Examining employee compliance with organizational surveillance and monitoring

TLDR

Employee monitoring technologies are increasingly common, yet little research examines whether employees accept them or resist them. The study proposes a theory‑of‑planned‑behaviour and ethical decision‑making framework to predict employees’ compliance with and resistance to monitoring technologies. The framework posits that organizational commitment, identification, and attitudes toward surveillance predict compliance and resistance intentions, moderated by perceived behavioural control and social norms. Regression analyses confirmed that attitudes and beliefs predict intentions, with partial support for the moderating roles of perceived behavioural control and social norms.

Abstract

Although the prevalence of employee monitoring and surveillance technologies (MSTs; e.g. e‐mail monitoring) is increasing, very little research has explored the question of whether employees simply accept these systems (compliance) or enact strategies for thwarting them (resistance). In the present study, we proposed a framework based on the theory of planned behaviour and ethical decision making research to predict employees' MST compliance and resistance intentions. We proposed that organizational commitment, organizational identification, and attitudes towards surveillance would predict intentions, with the relationships between attitudes and intentions being moderated by employees' perceived behavioural control and social norms. Moderated multiple regression models were tested and provided support for predictions about the attitudinal and belief constructs, and partial support for predictions about behavioural control and norms. Implications for organizational MST policies and practices are discussed.