---
title: "Organizational technoethics"
chunk: 1/3
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational_technoethics"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:23:57.765531+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Organizational technoethics (OT) is a branch stemming from technoethics. Advances in technology and their ability to transmit vast amounts of information in a short amount of time have changed the way information is being shared amongst co-workers and managers throughout organizations across the globe. Starting in the 1980s with information and communications technologies (ICTs), organizations have seen an increase in the amount of technology that they rely on to communicate within and outside of the workplace. However, these implementations of technology in the workplace create various ethical concerns and in turn a need for further analysis of technology in organizations. As a result of this growing trend, a subsection of technoethics known as organizational technoethics has emerged to address these issues.

== Changes to organizational structure ==
Organizational technoethics "focuses on how technological advances are redefining organizations and how they operate within an evolving knowledge economy". This new focus on knowledge and information within organizations has changed the way they function on a daily basis and has made it apparent that "as knowledge-intensive work gradually becomes the cornerstone of this economy, understanding its control practices is consequential to organizational effectiveness, worker satisfaction and ethical conditions of organizational governance". With this "knowledge intensive work" at the forefront of most organizations, the efficient transmission of this knowledge and information now becomes a major priority to be carried out in the workplace. The introduction of the Internet in the workplace allowed employees to transmit information electronically not only to others in their own office but those in other countries as well. Technology began to facilitate the rapid exchange of information for these organizations and thus contributed to a structural change in how they operate. These changes prompted researchers to delve deeper into the issues surrounding organizational technoethics in how technology was shaping the workplace, whether positively or negatively, and the ethical issues that may arise.
The use of ICTs within organizations have given way to a new kind of office setting where physically being in the office is not mandatory to get the job done. This recent trend coined by many as the virtual workplace involves several workplaces that are connected through technology and are not hindered by physical restraints. Remote work, hot desking, and virtual teams are the three major types of virtual workplaces that have been made possible through the use of technology and have changed the way many organizations communicate and transmit information.

== New ethical challenges ==
The increasing use of ICTs in the workplace has presented organizations with new ethical challenges. It has been argued that ICT use in organizational settings can contribute to counterproductive behaviour and deviancy as the line between personal and professional lives becomes blurred. Usually this behaviour consists of non-sanctioned use of ICTs during work hours, such as updating personal blogs, playing games, doing personal banking online, and using email for non-work related activities.
In response to these popular misuses of technology in the workplace, some organizations have implemented workplace surveillance technologies and content-control software to monitor and restrict employees' activities online.
ICT use in medical organizations has also given rise to new ethical dilemmas, such as the use of electronic medical records. These have created privacy concerns relating to potential breaches of doctor-patient confidentiality as well as concerns with information storage.

=== Organizational restrictions on social networking ===
One area of technoethics that is growing increasingly popular is organizational ethics and technology. The introduction of technology into organizations has fueled many different questions. Among these many questions is whether or not the technology being used is ethical. Many different case studies have been conducted in organizations around the world. In these case studies, new technology that has been introduced to an organization is examined. During the examination, one ethical question that seems to be a main focus for researchers is whether or not the new technology maintains users' privacy.
The advent of technology has also opened up new avenues and opportunities for individuals to misbehave; for example, cyberloafing, the act of employees using their companies' Internet access for personal purposes during work hours. While access to the internet may not result in an increase in production deviance with more people engaging in loafing per se, the temptation to do so is certainly higher since the Internet makes it so much easier and convenient to loaf in this manner. It is suggested by Lim when organizations are distributively, procedurally and interactionally unjust in their treatment of their employees (i.e., organizations have not given expected rewards or fair treatment in exchange for fair work), these employees are more likely to invoke the neutralization technique to legitimize their subsequent engagement in the act of cyberloafing. (Lim 2002)
One technology that has grown in popularity in recent years is social networking sites, as many people use sites such as Facebook for personal and professional reasons. Organizations all over the world, including those in the Canadian province of Ontario, have begun to block access to Facebook and have led to criticism of Facebook. For example, in May 2007, Ontario government employees, Federal public servants, MPPs and cabinet ministers were blocked from access to Facebook on government computers. Employees trying to access Facebook received a warning message that read "The Internet website that you have requested has been deemed unacceptable for use for government business purposes". The use of social networking sites led to a fear that government offices would become more vulnerable to computer viruses and hackers. However, with the government denying the use of these websites in their offices, many ethical questions arise about whether or not denying employees access to something that is readily available to everyone else is an infringement on the employees' rights and freedoms as Canadian citizens.