Job Overload, Organizational Commitment, and Motivation as Antecedents of Cyberloafing: Evidence from Employee Monitoring Software

Companies use monitoring software to watch employees’ activity. With concerns over privacy, many have compared such workplace to Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon, but without proper qualification. By examining software vendors and employers’ intentions, monitoring software’s capabilities, enforcers’ (system admins) self-identification and actual effect of surveillance on employees, we find that employers seek to induce compliance with policies through eliminating expectation of privacy. Hence, the Panopticon, as a form of social control, has been implemented in modern workplace. Because Panopticism pits privacy against other benefits, further research into the role of privacy in the human society is needed.

Download Full-text

E-PANOPTICON OF FACE-TO-DISPLAY WORKERS: FROM THE OFFICE TO THE HOME

AD ALTA Journal of Interdisciplinary Research ◽

10.33543/110197105 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

pp. 97-105

Author(s):

MICHAL BEŇO ◽

JOZEF HVORECKÝ ◽

JOZEF ŠIMÚTH

Keyword(s):

Electronic Monitoring ◽

Chi Square ◽

Mail Surveys ◽

Positive Attitudes ◽

The Face ◽

Pervasive Monitoring ◽

Cross Tabulation ◽

Employee Monitoring ◽

Monitoring Software ◽

E Mail

Electronic Monitoring (EM) is becoming prevalent, enabling varied and pervasive monitoring of workplaces. The research design was a set of e-mail surveys. Quantitative data were analyzed using cross-tabulation of data, descriptive and chi-square tests statistics. The study provides an overview of e-worker monitoring in five countries. Twenty percent of respondents believe that their organization uses employee monitoring software to track their activities. Almost half of the e-workers believe that their activities are not being tracked by software. Nearby 1/10 of the face-to-display workers surveyed would trust their employer more using EM. Four-fifths of e-workers state that EM affects their productivity. Presented data emphasizes that companies using face-to-display workers monitoring software can negatively affect morale and productivity instead of producing better work. Further, employees are often unfamiliar with whether or not there is monitoring software tracking their activities. The study recommends that organizations should inform its employees before implementation of EM system to facilitate their positive attitudes

Download Full-text

Collective Efficacy and Organizational Commitment in an Italian City Hall

European Psychologist ◽

10.1027/1016-9040.14.4.363 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 14 (4) ◽

pp. 363-371 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Laura Borgogni ◽

Silvia Dello Russo ◽

Laura Petitta ◽

Gary P. Latham

Keyword(s):

Organizational Commitment ◽

Collective Efficacy ◽

Structural Equation ◽

Structural Equation Models ◽

Practical Significance ◽

City Hall ◽

Italian City ◽

Public Sector Managers ◽

The Individual ◽

Level Group

Employees (N = 170) of a City Hall in Italy were administered a questionnaire measuring collective efficacy (CE), perceptions of context (PoC), and organizational commitment (OC). Two facets of collective efficacy were identified, namely group and organizational. Structural equation models revealed that perceptions of top management display a stronger relationship with organizational collective efficacy, whereas employees’ perceptions of their colleagues and their direct superior are related to collective efficacy at the group level. Group collective efficacy had a stronger relationship with affective organizational commitment than did organizational collective efficacy. The theoretical significance of this study is in showing that CE is two-dimensional rather than unidimensional. The practical significance of this finding is that the PoC model provides a framework that public sector managers can use to increase the efficacy of the organization as a whole as well as the individual groups that compose it.

Download Full-text