Attitudes Toward Monitoring: Identifying the Latitude of Rejection Around Monitoring


Attitudes Toward Monitoring: Identifying the Latitude of Rejection Around Monitoring

Even though they ve announced they would be monitoring, so it s not unexpected, and we signed the consent forms, there s something ugly about knowing that our customer calls are being recorded and listened to. We subject criminals in our society to this type of surveillance, and even then it is with considerable reluctance and is subject to strict legal control. I felt a great deal of anger as I watched this. At lunch I tried to sum up to myself how I felt about monitoring at that moment: I find it insulting, degrading, demoralizing, humiliating, disgusting, and discriminatory. (Personal communication with an electronically monitored employee, 2003)

An attitude is generally defined as an evaluative judgment of a target that is based on cognitive, affective, and behavioural information (Worchel et al., 2000). Furthermore, the affective or feeling component of an attitude often forms before we can cognitively appraise the target. There is little doubt that exposure to electronic monitoring might elicit an immediate affective reaction in people. Depending on the strength of our affective reaction, we may engage in a search for meaning to help us make sense of our feelings (e.g., attitude formation; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986; Zanna, 1993). If the affective reaction is strong, we might think that the monitoring activity violates our boundaries, or in other words, falls within our latitude of rejection. However, if our affective reaction is not that strong, we might believe that the monitoring respects our boundaries (e.g., the monitoring falls within our latitude of acceptance ). For instance, if my supervisor asks for my consent prior to engaging in a monitoring episode, or I am informed when monitoring will begin and end, I may not experience a strong affective reaction. However, monitoring activities that fall within the latitude of rejection will motivate people to identify the bases of these boundary violations. As an example, learning that my conversations are going to be continuously recorded and reviewed by my supervisors makes me angry. Why am I angry? Most often, people will conclude that they are angry because the monitoring activity violates their privacy and is unfair (Eddy et al., 1999).

Once privacy and fairness concerns arise, a negative attitude toward monitoring develops. We also know that once a personally relevant attitude is formed , it is difficult to change (Aronson, 1999). Therefore, subsequent efforts to change these negative attitudes toward monitoring are not likely to be successful. The key, then, to mitigating the negative attitudes and reactions to monitoring might be to avoid activating a concern for boundaries that triggers privacy and fairness concerns. In other words, designing and implementing monitoring systems that do not violate boundaries might allay subsequent concerns about privacy and fairness, and prevent the activation and formation of negative attitudes.

We know why fairness and privacy are important; we even know why these concerns lead to negative attitudes toward monitoring. What we know little about is what triggers these fairness and privacy concerns and how they can be mitigated. Once we have a better understanding of why monitoring technologies violate our boundaries, we can look for ways to design and implement monitoring systems that prevent these violations from occurring. Figure 1 presents a model for understanding employee reactions to EPM. This model integrates existing models of privacy (Stone & Stone, 1990), and fairness (Ambrose & Alder, 2000) with more recent models of awareness system acceptance (Zweig & Webster, 2002). In extending previous research, the new model goes beyond the guidelines established to enhance privacy and fairness perceptions by integrating knowledge of the antecedents to privacy and fairness reactions. Specifically , this model accounts for the influence of psychological boundary violations to explain how and why privacy and fairness concerns are triggered when organizations attempt to monitor the activities of their employees . Furthermore, as described above, this model draws from the attitude change literature to account for why a boundary violation can lead to the rejection of monitoring. In sum, integrating previous work on privacy, fairness, and acceptance, and expanding the research to include the psychological mechanisms guiding employee attitudes and behaviours (e.g., psychological boundary violations) can provide a more comprehensive understanding of employee reactions to monitoring.

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Figure 1: A model for understanding employee reactions to EPM

Before we can design EPM systems that do not trigger boundary concerns, future research must first identify the boundary conditions around monitoring, specifically determining what falls within the latitude of rejection when it comes to monitoring activities. This involves testing the psychological boundaries around monitoring. In particular, we must identify the most extreme, yet acceptable, monitoring activities (latitude of acceptance) and the least extreme, yet objectionable , monitoring activities (latitude of rejection). For example, we need to know if people are willing to accept having their conversations monitored continuously or only once every two hours. If we can identify the characteristics of monitoring systems that neither fall within the latitude of rejection nor violate boundaries, we can then determine whether changes in levels of boundary violations are related to changes in perceptions of privacy invasion, fairness perceptions, and attitudes toward monitoring, and lead to behaviours such as deviance or compliance.

What if we discover that the line between benign and intrusive monitoring lies at the junction between the use and non-use of EPM? For example, employees may identify any form of EPM as a violation of boundaries, despite every attempt to respect privacy and maintain fairness. Do we then settle for EPM systems that partially mitigate, if not totally eliminate, negative outcomes ? Recall that Zweig and Webster (2002) found that designing system characteristics to respect privacy and maintain fairness did lead to less negative attitudes toward monitoring. After all, organizations must be entitled to achieve their goals in the most cost- and time-effective manner possible. While it is certainly true that EPM will benefit organizations in the short-run, as described below, the potential long- term implications for the use of EPM technologies suggest caution.




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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