Electronic monitoring and surveillance in the workplace: The effects on trust in management, and the moderating role of occupational type

Purpose – Electronic monitoring and surveillance (EMS) practices provide new challenges in the workplace. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between EMS in the workplace on employees’ trust in management. Design/methodology/approach – This paper is based upon data from the 2012 Australian Electronic Workplace Survey of 500 randomly sampled employees. Controlling for a range of personal, job and workplace characteristics, the data were analysed using OLS and ordered probit regression. Findings – The regression analyses identified that EMS has, on average, a negative relationship with trust in management. The authors further differentiated the sample to examine the potential impact of EMS on trust between manual and non-manual employees. The study found the relationship between EMS and trust in management was only evident for manual workers. Research limitations/implications – Future research should investigate the extent to which employee attitudes, commitment and engagement are impac...

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