Abstract
In the past decades the subject of surveillance has developed and increased to become a popular topic covered by academics, legal scholars, and others. Allmer (2010) states “Surveillance studies scholars like David Lyon (1994) or Clive Norris and Gary Armstrong (1999) stress that we live in a surveillance society”. The “Panopticon” (Sullivan & College, 2013) is often used to describe the term surveillance. With the emergence of new forms of technology rapidly rising there are various devices used to carry out surveillance in everyday life.
The use of surveillance in the workplace is increasing and creating ethical issues for employees. Whilst past research carried out on the uses of surveillance in the workplace, and impacts on of it on employees; there is a lack of research on what concerns employees have regarding the data that is collected about them through surveillance in the workplace, therefore this proposal aims to research this area.
Key Words
Employees, ethics, monitoring, surveillance, workplace
1. Background
The increase of communications technology and its significant growth has meant that surveillance is presently regarded as one the main concerns in the workplace (Eivazi, 2011). In recent years this area has been of interest for the media, academia, and legal scholars but, there is also a lack of research especially from the employees’ perspective about the use of surveillance in the workplace.
Surveillance is widely used in many organisations over recent years (Ledema & Rhodes, 2010) and is also known as e-Surveillance (Sheriff & Ravishankar, 2012) and electronic monitoring (Ball & Margulis, 2011). The widespread of surveillance adopted in organisations creates many reasons to why employers are using surveillance in the workplace; some of the reasons are for the security of the workplace environment for both the organisation and the employees, as well as to monitor each and every activity carried out by the employees in the workplace. However, employees also have concerns towards the use of surveillance in the workplace and mainly regarding the data that is collected about them through surveillance. (Rosenblat et al., 2014). This is a proposal to investigate the ethics of surveillance in the workplace that will also include e-surveillance and electronic monitoring which are also referred to as surveillance.
2. Research questions
Are employees aware of the different types of surveillance techniques used in the workplace?
What concerns do employees have regarding the data collected about them through surveillance?
3. Literature Review
3.1. Overview of surveillance
The topic of surveillance also involves electronic surveillance and electronic monitoring. As stated by Eivazi (2011) “Electronic surveillance is a form of electronic monitoring, therefore, the terms monitoring and surveillance can be used interchangeably.”, hence, when the term surveillance is mentioned this includes electronic surveillance and electronic monitoring.
There are many definitions to surveillance, one of the definitions according to Kidwell & Sprague (2009) for electronic surveillance in the context of work is; “ES is an employer’s use of information technology such as computers and other electronic devices to collect data related to performance and behaviour of its workforce”. One of the specific reasons to why surveillance was introduced in organisations and the employers started to use it was mainly to ensure that the workplace was a safe environment for their employees. Above all, one other reason organisations are using and implementing various types of surveillance techniques is to ensure that their assets are protected from their employees (Ball, 2010).
Another meaning of surveillance from a workplace perspective by Ball (2010) is the “management’s ability to monitor, record and track employee performance, behaviours and personal characteristics in real time”. Consequently, surveillance has developed over the years and has become a daily routine by organisations and employers for monitoring employees in the workplace. The employer themselves think that it is right from their point of view to carry out such actions as they think they have valid reasons to do so. However it is also a matter that is of increasing concern (Best, 2010), the employees think it is raising ethical issues and they are having to work in a controlled environment where they are constantly being watched.
Looking at surveillance from the workplace context, one would straightaway think of CCTV and video camera’s tracking their every movement indoors, but that is not always the case; surveillance can also be used outdoors to track employees wherever they go from one location to another. Public organisations are using GPS tracking devices attached to their vehicles in order to develop their employee efficiency and observe their performance quality (Rosenberg, 2010).
3.2. Surveillance in the workplace and reasons to why it is used
Since the beginning of 1980’s, surveillance in the workplace is an area that has time and time again been questioned. The “political, economic, sociological, and psychological perspectives on workplace surveillance” Ball (2010), were merged together in a report issued in 1987 by the US Office of Technology Assessment. Coultrup & Fountain (2012) mention that the percentage of organisations that are choosing to take on some form of electronic means for monitoring their employees in the workplace has been gradually rising from the past ten years. This raises questions such as; why are organisations and employers using surveillance in the workplace or why are they choosing to use some forms of electronic monitoring to monitor and watch their employees in the workplace? There are many reasons and answers to these questions.
As technology is increasingly developing and new technologies are emerging, employees in the workplace are using the different forms of technology in ways that should not be used in the workplace environment; this gives the organisations and employers legitimate explanations to why they are carrying out some form or surveillance on their employees, and monitoring them. Personal web use by the employees has caused employers to carry out surveillance in the workplace as it is classed as a non-work related activity using devices provided by the employer (Polzer-Debruyne et al., 2014). Furthermore, employees in the workplace are spending vast amounts of time connected to the internet seeking their personal interests as a substitute of carrying out business and work associated activities. The personal interests of employees include activities such as browsing the web, accessing social network and online shopping websites (Sanders et al., 2013); this has left organisations and employers no choice but to take actions such as blocking sites and monitoring the internet usage and email.
Employees are also being monitored due to cyberslacking; according to Vitak et al., (2011) cyberslacking is defined as “the use of internet and mobile technology during work hours for personal purposes”. Cyberslacking is also known as cyberloafing, internet abuse, personal use at work and non-related work activities.
Whilst surveillance is used by organisations and employers to monitor their employees, it is also argued that issues of ethics and the negative impact felt by the employees are raising concerns.
3.3. Types of surveillance techniques and tools
The emergence of new technologies is meaning that organisations and employers are utilizing different kinds of surveillance techniques that include tools and devices to watch and monitor their employees. These surveillance techniques include hardware and software devices that are built-in the workplace environment and then implemented in order to track and monitor actions of the employees. The various forms of hardware and software devices and electronic monitoring techniques used in the workplace include Wireless communications (Determann & Sprague, 2011), Web 2.0 technological features (Mitrou et al., 2014), Computer keystroke capturing (Chinyere & Chiemela, 2014), and Video cameras (Applin & Fischer, 2013).
Other forms of surveillance that are carried out in the workplace is internet surveillance which involves network and service surveillance (Roberts & Palfrey, 2010), and telephone surveillance which is common in the workplace where employers are spending time monitoring their employees’ phone calls by recording and listening to their conversations.
Latest technology is also allowing the organisations employers to use surveillance tools systems such as of ID/Smartcards that track employees and control their access to departments and buildings, as well as facial recognitions and finger print scanners (Schumacher, 2011). However specific surveillance technologies such as video surveillance in organisations such as hospitals that are based in different locations, help the employer’s to monitor their employees health and safety practices.
Such practices by organisations and employers are raising many ethical issues for the employees in the workplace environment even if the organisations and employers are not using highly advanced surveillance technologies to monitor their employees; this leads to the matter of privacy and questions the employee’s rights to privacy in the workplace environment.
4. Methodology Review
There are various different approaches that can be used within a research project to successfully answer a research question. These approaches consist of the different types of qualitative and quantitative methodologies (Berndtsson et al., 2008) including questionnaires (Dawson, 2009), interviews, and surveys (Yi et al., 2009). The different qualitative and quantitative methodologies have their own benefits and drawbacks; therefore, it is vital that suitable research methods are selected according to the type of data that is going to be collected.
4.1. Interviews
An interview is one of the most common qualitative methodologies used for collecting data for research related activities. According to Oates (2006) “An interview is a particular kind of conversation between two people”. The main purpose of an interview is that it allows the researcher to gather additional information. It enables the researcher to ask the participants open-ended questions allowing them to go in depth and get detailed answers in comparison to quantitative methodologies such as questionnaires that prevent the researcher from getting more detailed answers. There are many different types of interviews which can be divided into three categories such as; structured, semi-structured, and unstructured interviews (Oates, 2006).
Interview research methods have benefits and drawbacks; one benefit is that they enable to gather in depth and detailed information on the research topic being covered; another benefit is that they allow flexibility, as the interviewer can adjust the questions and ask additional questions as the interview progresses. However, interviews can be time-consuming for the researcher, as they have to write down the answers and analyse findings of data which is unstructured.
4.2. Questionnaires
The questionnaire is a quantitative research methodology that is a useful way of collecting data from a large number audience. It is also defined as pre-arranged questions gathered in a pre-determined order (Dawson, 2009). Questionnaires enable the researcher to ask participants questions and gather that can be easily analysed and interpreted. Questionnaires can be completed without the researcher being available at that time, or they can be administered by the researcher where the researcher will ask the participant questions and complete the questionnaire for them.
One of the benefits of using a questionnaire is; it is easier for respondents to complete a questionnaire and allows the researcher to collect data from large number of audience which also makes it easier to analyse the data. Drawbacks for using a questionnaire include; respondents may not always give honest answers which may lead to unreliable data gathered.
4.3. Surveys
Survey (Magnavita et al., 2012) is another form of data gathering method which can be used in research projects. Surveys enable the researcher to ask the same questions to large group of audience which then can be analysed to look for any patterns in the data. Surveys are widely acknowledge and used for research purposes as they can be distributed easily using various different methods including the internet and emails.
One of the advantages of using a survey method is they enable to cover a large and wide-ranging audience so that outcomes are possible to be representative of an ample population which will allow to come to a comprehensive conclusion. A disadvantage of using a survey method is that they do not provide much detail on the research topic investigated; they mainly focus of getting large amount of data rather than the depth.
4.4. Focus Groups
The focus group is categorised under qualitative research methodologies. These are also known as group interviews; Conklin & Hayhoe (2010) state that “according to Creswell and Krueger, the focus group is the best means of examining the subject from the inside out”. This method takes a different approach to the interview methodology mentioned above where each individual in interviewed separately. However, the focus group enables the researcher to gather group members together allowing them to interact with each other and have a group discussion on the topic they are given; this helps the researcher to collect new insights that may arise on the topic that is being explore that may not have been identified earlier.
Focus group is an approach which has its advantages and disadvantages of being used. The advantages of this method include; it can help the researcher to collect common views of the topic, also allowing them to come up with themes which they may want to cover in the focus group discussion. A disadvantage of this approach is that some participants may not want to put across their own opinions in front of others in the group.
4.5. Case Studies
A case study enables the researcher to concentrate on a specific ‘thing’ or ‘one situation (Dawson, 2009) which can be “an organisation, a department, an information system, a discussion forum, a systems developer, a development project, and so on” Oates (2006). This type of research methodology is applied by using different approaches including questionnaires, observations, and interviews. Case studies regularly create vast quantities of data that is then needed to be analysed and understand it so that the researcher can make important conclusion based of what they are aiming to research. The case study technique is grouped by several different categories including setting the case study in its natural environment, and the use of numerous sources and methods to gather as much data as it can. There are three types of case studies such as “exploratory study, descriptive study, and explanatory study” Oates (2006).
In using a case study for collecting data for research there are several advantages and disadvantages to it, one advantage is that it can handle situations that are difficult, and that can be hard especially when a particular aspect is being studied in more detail. A disadvantage of using case studies for collecting data is that it can take a long time and it can be hard to agree the access to people, settings and documents that are needed for data gathering.
4.6. Chosen Methodologies
4.6.1. Interview
An interview is a qualitative research method that is chosen in order to help in answering the research topic. One of the reasons as why this approach was chosen is because it can be used to gather open-ended answers by which employees may not state in a survey. It will also give the participants (employees) the chance to expand on their answers to the questions being asked allowing them to answer them in details, and alternatively allow them to ask any questions related to the topic. As the research topic that is aimed to be investigated will need in-depth answers from the employees, therefore using this research method will help in getting those answers. For instance of the questions in the interview will ask “What are you concerned about the most in regards to the data collected about you through surveillance in the workplace, and why?”; these types of questions allow the researcher to get as much information as they can to answer the research question, and also enable the participant to express their concerns in detail.
Also the participant will be interview in their natural work environment and by carrying out a face-to-face interview will allow the researcher to observe the reactions of the participants when they are answering the questions. Furthermore, if the participant does not understand the question they are being asked, they can request the interviewer (researcher) to explain the question to them so that they fully understand the question which will mean that reliable can be gathered. 30 participants from 3 different universities in different geographical locations will be asked to take part in the interviews; the interviews will be 30 minutes long.
4.6.2. Survey
A survey is another method chosen in order to answer the research question. One of the reasons as to why this quantitative research method was chosen is because it is a quick and easy means of collecting data from a large population. As interviews will be carried out to get detailed information, the survey will allow in getting relevant data which can easily be interpreted in numerical forms and allow to create generalised conclusions.
Also surveys are less time-consuming and they will be available for the participants (employees) to complete via a web portal in the workplace where they can get can easy access and submit it easily after completing it. 300 participants from 3 different universities in different geographical locations will be asked participate in completing the survey.
5. Conclusion
The rise of surveillance in the workplace brings many issues to individuals especially employees that are under surveillance in the work environment. Various literatures have been covered to acknowledge what has been researched in the past and this research proposal has explained why the topic “The ethics of surveillance in the workplace” to answer the main research question “What concerns do employees have regarding the data collected about them through surveillance?” Different methodologies will be used to answer the research question and the project will be broken down into tasks in order to complete it successfully.
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