Veblen's theory applied to information specialists

This paper examines the paradoxical class situation of information specialists in the post-industrial society as both professionals and employees. It describes and analyses the 'technocratic' authority wielded by them and their mode of consciousness. It's assessed whether these workers junction as the vanguard of a new style of democratised work or buttressed the position of managerial authority. It has been found that the subjects experience a class situation that is somewhat more empowered than the industrial or corporate models, but do not differ substantially from that of the production workers in industrial society. Their power, prestige, privilege and status essentially camouflage the subjects' compliance to hierarchical authority. The subjects exhibit awareness of their power, but essentially they direct their energies toward task attainment and individual mobility. Lacking an orientation toward structure change, the information specialists do not appear to fit the notion of a vanguard group. From this research they have been foreseen some possibilities of changes within organisational authority as information specialists confront management with their expertise, but it's anticipated that the institutions of social domination will prevail, as we can read in some Veblen's theory.