Conclusion


Before concluding , I would propose that such a path begins by cultivating the right attitude, which requires emphasis on the development of mental quality. One starts doing so by realizing that everything is interconnected . That is, one realizes that everything that happens has a cause, and that one event happening in one corner of the world can have repercussions to other events happening far away. More specifically , both employees and employers should realize that they are in it together. The typical attitude in the West seems to be that the employees only work for the owners or shareholders, and the management is responsible for seeing that the interests of the shareholders are well taken care of. This view overlooks the obvious roles that all participants in the workplace share with one another. In the East, on the other hand, personal, more intimate relationships are much more important. Thailand, in particular, values interpersonal relationships in the workplace on an even higher scale than achievement of the task at hand, or at least achievement in itself would not be valued as highly as when it is accompanied by the right sort of relationships (Komin, 1990). A Thai scholar has gone so far as to say that Thais pay more attention to face saving and an interpersonal system of helping and being helped in turn than do the Japanese (Pornpitakpan, 2000). The emphasis here is not on the patriarchal, hierarchical, and authoritative interpersonal structure that certainly exists in many Asian societies . This is surely a cause for concern. But the emphasis here is rather on the structure of interpersonal relationships where everybody recognizes that the organization or the family exists solely through the activities and networked relationships of everyone in it.

Secondly, close interpersonal relationships should be reinforced by a network of trust and respect one shows toward another in the organization. [ 2] Using surveillance systems seems to show that employers do not trust their workers enough to let them work alone. Cultivating the right mental attitude includes one trusting one s co-workers , believing that they are able to work on their own without the fear that their privacy can at any time be violated without their knowing it through surveillance systems. Trust cannot begin with distrust; hence, it is to the employer s own advantage to start by trusting its employees and not to put surveillance systems on them that generate an atmosphere of pervasive suspicion and distrust . Though I have currently no empirical findings to back this up, it is entirely plausible that in an atmosphere where there is trust and respect, employees should perform better and be more productive since they know they are responsible for their jobs and that they can work in a relaxed atmosphere without having to toil under the constant gaze of the surveillance system. They can work without the fear of always being watched under the atmosphere of distrust and suspicion. In the end, there will ideally be no need for any kind of surveillance at all, electronic or otherwise . [ 3]

[ 2] Schonsheck argues that privacy is key in maintaining the relationships that humans hold dear, in that it safeguards information that should be confined to those relationships themselves (1997). However, in the network of trust and respect that I am discussing here, certain information should be kept private to the individual employees themselves. Thus, there is a sense in which some information should be kept private even in the network of trust and respect. In fact, trust and respect consist of respecting private information of the individuals themselves , a point that Schonsheck does not specifically mention in his paper. Floridi, in addition, argues that privacy does not play a merely instrumental role in information ethics, but, in fact, is central to respect of a person. His brand of information ethics treats the human being as a collection of information; thus, surreptitiously collecting information about a person constitutes a violation of his or her own self in this sense (Floridi, 2004).

[ 3] Research for this chapter was made possible in part by a grant from the Thailand Research Fund, grant no. BRG4680020. I would like to thank the anonymous referee of this chapter, who saved me from many errors and helped me clarify many points.




Electronic Monitoring in the Workplace. Controversies and Solutions
Electronic Monitoring in the Workplace: Controversies and Solutions
ISBN: 1591404568
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 161

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