Information technology implementation in organizations has gone from automating back-office clerks to supporting the complex tasks of autonomous knowledge workers. The research I report here is not about new organizations or those transcending a deep crisis; rather, it concerns the push and pull of managers attempting to implement a new technology. It tells the story of companies trying to change the behavior of employed but fiercely independent “revenue producers” while, at the same time, trying not to drive away the best performers. The research investigates how different executives try to make the same people in the same roles work with a new tool.

My research was inspired by the notion that the work of salespeople (or lawyers or doctors) might be as radically transformed by technology as was the work of tinsmiths, hoopers, and portrait painters when technology impinged on their lives and livelihood. Traditionally, the knowledge worker has had more autonomy than the laborer, thus challenging the manager who is attempting to “automate” knowledge work. However, as technology infringes on the domain of symbolic, abstract work, the interaction between user and tool becomes more complex. Although automating knowledge tasks has proved a noxious process, organization after organization has tried to gain more influence over knowledge workers. The promise of productivity in this domain is a powerful force, drawing entrepreneur and bureaucrat alike into new, more comprehensive attempts.

The increasing sophistication of the type and degree of information technology has heightened this tension. More often, computer technologies are not passive but active tools that manage the process of work. A doctor’s notes on a patient, once a document of record, now are an interactive “protocol-driven data-capture device”—both supporting and constraining the doctor’s activities. The salesperson’s “pitchbook” is replaced by a multimedia offering, and the old order form is replaced by a configuration system based on laptop computers and their software. An aggressive form of software is expert systems, which specifically aim at codifying knowledge and creating a specific method to do a task. The challenge of getting people to use expert systems is an interesting example of the general problem of influencing knowledge workers’ behavior with computer-based tools.

Creating a model that will predict the successful implementation of any new technology is almost as challenging as creating a general-purpose thinking machine. Neither has come to fruition. Despite the vast literature on technology implementation and the universal recognition that we have entered a “postindustrial” economy, there are only