Modelling Digital Refusals as a Governance Capability

Digital transformation is often presented because of increasing amounts of data, automation, and the growing use of artificial intelligence. However, organizations are increasingly confronted with the disadvantages of overly digitalized environments, including rising complexity, technostress, and uncertainty. Against this backdrop, this study introduces the concept of Digital Refusal Capability (DRC) as a governance strategy that enables organizations to deliberately opt out of digital transformation while continuing to generate value, maintain legitimacy, and promote development. Drawing on knowledge management and information asymmetry considerations, the contribution demonstrates how attempts to promote intense digitalisation could widen the gap between those who design, procure, or interpret digital systems and those who must use them. This gap may further serve as an explanation of phenomena such as hidden work or knowledge hiding. The main contribution is the definition of DRC as a strategic approach to managing knowledge as a complex resource, rather than as a form of resistance. To this end, a three-stage model for digital refusal is proposed with the aim of providing scholars and practitioners with a framework to reduce the aforementioned information asymmetry. As this is offered as a possible explanation of existing conditions of knowledge hiding, we expect that the implementation of the proposed framework may positively contribute as a resolution to the raise of these phenomena.