Virtual Mobility and the Lonely Cloud: Theorizing the Mobility‐Isolation Paradox for Self‐Employed Knowledge‐Workers in the Online Home‐Based Business Context

• Author: Elizabeth Daniel,MariaLaura Di Domenico,Daniel Nunan
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12321
• Published date: 01 January 2018
• Date: 01 January 2018

Virtual Mobility and the Lonely Cloud: Theorizing

the Mobility-Isolation Paradox for Self-Employed

Knowledge-Workers in the Online Home-Based

Business Context

Elizabeth Daniel, MariaLaura Di Domenico and

Daniel Nunan

The Open University; University of Surrey; University of London

ABSTRACT 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.

Keywords: home-based online businesses, isolation, knowledge-worker, mobility, paradox

theory, self-employment

Address for reprints: MariaLaura Di Domenico, Surrey Business School, University of Surrey, Guildford,

Surrey, GU2 7XH, UK (m.didomenico@surrey.ac.uk).

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C2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd and Society for the Advancement of Management Studies

Journal of Management Studies 55:1 January 2018

doi: 10.1111/joms.12321

INTRODUCTION

‘A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of

solitude’. Goethe.

Virtual mobility and real-time interactions have affected global economic environ-

ments and work-residence relations (Sayers, 2010; Vorley and Rodgers, 2014).

Knowledge-workers, whose cognitive work generates knowledge outputs, are increas-

ingly starting-up home-based businesses, incorporating flexibility, online and low-costs,

without any ‘bricks and mortar’ (Betts and Huzey, 2009). This offers potential entrepre-

neurial opportunities, autonomy and work-life balance (Elsbach and Flynn, 2013;

Jenkins and Johnson, 1997). Fewer temporal-spatial demarcations mean knowledge-

work can be conducted anytime/anyplace (Davis, 2002). Knowledge-workers use the

home as their work location (McDermott, 2005), despite it being often dismissed as

limiting network and growth potential (Mason, 2010), with perceived gender links

(Mirchandani, 1998, 1999), even for ‘high-tech’ ventures (Wynarczyk and Graham,

2013). Despite a dearth of empirical studies, and regular calls for theoretical develop-

ments around this phenomenon (e.g., Loscocco and Smith-Hunter, 2004; Mason et al.,

2011; Thompson et al., 2009; Walker and Webster, 2004), home-based, self-employed

workers are absent from ‘most existing research and theory-building’ (Reuschke, 2015,

p. 6). We fill this gap by analysing home-based, knowledge-workers’ virtual, mental and

career mobility; those physical/corporeal restrictions counter-balancing their remote,

online home-working autonomy (Fraser and Gold, 2001; Koehne et al., 2012); and the

tensions overlooked by extant paradox theorizing (Smith and Lewis, 2011).

Virtually rather than physically mobile home-based knowledge-workers are absent in

the mobility literature, which focuses on movers rather than non-movers. This includes

studies linked to employment opportunities (Kaplan et al., 2016: Miguelez and Moreno,

2014); career, professional, role and promotion-related movements (Baruch et al., 2016;

Darchen and Tremblay, 2010; Joseph et al., 2012; McGinn and Milkman, 2013); labour

force mobility implications for employees, employers, and regional economies (Betz

et al., 2016: Eckardt et al., 2014: Marino et al., 2016; Marx et al., 2015; Wedemeier,

2015); and location-independent online knowledge-workers working as contractors, con-

sultants or on client premises (Borg and S€oderlund, 2015; Czarniawska and Mazza,

2003; Hyrkk€anen et al., 2007; Vartiainen and Hyrkk€anen, 2010). Few studies consider

knowledge-worker ‘immobility’, linking it to non-work responsibilities (James, 2014), or

if comparing ‘satisfied immobility’ with ‘desired mobility’ (Ferro, 2006).

The experience of home-working for self-employed, autonomous knowledge-workers

is neglected in research and theory. To date research on home-working has focused on

gender roles (Walker et al., 2008); work-life boundaries (Nippert-Eng, 1996; Perlow,

1998); work-life balance and employee-performance monitoring (Brocklehurst, 2001;

Felstead and Jewson, 2000; Felstead et al., 2002; Hill et al., 2003; Shumate and

Fulk, 2004; Sturges, 2012; Tietze et al., 2009; Tietze and Musson, 2010); and isolated

teleworkers (Bartel et al., 2012; Golden et al., 2008; Hilbrecht et al., 2008; Whittle

and Mueller, 2009). Conceptual and research gaps exist in the extant literature on

175Virtual Mobility and the Lonely Cloud

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C2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd and Society for the Advancement of Management Studies