Det osynliga styret: En kvalitativ studie om övervakning, prestationsmätning och självdisciplinering hos IT-konsulter

Sammanfattning

This study aims to examine how IT consultants are monitored and performance-measured by their consulting firms, whether this monitoring leads to self-discipline without direct external control, and how such self-discipline manifests in their daily work. The study adopts a qualitative approach and is based on eight semi-structured interviews with IT consultants from two consulting firms operating in Sweden. The empirical material has been analyzed using theories on performance measurement as a management tool, disciplinary power and panopticism, and self-discipline in modern organizations. The results show that monitoring primarily occurs through time reporting, billing rates, and customer-based feedback rather than direct supervision, and that billing rate emerges as the most central performance measure regardless of how the measurement system is designed. The results further show that this monitoring leads to self-discipline among the majority of IT consultants, but to varying degrees. For some IT consultants the connection is clear and direct, while for others the norms have become so deeply internalized that they are no longer perceived as a result of organizational control. Self-discipline manifests concretely in how IT consultants prioritize billable work over reflection and learning, communicate their performance more strategically, and gradually adapt their professional identity to the norms of the consultant role. The main conclusion is that the absence of direct supervision does not imply the absence of control, but rather that control shifts from the consulting firm to the IT consultant themselves through internalized norms and measurement tools.