Examining Electronic Surveillance In The Workplace: A Review Of Theoretical Perspectives And Research Findings

Almost three fourths of major U.S. firms admit that they engage in one form or another of electronic surveillance (American Management Association, 2000). At the same time, concern over the negative effects of electronic surveillance is raising. The paradox of electronic surveillance is that it is much used and little understood. This paper is an attempt to facilitate and stimulate research into electronic surveillance. It summarizes up-to-date information on the pervasiveness and the noted effects of electronic surveillance. It proceeds to review academic studies that have focused on this phenomenon and finally, it proposes two other theoretical perspectives that may explain behavior-related effects of electronic surveillance – equity theory, and a communication-oriented approach that focuses on surveillance and responses to it as socially constructed acts of discipline and antidiscipline. Examining Electronic Surveillance In The Workplace: A Review Of Theoretical Perspectives And Research Findings

[1]  Terri L. Griffith.  Monitoring and Performance: A Comparison of Computer and Supervisor Monitoring , 1993 .

[2]  J. R. Aiello,et al.  Computer Monitoring of Work Performance: Extending the Social Facilitation Framework to Electronic Presence1 , 1993 .

[3]  L. Smircich.  Concepts of Culture and Organizational Analysis. , 1983 .

[4]  David L. Collinson,et al.  'Engineering Humour': Masculinity, Joking and Conflict in Shop-floor Relations , 1988 .

[5]  Christopher A. Higgins,et al.  Computerized performance monitors: are they costing you customers? , 1994 .

[6]  D. Nebeker,et al.  The Effects of Computer Monitoring, Standards, and Rewards on Work Performance, Job Satisfaction, and Stress1 , 1993 .

[7]  J. S. Adams,et al.  Inequity In Social Exchange , 1965 .

[8]  T. Kochan,et al.  COMPUTER-AIDED MONITORING: ITS INFLUENCE ON EMPLOYEE JOB SATISFACTION AND TURNOVER , 1989 .

[9]  M. Foucault,et al.  Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. , 1978 .

[10]  Mark P. Zanna,et al.  Advances in Experimental Social Psychology , 1986, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology.

[11]  Michele H. Jackson.  The Meaning of “Communication Technology”: The Technology-Context Scheme , 1996 .

[12]  H. Becker,et al.  the ethic of care for the self as a practice of freedom , 1987 .

[13]  Edward J. Ottensmeyer,et al.  Ethics, public policy, and managing advanced technologies: The case of electronic surveillance , 1991 .

[14]  H. Gottfried,et al.  Gender and Class Formation: Female Clerical Workers , 1984 .

[15]  S. Deetz.  Democracy in an age of corporate colonization : developments in communication and the politics of everyday life , 1992 .

[16]  David Knights,et al.  Resistance and Power in Organizations , 1994 .

[17]  Suzanne M. Crampton,et al.  Employee Monitoring: Privacy in the Workplace? , 1998 .

[18]  R. D'amico.  Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison , 1978, Telos.

[19]  R. Coombs,et al.  Culture, Control and Competition; Towards a Conceptual Framework for the Study of Information Technology in Organizations , 1992 .

[20]  Carl H. Botan.  Communication work and electronic surveillance: A model for predicting panoptic effects , 1996 .

[21]  David M. Rasmussen,et al.  The final Foucault , 1987 .

[22]  Theo Vurdubakis,et al.  Foucault, power, resistance and all that , 1994 .

[23]  Nathan Bennett,et al.  Employee Reactions to Electronic Control Systems , 1994 .

[24]  John R. Aiello,et al.  Computer‐Based Work Monitoring: Electronic Surveillance and Its Effects , 1993 .

[25]  R. Zajonc.  SOCIAL FACILITATION. , 1965, Science.

[26]  S. Silbey,et al.  Subversive stories and hegemonic tales: toward a sociology of narrative , 1995 .