Information Privacy in Organizations

Information Privacy in Organizations

With descriptives like “the information age,” “the information super highway,” and “the knowledge economy”—popular in the mainstream business literature at the start of the 21st century—there can be little doubt that information plays a vital role in the success of any organization. Employees often are required to sign nondisclosure agreements upon entry into an organization wherein they vow that they will not divulge pro-prietary company information to outsiders. Such safeguards seem reasonable and are becoming necessary for organizations interested in protecting their assets—specifically, their intellectual assets—from getting into the hands of competitors or other entities that could misuse that information. Information is a broad concept, however, and the need for organizations to acquire and subsequently protect information is not limited to patents, “know how,” organizational routines and technologies, and other intellectual property. Organizations also have a need to acquire and protect information about human assets, that is, their employees—the very people who will be entrusted to help the organization succeed. The gathering of employee personal information is dramatically on the rise and the mechanisms through which information is gathered are diverse and controversial.

Organizations have to be careful about how they gather and protect information, because as they attempt to gather personal information through various means, there is the potential to impinge on employees' sense of information privacy. Information privacy is defined as an employee's belief in his or her ability to control information about him-or herself and his or her resulting ability to act autonomously—free from the control of others (Stone & Stone, 1990). Information privacy, therefore, reflects an important psychological state influenced jointly by an organization's need to collect personal information on one hand and an individual employee's desire to maintain control over his or her personal information on the other hand. This constant tension between the organization and the individual over personal information also suggests that information privacy is part of dialectic process or struggle.

In his 1975 book, The Environment and Social Behavior, Altman argued that privacy represents a boundary-regulation process wherein individuals regulate their inter-personal boundaries with each individual varying in both desire for openness and closed-ness and ability to reach desired levels of openness and closed-ness. These needs parallel similar needs in the general psychology literature, including the need for affiliation or belonging and the need for distinctiveness.

There are times in one's work life, for example, where one wishes to close oneself off from others or to be separate or distinct (e.g., shutting the door to one's office; not answering phone calls). To the extent that people can achieve their desired level of closed-ness, privacy is maintained. Similarly, there may be times where the same employee desires social interaction with coworkers—or to be open to others (thus satisfying broader needs for affiliation and [Page II-381]belonging). He or she might invite such interaction, for example, by leaving the door open or working in a common area, and to the extent other employees stop by, privacy control is maintained. In this situation, privacy is not threatened because the interaction with others was desired and achieved. If, however, no coworkers stop by to visit when such visits are desired, a privacy void occurs insofar as individuals are experiencing unwanted seclusion. Both psychological goals—desire for openness and desire for closed-ness—exist along a continuum, and people struggle to achieve an optimum level. Moreover, one's optimum level may not remain static (i.e., the perceived boundary between the self and others and the desire for openness and closed-ness are fluid).

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