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Virtual Mobility and the Lonely Cloud: Theorizing the Mobility‐Isolation Paradox for Self‐Employed Knowledge‐Workers in the Online Home‐Based Business Context
Author(s) -
Daniel Elizabeth,
Di Domenico MariaLaura,
Nunan Daniel
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal of management studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.398
H-Index - 184
eISSN - 1467-6486
pISSN - 0022-2380
DOI - 10.1111/joms.12321
Subject(s) - isolation (microbiology) , loneliness , sociology , social connectedness , creativity , context (archaeology) , face (sociological concept) , psychology , social isolation , knowledge worker , social psychology , knowledge management , computer science , work (physics) , social science , microbiology and biotechnology , psychotherapist , biology , mechanical engineering , engineering , paleontology
We advance both mobility and paradox theorizing by advocating the new concepts of ‘mobility‐isolation paradox’ and ‘paradoxical imagination’. These emerged from examining the nuanced, multifaceted conceptualizations of the mobility‐isolation tensions facing home‐based, self‐employed, online knowledge‐workers. We thereby enhance current conceptual understandings of mobility, isolation and paradox by analyzing knowledge‐workers’ interrelated, multidimensional experiences within restrictive home‐based working contexts. We compare the dearth of research and theorizing about these autonomous online knowledge‐workers with that available about other types of knowledge‐workers, such as online home‐based employees, and the more physically/corporeally mobile self‐employed. This research into an increasingly prevalent knowledge‐worker genre addresses these knowledge gaps by analyzing home‐based knowledge‐workers’ views, and tensions from paradoxical pressures to be corporeally mobile and less isolated. Despite enjoying career, mental and virtual mobility through internet‐connectedness, they were found to seek face‐to‐face social and/or professional interactions, their isolation engendering loneliness, despite their solitude paradoxically often fostering creativity and innovation.