128
Erwin A. Alampay, Joselito C. Olpoc, and Regina M. Hechanova
Even as formal rules and regulations are beginning to appear at the organizational
level, legal avenues are also being used as a threat to control individual actions. Individual organizations are also becoming party to monitoring what happens online,
especially for posts that may have an impact on their reputation, but also for internal
posts that could have legal implications.
For individuals, the lesson here is that even as democratic societies offer space
online, this access does not mean that an individual ’ s online presence and actions are
not monitored or unhindered. People who know that there is limited privacy in using
the Internet within institutions are more careful of how they tread, what they view,
and what they post. For the unwitting, what one does online may actually end up
being a violation of their organization ’ s rules and therefore subject to discipline, punishment, and dismissal. In some instances, behavior may be monitored by stakeholders outside the organization and can also be subject to prosecution.
As institutional policies begin to develop, organizations must consider the primary
objective of providing access to the Internet. Do they want to promote participation
and transparency in government? To encourage liberal ideas and access to knowledge
in educational institutions? To ease communications, service improvement, and productivity in corporations? While organizations do have the right to develop their
respective policies, they also have to make sure that the controls and regulations they
impose do not end up curtailing their primary reason for providing Internet access in
the fi rst place.
To a certain extent, the tensions illustrated in the institutional-level cases mirror
similar struggles to control the Internet at the national and global levels. For instance,
institutions can be sensitive to, if not wary of, contrarian views to the point that they
fi lter or censor online messages, fi le charges, or implement authorized-use policies to
discourage such views. Likewise, network security is another concern mentioned
among governments, schools, and corporations that want to monitor and limit access
and use of Internet facilities. However, some of these practices are not based on wellthought-out or formally stated policies and are unknown to the employees themselves,
so that these practices not only are selective in their implementation but also impinge
on the privacy of employees. While policies in institutions cannot be prescriptive, the
process of developing policies needs to involve management, administrators, users,
and clients, just as with states and their citizens. Even then, however, contestations
cannot be avoided, given the different priorities and competing values each side holds.
Notes
1. Victoria Buenger, Richard Daft, Edward Conlon, and Jeffrey Austin, “ Competing Values
in Organizations: Contextual Infl uences and Structural Consequences, ” Organization Science 7,
no. 5 (September-October 1996): 557 – 576.
Erwin A. Alampay, Joselito C. Olpoc, and Regina M. Hechanova
Even as formal rules and regulations are beginning to appear at the organizational
level, legal avenues are also being used as a threat to control individual actions. Individual organizations are also becoming party to monitoring what happens online,
especially for posts that may have an impact on their reputation, but also for internal
posts that could have legal implications.
For individuals, the lesson here is that even as democratic societies offer space
online, this access does not mean that an individual ’ s online presence and actions are
not monitored or unhindered. People who know that there is limited privacy in using
the Internet within institutions are more careful of how they tread, what they view,
and what they post. For the unwitting, what one does online may actually end up
being a violation of their organization ’ s rules and therefore subject to discipline, punishment, and dismissal. In some instances, behavior may be monitored by stakeholders outside the organization and can also be subject to prosecution.
As institutional policies begin to develop, organizations must consider the primary
objective of providing access to the Internet. Do they want to promote participation
and transparency in government? To encourage liberal ideas and access to knowledge
in educational institutions? To ease communications, service improvement, and productivity in corporations? While organizations do have the right to develop their
respective policies, they also have to make sure that the controls and regulations they
impose do not end up curtailing their primary reason for providing Internet access in
the fi rst place.
To a certain extent, the tensions illustrated in the institutional-level cases mirror
similar struggles to control the Internet at the national and global levels. For instance,
institutions can be sensitive to, if not wary of, contrarian views to the point that they
fi lter or censor online messages, fi le charges, or implement authorized-use policies to
discourage such views. Likewise, network security is another concern mentioned
among governments, schools, and corporations that want to monitor and limit access
and use of Internet facilities. However, some of these practices are not based on wellthought-out or formally stated policies and are unknown to the employees themselves,
so that these practices not only are selective in their implementation but also impinge
on the privacy of employees. While policies in institutions cannot be prescriptive, the
process of developing policies needs to involve management, administrators, users,
and clients, just as with states and their citizens. Even then, however, contestations
cannot be avoided, given the different priorities and competing values each side holds.
Notes
1. Victoria Buenger, Richard Daft, Edward Conlon, and Jeffrey Austin, “ Competing Values
in Organizations: Contextual Infl uences and Structural Consequences, ” Organization Science 7,
no. 5 (September-October 1996): 557 – 576.