"Do You Plead Connected?" - Understanding How Lawyers Deal With Constant Connectivity

Abstract

Being available and responsive has become an imperative to accomplish the complex work of knowledge workers and to adequately satisfy today’s business needs. As a consequence, individuals are required to adopt strategies to cope with increasing connectivity levels. We conducted a Q methodological study among 34 lawyers from Switzerland and Austria to examine the adoption of different strategies for dealing with constant connectivity. Our findings reveal four ICT user types, whereof three types successfully deploy a coping strategy while one type fails. We observe that specific determinants such as the work environment, the hierarchical position, the perceived autonomy as well as personality traits have substantial influence on the adoption of a coping strategy.