ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the role played by IT systems comprising multiple information and communication technologies (ICTs) in placing public sector IT professionals under increasing pressures from managerialism. It discusses the case study of a group of public sector IT workers who might expect to have discretionary control over their work: a hallmark of professions. The chapter highlights how ICT-enabled control mechanisms are employed within ITSM work settings to capture and codify the human expertise developed and used during the performance of IT professional work within a KMS. It illustrates how IT systems of multiple ICTs have become an integral part of a rhetorical managerialist discourse that situates IT professionalism firmly within a setting of assertive management. In public sector contexts, such as Midshire County Council, Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) endorses an internal market approach, casting the IT systems users in the role of internal customers who receive IT services according to service level agreements.
