as the issue needs to be resolved under time pressure. IT professionals do not voice their frustrations to the faculty members, but rather they enact emotional labor, showing the requisite approved emotional displays in the frontstage.

In studies of power, scholars traditionally recognize five different types of overt power: reward, coercive, referent, expert and legitimate. Even thought IT professionals possess expert knowledge, they do not have the coercive, referent, reward, or legitimate power that being tenured or on the tenure track engenders for faculty. The power distance between IT professionals and faculty mitigates any challenge to the latter’s actions or authority. The ethos of the academic institution gives faculty massive latitude to behave as they wish towards IT staff, but does not give the same latitude to staff members. Technology professionals working in the front lines are aware how and where power in the university resides.