Market control of knowledge workers : Skills in demand

Key figures in the workforce at Testronics, a small micro‐electronics company in the northeastern USA, could be forgiven for viewing the expression “knowledge is power” with a certain irony and skepticism. As part of the emerging class of knowledge workers, sales engineers with Testronics possess certain skills that have kept them ahead of the game in the post‐industrial economy. However it is perhaps because of, rather than in spite of, these specialized skills that management has sought to find new ways of exerting control over these professional and technically‐minded people.