Digital communication in and beyond organizations: unintended consequences of new freedom
| Published date | 12 August 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JICES-08-2018-0068 |
| Pages | 304-320 |
| Date | 12 August 2019 |
| Author | Elisa Maria Entschew |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management |
Digital communication in and
beyond organizations: unintended
consequences of new freedom
Elisa Maria Entschew
HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management, Leipzig, Germany
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to address the following question: In times of permanent
connectivity, what forms of freedom need to be considered to prevent permanent availability as an
unintended consequence? By using the Hegelian perspective on freedom, the paper categorizes three
forms of freedom to transfer them to a common, contemporary understanding of freedom relating it to
freedom through human-to-human digital communication. The aim is to show that freedom is not only
about independence and realizing choices but also about embedding and committing oneself.
Design/methodology/approach –This mainly conceptual paper derives implications based on the
Hegelian theory. This is supplemented by an interdisciplinary approach, whereby categories of other
philosophers,ethicists, economists and sociologists are applied. The analysis of the contemporaryperspective
on freedom is enrichedby referencing empirical studies.
Findings –Digital communication offers new freedom such as working with fewer restrictions
from time and space, especially for knowledge workers. It is theoretically possible to work 24h per day
from anywhere (independence), as well as to decide on the final location and timing of one’swork
(realizing choices). When solely focusing on these –seemingly advantageous –forms of freedom in
times of permanent connectivity, unintended consequences such as the expectation of permanent
availability develop. The key message of the paper is that considering one’s temporal and social
dependencies (embeddedness) is an indispensable part of actual freedom to avoid unintended
consequences.
Practical implications –Organizations need to invest in moraldiscernment to understand unintended
consequences,as well as to cope with them.
Originality/value –Applying the Hegelian theory on freedom based on digital communication to
better understand social dynamics of digital communication is a largely unexplored avenue in
the existing scientific literature. The decision to undertake this venture resulted from the identified
necessity of understanding freedom better. It is often not clear what is meant by freedom through digital
communication. Although freedom is a complex construct, it is often reduced to independence/having a
choice and realizing choices. When solely focusing on independence and realizing choices, unintended
consequences such as permanent availability often go unnoticed. It is exactly because of these issues
that this paper endeavors to examine the (deep) meaning of the powerful, yet complex, term of freedom.
Keywords Availability, Freedom, Hegel, Choice, Digital communication, Moral discernment
Paper type Conceptual paper
1. Introduction
1.1 What is the problem?
Digital human-to-human communication refers to communication via e-mail, instant
messaging services and social media channels enabled through tablets, smartphones,
The author is grateful for thoughtful comments from anonymous reviewers and theoretical support
from Prof. Dr. Andreas Suchanek and Raphael Ng.
JICES
17,3
304
Received28 August 2018
Revised8 February 2019
23April 2019
Accepted11 May 2019
Journalof Information,
Communicationand Ethics in
Society
Vol.17 No. 3, 2019
pp. 304-320
© Emerald Publishing Limited
1477-996X
DOI 10.1108/JICES-08-2018-0068
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1477-996X.htm
wearables and the like. Devices such as these have become an inherent part of working
life (Derks et al., 2012, p. 80; Hassan, 2016, pp. 225, 236). Often, digital devices are used
at all hours for work-related purposes (Middleton and Cukier, 2006,p.256).
Please note that I am referringto a specific type of work, which involves communications
via these digital devices as a dominant part of the work. This is especially relevant for
knowledge workers, such as programmers, consultants, bloggers, marketing experts or
scientists. In this articleI mainly refer to knowledge workers, as well as superiors managing
knowledge workers,who are referred to as managers.
Digital communication enables increasing independence from time and space (Rosa,
2014, pp. 126–127). No distance or space needs to be bridged anymore to exchange
information, as it is the case when using letters. Based on that, new forms ofindependence
are offered to organizationalmembers[1], e.g. through the ability of working fromanywhere,
at any time (Boswell and Olson-Buchanan, 2016, p. 593; Fenner and Renn, 2004, p. 184).
Seemingly, various technologies increase freedom of action by allowing organizational
members to work beyond physical boundaries of the organization (Khan and Agha, 2013,
p. 16).
Hence, the digitalization of communication offers more choices than ever before
(Suchanek, 2017a, p. 84). Choice is an important part of freedom (Schwartz, 2007, p. 99). A
common understanding of freedom implies having a choice. Such an understanding of
freedom often refers to a lack of (being free from) limitations or obligations (Schmid, 2008,
pp. 210-211; Wood, 1995, p. 37). “We do not call people ‘free’on account of the specificuse
they make of their possibilities, but simply on account of the fact that they have them”
(Wood, 1995,p.37).
So, freedom relates to having diverse possibilities or choices (independence). Yet,
freedom also means realizingchoices as well as abstaining from choices. The purpose of this
article is to understand and interpret the meaning of freedom in relation to digital
communication in professionalrelationships from a philosophical perspective. The problem
to be analyzed refers to focusing on having a choice and realizing choicesas actual freedom.
Mainly focusing on these forms of freedom encourages the negligence of organizational
members’temporal and social embeddedness potentially decreasing actual freedom
(Suchanek, 2015). Social embeddedness means that one person’s actions influence the
conditions and actions of others. Further, organizational members are embeddedwithin the
temporal dimension, whereby individual or collective actions influence the conditions of
action, which applyfor future actions (temporal embeddedness).
The article suggests that both dimensions of embeddedness play a distinct role in
realizing actual freedom while both relate to a form of dependence on others. Here,
reasonable decision-making is based on considering this dependence on others aiming
at actual freedom. If organizational members’indispensable dependence on others is
not sufficiently included in decision-making, the subtle development of unintended
consequences such as permanent availability for oneself and for others may go
unnoticed.
An awareness and better understanding of embeddedness is enabled through well-
trained moral discernment. Moral discernment describes the competence for reflection
regarding reasonable decision-making at work. Thereby a moral evaluation of actions and
expectations is made which considersboth the temporal and the social dimension including
actual freedom. Solid moral discernment is a competence which is relevant for all
organizational members to encourage reasonable decision-making. Nonetheless, owing to
the overarching scope of responsibilities, the decision-making power and the role model
function of managers,this competence is especially relevant for managementpositions.
Digital
communication
305
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