Big Brother Is Watching

Big Brother is Watching:

Electronic Performance Monitoring in the Knowledge-based Sector

MASTER THESIS WITHIN: Business Administration NUMBER OF CREDITS: 30 ECTS PROGRAMME OF STUDY: Digital Business AUTHOR: Magdalena Kaminskaite & Samir Muzaiek JÖNKÖPING June 2021

Acknowledgments

"If a machine, a Terminator, can learn the value of human life, maybe we can, too.” Sarah Connor - Terminator 2: Judgment Day We would like to express our gratitude to our tutor - Michał Zawadzki for guiding us through the challenging process of writing our thesis. Also, to the colleagues involved in providing us with useful feedback throughout the way, helping us to maintain focused and critical. Furthermore, we would like to express our gratitude for the wonderful people who took their time to answer our extensive and challenging questions that allowed our research to become a reality. A big thank you goes to our friends and family that were extremely encouraging and supportive throughout the whole process. Finally, we extend our gratitude to Covid-19 for making our lives miserable hell, the whole process stakingly painful, and opening the doors for this research to happen.

Samir Muzaiek Magdalena Kaminskaite

Master Thesis in Business Administration

Title: Big Brother is Watching: Electronic Performance Monitoring in the Knowledge- based Sector Authors: M. Kaminskaite & S. Muzaiek Tutor: Michal Zawadzki Date: 2021-05-24

Key terms: Electronic Performance Monitoring, Knowledge-based Workers, Organizational Control, Privacy, Technology-mediated Control, Remote Work, Workplace Surveillance.

Abstract

In light of the global shift to remote work that was prompted by the Covid-19 pandemic - the relevance and use of Electronic Performance Monitoring (EPM) significantly escalated across all sectors. However, the most recent comprehensive literature review on the topic by Ravid et al. (2020) pointed out significant gaps in how EPM is perceived by knowledge-based employees. In line with those defined gaps, we raised two research questions, regarding what the perceptions of knowledge-based workers are towards the implementation and dissemination of EPM techniques, and whether the workplace context (home/office) has an effect on knowledge-based worker’s perceptions towards it. In this paper, we take a critical approach relying on a theory-based typology of EPM characteristics and build on the organizational control theory by elaborating on the technology-mediated control concept. We follow the constructivist grounded theory approach developed by Charmaz (2008) and the data was collected via 20 semi-structured interviews. The key findings of this research showed similarities as well as differences in how knowledge-based employees perceive EPM in contrast to other types of workforce. While overall the perceptions on EPM are negative, they can to some extent be alleviated by introducing a justifiable purpose, being transparent, allowing control over monitoring, and setting clear limits. Moreover, we provided insights into the perceptions of knowledge-based workers in response to EPM within the context of working from home. In such a context, knowledge-based workers show more resistance to EPM techniques and higher expectations of privacy, transparency, and appropriate data handling. Lastly, the authors provided avenues for further research including cross-cultural perspective, access to data, and ethicality and legality of EPM.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction ...... 1

2. Problem Discussion ...... 3 3. Research Purpose / Question...... 5

4. Literature Review ...... 6 4.1 Knowledge-based workers ...... 6 4.2 Electronic Performance Monitoring (EPM)...... 7 4.2.1 Typology of EPM characteristics ...... 8 4.2.1.1 Purpose ...... 8 4.2.1.2 Invasiveness...... 9 4.2.1.3 Synchronicity ...... 10 4.3 The role of EPM in organizations ...... 12 4.4 Psychological and work design effects on EPM ...... 12 4.5 Privacy ...... 14 4.6 Legal / Ethical considerations of EPM ...... 15 4.7 Critical theory ...... 16 4.8 Electronic panopticon ...... 17 4.9 Organizational Control ...... 18 4.10 Strategies of Organizational Control ...... 20 5. Methodology...... 22 5.1 Research Paradigm...... 22 5.2 Research strategy ...... 23 5.3 Data Collection & Sampling...... 24 5.4 Data Analysis ...... 25 5.5 Trustworthiness...... 26 5.5.1 Credibility ...... 26 5.5.2 Transferability ...... 26 5.5.3 Dependability ...... 26 5.5.4 Confirmability ...... 27 5.6 Ethics and Confidentiality ...... 27 6. Empirical Data ...... 28 6.1 Knowledge-based Worker Perceptions of EPM ...... 29 6.1.1 Knowledge-based Worker Perceptions of the Purpose of EPM ...... 29 6.1.2 Perceptions Regarding Invasiveness and Control ...... 31 6.1.2.1 The Perimeter of Monitoring...... 31 6.1.2.2 Control ...... 34 6.1.2.3 Protection Measures ...... 34 6.1.2.4 Scope of Monitoring ...... 35 6.1.3 Data Collection and Delivery Preferences ...... 36 6.1.3.1 Span of Collection ...... 36 6.1.3.2 Feedback Delivery ...... 36 6.1.4 Transparency over Data ...... 38 6.1.4.1 Level of Communication and Knowledge ...... 38 6.1.4.2 Access to Data ...... 39 6.1.4.3 Data Ownership ...... 40 6.2 Reaction to Monitoring ...... 41 6.3 Monitoring at Home ...... 44 6.3.1 The overlap between home and office ...... 46

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6.3.2 Unorthodox working hours ...... 48 6.3.3 The effect of working from home on EPM preferences ...... 50 7. Analysis and Discussion ...... 52 7.1 EPM and knowledge-based workers ...... 53 7.1.1 Access to Data ...... 54 7.1.2 Data Collection ...... 54 7.2 The Context of Working From Home...... 55 7.3 Electronic Panopticon ...... 56 7.4 EPM in the Context of Organizational Control...... 57 7.5 Critical Points on the Dissemination of EMP ...... 58 7.5.1 The Effect on Productivity ...... 59 7.5.2 Informed consent and the future of consent...... 59 7.5.3 Data security, Privacy, and the Risk of Cyber-espionage ...... 61 7.5.4 EPM and Organizational Culture in the Context of Organizational Control 62 7.5.5 Fear of Exploitation ...... 63 8. Conclusion...... 64

9. Contributions ...... 66 9.1 Theoretical Contribution ...... 66 9.2 Managerial Contribution ...... 66 10. Limitations ...... 67

11. Future Research ...... 67 11.1 Cross-cultural perspective...... 67 11.2 Access to data ...... 67 11.3 Ethicality and legality of EPM ...... 68 11.4 Digital natives and digital immigrants ...... 68 12. Reference List ...... 69

13. Appendix ...... 75

Appendix 1 ...... 75

Appendix 2 ...... 77 Appendix 3 ...... 78

1. Introduction

______In this section we will open with a general background on the context of the dissemination of EPM and the situation of the Covid-19 pandemic that led to the rapid adaptation. ______

In the late 2019, slightly over 5 percent of employees in the US worked remotely with regularity (Leonardi, 2021). However, with the Covid-19 pandemic spreading across the world over the last year, the governments issued strict safety-based regulations which made companies initiate a rapid and wholesale shift to remote work arrangements. This has been made possible by software that allows real-time text, audio, video and data sharing (Leonardi, 2021), therefore the providers of such services are experiencing unprecedented growth during the time. The video conferencing company Zoom has seen growth of 326% in 2020 and expects the sales to rise by 40% again in 2021 (BBC News, 2021). The business communication platform Microsoft Teams experienced a growth of 894% from March to June 2020 with the number of daily users skyrocketing since the beginning of the pandemic (Curry, 2021). Companies are sending their employees to work remotely indefinitely or sometimes even permanently like Twitter or Facebook. After the trial period that Covid-19 has offered, companies are seeing possible cost savings coming from remote work with a typical employer being able to save about $11,000 per year for every person who works remotely half the time (Berliner, 2020). However, drawbacks ranging from more difficult collaboration to the issues of loneliness and isolation (Berliner, 2020) are suggesting that although not always in full capacity, remote work is still here to stay.

Employee performance monitoring is embedded in the traditional business model based on the notion that employees are provided with a monetary reward in exchange for a service. This has been the norm for as long as we can remember labour as we know it, however since the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic and a worldwide shift to working from home, the circumstances have significantly changed. With the majority of the population working from home, companies need to find new, innovative ways of monitoring, which have not yet been tested by time. Meanwhile, the current wave of industrial development is boosted by the proliferation of cyber-physical infrastructure and

interconnected systems that are making new practices of profiling, organizing and monitoring possible (Aloist & Gramano, 2019). Those vary from productivity to behavioural or even personal characteristics monitoring (Ball, 2010), utilizing the data collected from the devices used for work. Essentially, we have a new breed of electronic monitoring tools that are much more invasive than the traditional performance evaluation methods - collecting information that might go beyond the obvious (Montealegre & Cascio, 2017). In turn, neither the employers nor the employees are familiar with the methods or are sufficiently informed about the effects it may have on psychological wellbeing or work performance. What causes serious concerns in this situation is the distribution of power, with managers clearly holding the upper hand.

A Stanford study of 16,000 employees showed that working from home leads to a 13% increase in performance with improved work satisfaction and halved attrition rate (Bloom et al., 2015). However, employers remain worried (Routley, 2020) that productivity and focus might be diminished if people work in informal locations like home or a cafe. With the intention to maintain control over employees even during remote work, businesses turn to different service providers - companies that offer Electronic Performance Monitoring (EPM) software and hardware solutions. In essence, EPM captures employee behaviour and generates data that produces rich and permanent records which can be directly accessed by managers (Montealegre & Cascio, 2017). It may also target private behaviours and internal states - for example monitoring employee emails gives companies the ability to track their thoughts, feelings and attitudes that are originally meant to be private (Ravid et al., 2020). This might become a critical concern for individuals, as there is a possibility of non-work-related information being captured, especially when such people’s characteristics and physiology (i.e., biometric information like heart rate and body heat emissions) are concerned (Ravid et al., 2020). This type of monitoring is already in use in multiple sectors such as customer service and manual work, however due to the pandemic, a new group of employees are being introduced to this kind of work, more specifically knowledge-based workers. Knowledge based workers are characterized as being qualified and highly educated labour that conducts intellectual tasks (Alvesson, 2004) in a nonlinear fashion.

Different providers of such services offer unique levels of transparency towards the employees, ranging from access to all information gathered about them to not disclosing any details whatsoever regarding the data collected. Some monitoring software referred to as “invisible” even goes as far as to hide itself from the people that are being monitored (Cyphers & Gullo, 2020) by being designed to be difficult to detect and remove. While invisible software providers recommend it only to be installed on devices used for work, they still offer “silent” installation features that can implement the monitoring program remotely and without employee knowledge. At the same time, a lot of people use company owned laptops as their only computer, which might make the company monitoring ever-present (Cyphers & Gullo, 2020). The severity of the situation can be observed from the fact that most of the EPM providers in the market actually do offer the “invisible” feature that allows data collection without knowledge of the employee (Cyphers & Gullo, 2020). Further, according to Migliano (2020) as much as 38% of 26 analysed companies allow remote takeover, which apart from the invisible feature, also offers intrusive intervention/takeover without permission from the employee. Bossware goes as far as also providing keylogging, webcam and microphone activation settings, and screenshots and recordings of the work as reported in Appendix 1. However, the demand for employee monitoring tools since the pandemic surged by 87% in May of 2020, while the query “work from home monitoring tools” had increased by over 2,000% (Lynn, 2020). This goes to show that EPM has undoubtedly become more common, which goes hand in hand with the remote work looking set to stay for the foreseeable future (Migliano, 2020).

2. Problem Discussion

As the dissemination of monitoring techniques is continuously increasing, it becomes crucial for researchers and practitioners alike to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the effects that EPM has on workers worldwide. In their comprehensive literature review, Ravid et al. (2020) pointed out that there are multiple contradictions in the EPM literature, highlighting the multidimensional aspect of the phenomenon and the relevancy of contextual and psychological variables. These psychological variables stem from the nature of EPM, as in contrast to traditional monitoring, electronic monitoring captures detailed behaviour, generating rich, permanent records that are easily accessible, which may not be directly related to work performance; such characteristics include

purpose, timing, target, intensity, scope, control, feedback delivery, transparency and clarity (Ravid et al., 2020). While EPM might improve the efficiency and quality of data collected in comparison to traditional performance monitoring (Jeske & Santuzzi, 2015), the effect on the individual remains vague. Furthermore, Ravid et al. (2020) highlight that the majority of studies within the field were conducted either on manual labour and service workers or for educational and training purposes, leaving some groups largely unexplored such as knowledge-based workers. Leading to the fact that work characteristics might play a key role in determining how individuals perceive EPM, concluding with the remark that the research on EPM characteristics is still in its early stages.

A new level of complexity has been added due to the Covid-19 pandemic, as the majority of companies worldwide have transitioned to remote work and increased their reliance on EPM. Firstly, the situation introduced knowledge-based workers to the underexplored phenomena of EPM on a notably wide scale. Secondly, a whole new context has been introduced, as there is no more geographical separation between work and private space anymore. This lack of separation between work and private space raises legitimate concerns regarding privacy and the scope of monitoring (Ravid et al., 2020). Furthermore, with many employees using their work computers and cellphones as their primary devices, the line between personal and work-related data becomes more vague (Ravid et al., 2020).

The confusion extends further to the managerial perspective as due to the physical distance that arose between them and their subordinates, managers feel the pressure to come up with novel solutions that allow them to keep an eye on their employees. Shook et al. (2018) stated that only 30% of leaders within companies that use novel technologies feel confident that the data is used in a responsible manner within their respective organization and 31% of business leaders are holding back from investing in EPM software due to concerns about what their employees think. However, the latest exposay by the Electronic Frontier Foundation shows the rapid increase of the EPM usage as well as the extent to which this software can access, and collect a vast and diverse amount of data without alerting the subject of the monitoring (Cyphers & Gullo, 2020). This is

happening despite the fact that researchers and managers alike are uncertain regarding the effect, implications and ramifications of the EPM usage.

Finally, regardless of the current situation surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic, the phenomena of remote work and EPM are here to stay, with companies worldwide already announcing their intentions of keeping a part of their workforce remote due to cost savings and other organizational benefits. In turn, EPM allows work to be easily outsourced and monitored as well as facilitates “at-will” employment relationships and the interchangeability of personnel (West & Bowman, 2016), making EPM a focal point for years to come.

3. Research Purpose / Question

This research aims to gain a better understanding of the perceptions and feelings of knowledge-based workers regarding the use of EPM technology in the workplace. We will be relying on the perspective of multidimensional characteristics of EPM developed by Ravid et al. (2020) instead of the traditional unitary phenomenon approach. Furthermore, this paper aims to explore the effect of the place of work (home/office) on knowledge-based worker’s views regarding the use of EPM technologies.

Therefore, this paper aims to answer the following questions:

Q1: What are the perceptions of knowledge-based workers towards the implementation and dissemination of EPM techniques?

Q2: Does the workplace context (home/office) have an effect on knowledge-based worker’s perceptions towards the implementation and dissemination of EPM techniques?

4. Literature Review

______In this section we will outline the theoretical background of the used concept of EPM and its characteristics. Furthermore, we are going to introduce the wider theoretical framework of organizational control, privacy and critical theory. ______

In order to find relevant content about Electronic Performance Monitoring, privacy concerns, and privacy protection policies, the first literature review was performed using the Web of Science database, the Jönköping University Library, and Google Scholar as sources for information. This search aimed to find research papers containing the combination of one or more of the following terms: electronic monitoring, performance monitoring, electronic performance monitoring, workplace surveillance, workplace monitoring, remote work monitoring, computer monitoring, electronic surveillance, privacy, and workplace monitoring policy. We also cross-checked results with references from key articles and added relevant keywords that appeared in the results. As an output of this preliminary search, the need of targeting the term “Electronic Performance Monitoring” was identified in order to get more accurate results in the line of the scope of this study. As part of an advanced search targeting the aforementioned terms, researchers managed to examine over 30 peer-reviewed articles.

4.1 Knowledge-based workers

Before delving into the EPM literature, it is important to more specifically point out the focus of our research - knowledge-based employees. With plentiful research done on manual and service workers in regard to EPM, the knowledge-based workforce is lacking (Holland et al., 2015; Ravid et al., 2020). Knowledge based workers are characterized as being qualified and highly educated labour that conducts intellectual tasks (Alvesson, 2004). Their work is characterized as processing of non-routine problems that require a non-linear and creative thinking (Reinhardt et al., 2011).

4.2 Electronic Performance Monitoring (EPM)

EPM systems are electronic technologies that are used to observe, record, and analyse information about employee performance (Ravid et al., 2020; Bhave, 2014; Stanton, 2000). EPM has a number of features that distinguish it on a psychological level from traditional monitoring, which are respectively the ability to track individual employees continuously, randomly, or intermittently; discreetly or intrusively; and with or without warning or consent (Ravid et al., 2020; Ajunwa et al., 2017; Stanton, 2000). It allows voluminous data within multiple dimensions to be recorded (Stanton, 2000) which can then be quickly accessed by managers and may or may not be directly related to employee performance (Montealegre & Cascio, 2017). Such technology has significantly changed the way supervisors monitor their employees in a shift from traditional observations to quantitative methods that provide broader and more easily comprehensible assessments of individuals (Bhave, 2014).

In contrast to traditional monitoring, EPM allows for the data to be collected incidentally and continuously, and with little concern for its ultimate purpose due to its low cost, the ability to scale, and its inherent ambiguity (Ravid et al., 2020). This opens the door for the data that are collected by EPM to be vast and diverse but also ambiguous, from both an interpretability and an ethical standpoint, compared to data collected using traditional monitoring (West & Bowman, 2016).

Although employees have essentially always expected their performance to be monitored, EPM stretches the possibilities by accessing internal states and private behaviours. For example - tracking employee thoughts, feelings, and attitudes by analysing their emails or social networks and relationships both inside and outside the company via social media (Ravid et al., 2020). Most recent EPM technology even allows the tracking of employee physiological states via biometric information like heart rate or body heat emissions (Ravid et al., 2020). The broad range of different techniques has been categorized by Ball (2010) as ones that measure productivity, behaviours, and personal characteristics, as seen in Figure 1. Ball refers to both surveillance and monitoring as similar practices, only with different audiences which splits the research in an unhelpful way. Ball (2010) chooses to refer to surveillance in the politically neutral way, which goes in line with the concept of

monitoring. These techniques might include recording telephone conversations, monitoring visited websites, use of video cameras, monitoring email contents, location tracking, internet blocking software (Holland et al., 2015), and more.

Figure 1: Adapted from Ball (2010). Workplace Surveillance: An Overview.

4.2.1 Typology of EPM characteristics

The early EPM studies reached conflicting results regarding the effect of the use of EPM, and this inconclusiveness was attributed to the scholars' dichotomous approach (present or absent) towards EPM studies (Ravid et al., 2020). However, in the last two decades, scholars have increasingly moved toward a more precise exploration of the effects of EPM psychological characteristics which has been organized in a psychology-focused typology of EPM characteristics by Ravid et al., (2020) as shown in Table 1.

4.2.1.1 Purpose

The purpose element refers to the rationale behind the use of EPM, what the company values and expects from their employees (Jeske & Kapasi, 2018). The element is split into four categories - performance, development, admin & safety, and surveillance & authoritarian control. Performance stands for the performance appraisal, loss prevention and profit, or in other words - holding people accountable for their actions. It is directed towards incentivizing effort and performance, done by employee comparisons and prevention of counterproductive behaviours like theft or loafing (Ravid et al., 2020). Development EPM then consists of development, growth and training and in contrast to employee comparison purposes, it is used for individual (within-person) comparison.

That is to identify the strengths and weaknesses of individuals and provide constructive feedback, which later leads to skill acquisition and performance improvement (Ambrose & Alder, 2000; Thompson et al., 2009). Admin and safety EPM protects both the company and the employees from harm regarding legal and civil liability. This type of EPM aids the safety, protection and wellbeing of everyone within the organization, by for example using recordings to protect from unjustified customer complaints. Another aspect included in admin and safety EPM is monitoring for environmental and sustainability purposes, i.e., energy consumption efficiency. The final purpose of surveillance is referred to as surveillance and authoritarian which is essentially conducted with no explicit reasoning beyond simply collecting information (Alder, Ambrose & Noral, 2006). This type of surveillance (monitor just to monitor) is found to directly elicit negative outcomes as people are expecting at least some rationale or purpose for EPM (Ravid et al., 2020).

4.2.1.2 Invasiveness

The invasiveness element is about the intrusion of privacy, autonomy that employees have and their sense of personal boundaries. It is directly affected by the extent of EPM use, its target and the existing system constraints, for example long-duration monitoring is more invasive than short-duration as it restricts individual freedom and autonomy (Gagné & Bhave, 2011). It is divided into four categories - scope, target, monitoring constraints and employee control. The scope is about the breadth of monitoring (different ways in which monitoring can take place) and specificity or the extent to which the data is individualized to a specific employee (Ravid et al., 2020). The target can be thoughts, feelings and physiology, for example biometric monitoring or monitoring of social media profiles or email contents to learn about the individual. It can also be the body or location, which includes video camera monitoring or GPS monitoring to tell the exact location of employees at any point. The final target might be task or behaviour monitoring, for example computer monitoring related to keystrokes or outputs (Ravid et al., 2020). Different targets are perceived differently by the employees, with visible preferences of task focused monitoring over person-focused one that might go as far as looking into people’s chat history (Jeske & Santuzzi, 2015). The constraints are about the limits of when and how the data can be collected, how it is going to be used and who will be able

to access it when it is collected. The more explicit the constraints, the more clear the purpose of EPM which in turn mitigates the negative reactions to monitoring (Ravid et al., 2020). The target control is concerned with the control that the monitored employees have over the methods, timing and feedback, for example the ability to turn monitoring on and off manually.

4.2.1.3 Synchronicity

Synchronicity is about the time related characteristics of EPM use that are influencing the learning and behavioural response. The time when individuals are monitored (collection) or when the feedback is received (feedback delivery) affects their reactions to EPM (Ravid et al., 2020). Regarding collection, data can be collected either continuously or intermittently, however neither prove to be increasing performance more than the other (Watson et al., 2013). However, when it comes to attitudes, people prefer continuous and predictable EPM over intermittent and unpredictable ones (Jeske & Santuzzi, 2015). Finally, the feedback delivery refers to when the feedback is delivered timewise, for example real-time consistent delivery or summarized delivery upon completion.

4.1.1.4. Transparency

Transparency is the extent to which employees are informed about the monitoring characteristics. Here the organizational honesty is key when influencing employee attitudes and perceptions of fairness within the workplace (Ravid et al., 2020). Meaning that better explanation of the characteristics of EPM allows individuals to determine whether they assume the monitoring to be fair or not. As well as that, higher transparency leads to better job performance with improved perceptions of informational justice and trust in management (McNall & Roch, 2009).

Table 1: From Ravid et al. (2020) “Typology of EPM Characteristics.”

4.3 The role of EPM in organizations

Organizations and monitoring go hand in hand whether it is social or technological surveillance (Ball, 2010). It is directly beneficial for companies as it helps to efficiently restock supplies, fairly distribute or incentivize employees, and prevent discriminatory activities (Kaupins & Coco, 2017) just to name a few. Apart from maintaining productivity and resource usage, a significant factor is the protection of corporate interests and trade secrets coupled with protecting the company from legal liabilities (Ball, 2010). However, a common ground in the research regarding EPM is that it has to be implemented carefully to make sure that the productivity does not get negatively affected. Alder (2001) raises the question of the necessity of EPM in the first place as often companies have strong organizational cultures with already sufficient levels of productivity. Introducing EPM to such an environment brings in the risk of negative attitudinal and behavioural reactions, in which case it is better to refrain from such technology altogether (Alder, 2001). Apart from all of the previous concerns and benefits of both parties, it has been observed that surveillance is moving away from the authoritarian regime and instead holds a more participatory character (Ajunwa et al., 2017). Employees are expected to use productivity applications and wellness programmes that are more beneficial for their own interests as well as the employers. Together with appropriate judgement and decision making of the supervisor implementing EPM measures (Bhave, 2014) it becomes a useful and powerful tool of the future.

4.4 Psychological and work design effects on EPM

EPM tools such as e-mail monitoring have shown negative effects on employee job satisfaction, stress and trust overall (Smith & Tobak, 2009). Meanwhile, extensive employee behaviour monitoring has been argued to create negative psychological states in employees, making the firms a less stimulating place to work in (Bolderdijk et al., 2013; Smith & Tabak, 2009; Thompson et al. 2009; Zweig & Webster, 2002). The primary concerns on employee monitoring are that it is unfair and abusive, it is unnecessarily infringing employee rights, and it creates an atmosphere of mistrust (Alder et al., 2006). In turn it has a negative effect on employee morale, increases stress levels and engenders negative job attitudes (Kemper, 2000). From an ethical point of view, if

employees are not notified about surveillance, it might not only violate their privacy but also promote a discriminatory environment (Kaupins & Coco, 2017; Wohlsetter, 2016) as making assumptions and acting upon them may result in employees fired without a cause (Kaupins & Coco, 2017).

According to Jeske & Santuzzi (2015), while general surveillance normally manages security and other risks, EPM focuses specifically on the performance and productivity behaviours of employees. Close monitoring therefore also evokes the feeling of higher workload, loss of control over work activities thus creating an intense work environment (Lyon, 2001; Aiello & Kolb, 1995; Smith et al., 1981). Depending how it is implemented, EPM may restrict the employee’s actions by setting certain limitations on their interaction with others, restricting movement between workstations and access to information (Jeske & Santuzzi, 2015). In turn such restrictions negatively affect the organizational citizenship behaviours (OCBs) which include pro-social behaviour and participation in social exchanges (Jeske & Santuzzi, 2015). For example, by using chat monitoring organizations might limit the OCB activities among employees and in turn harm the development and maintenance of interpersonal relationships at work (Lam & Lau, 2012). Lesser engagement in OCBs then leads to negative effects on performance, workplace relationships and work environment (Jeske & Santuzzi, 2015).

The logical underlying reason for an employer to implement EPM software at all is to be able to maintain strategic goals of the company. However, as we can see, workplace situations that affect the attitudes and perceptions of control in a negative way can have severe consequences for employee morale, turnover and personnel costs (Rafnsdóttir & Gudmundsdottir, 2011). According to Jeske & Santuzzi (2015) the influential variables that affect the extent to which the employees can support said goals which are directly influenced by EPM - job satisfaction, affective commitment, OCB and perceptions of control.

Holland et al. (2015) found that electronic monitoring software is negatively related to overall trust in management and the more widely a company uses such software the more likely employees are to report their employers are deceptive. Employees in manual jobs also have a lower perception that management could be trusted in making sensible or

competent decisions for their workplace. The findings of Holland et al. (2015) are connected only to manual workers as no such relationship has been found for people in non-manual jobs. These negative effects depend on the implementation decisions and the extent of monitoring mechanisms (Holland et al., 2015).

4.5 Privacy

Privacy is defined as the extent to which individuals perceive having control over their personal information (Alge, 2001), while privacy invasion is the breach of that control (Ravid et al., 2020). Because employees use company hardware, operate in organizational facilities and work for the organizational purposes, their rights to privacy were assumed to be minimal (Kidwell & Sprague, 2009). However, with EPM making monitoring much more invasive and the geographical separation between work and home becoming more vague, the logical question of what are the boundaries of acceptable monitoring is being drawn (Ravid et al., 2020).

Privacy concerns are the individual’s beliefs regarding the risks and potential negative consequences associated with sharing of information (Cho, Lee & Chung, 2010; Zhou & Li, 2014). It is frequently utilized as the predictor of privacy management, however it has been observed (Taddei & Contena, 2013) that an individuals’ concerns regarding privacy do not necessarily reflect the privacy management choices that they make (Baruh et al., 2017). This is commonly referred to as the “privacy paradox”. Another framework commonly utilized in privacy research is the communication privacy management theory by Petronio (2002). His theory argues that privacy should not be considered as establishing a maximum boundary to keep others out, but instead as a negotiation between accessibility and retreat (Baruh et al., 2017). In this dynamic privacy management process, individuals use strategic privacy rules to control said boundaries.

Privacy is a universal human need (Westin, 1967) however when people are uncertain about their preferences, they look for guidance in the environment (Acquisti et al., 2015) or in other words - context. Context dependence essentially means that individuals exhibit different responses ranging from extreme concern to apathy depending on the situation (Acquisti et al., 2015). A good example to explain this is how we only tend to share our

secrets with our closest friends, but sometimes we end up sharing all this information with someone we just met on a train. The researchers are therefore concerned about the ability of individuals to manage their privacy amid the increasingly complex trade-offs (Solove, 2013), they claim that traditional rules like choice and consent no longer provide adequate protection. In order to adequately protect privacy, we need policies that require a minimal amount of information and rational decision making from the perspective of an individual (Acquisti et al., 2015), all to protect them from the emerging unpredictable complexities of the information age.

4.6 Legal / Ethical considerations of EPM

While some studies found that monitoring is related to heightened levels of stress and might be contributing to employee health problems, what raises the most concern and criticism stems from the invasion of privacy (McNall & Stanton, 2011). From a legal point of view, EPM holds a lot of uncertainties as protection of worker’s rights is a human’s rights issue both due to dignity rights as well as privacy invasions (Ajunwa et al., 2017). There have been rapid technological innovations that allow the scrutinization and surveillance of workers, but little innovation in the field of privacy protection of workers (Ajunwa et al., 2017). Due to the lack of legal protection that limits the level of surveillance or its intrusiveness, the employees find themselves unprotected and without an easy solution to the issue. Employees are put into a position where their privacy becomes an economic good that can be exchanged for employment (Ajunwa et al., 2017) which is not yet appropriately protected by law. While gender or any other kind of discrimination has clear laws preventing it, employee privacy remains an unresolved issue. The reason for it is because the technological advancements have outpaced law and regulatory constricts and we currently are still in need of stronger regulations (Acquisti et al., 2015).

Some data-protection jurisdictions like the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) are making attempts in tackling this issue. Due to its modern approach, GDPR serves as an example for legal institutions attempting to keep up with the technological advancements through the so-called “Brussels effect”. The EU is exercising its global power via legal standards, sanctions and institutions and in this way

exporting influence to the rest of the world (Aloisi & Gramano, 2019). Consequently the “unilateral regulatory globalization” even reluctant market participants adapt to this set of measures which results in international convergence of “Europeanization” (Aloisi & Gramano, 2019). GDPR essentially ensures that employees are adequately informed about collection and processing of their data, that they have the right for their data to be forgotten and more (Citizens Information Board, 2021). In Art. 88 of the GDPR (2016/679) it is stated that the member states may “by law or by collective agreements, provide for more specific rules to ensure the protection of the rights and freedoms in respect to the processing of employees’ personal data in the employment context”. However, even though employees are informed about being monitored and have the right to ask for their data, employee privacy is not entirely protected. Cyphers & Gullo (2020) point out that workers might not be aware of the scope of monitoring, the transparency of the employer regarding the use of data, or not be comfortable with being monitored altogether. This in connection to the fact we are currently experiencing record unemployment rates puts employees in a position to choose between invasive and excessive monitoring or unemployment (Cyphers & Gullo, 2020).

4.7 Critical theory

The term “critical”, no matter how theory or practice is aligned, encourages us to go beyond ourselves and our tools and be unafraid of revisiting taken-for-granted assumptions and challenging our own normative values (Harvey, 2018). Critical thinking as introduced by Glasser (1972) is a thoughtful consideration of problems and subjects of a person's experience, it uses logical inquiry and reasoning to challenge, reflect on and revise the foundation of contribution. This research goes in line with critical thinking as we find great interest in looking at the transition from traditional to more advanced means of monitoring and how this affects the way of work within companies. The existing literature regarding effects of EPM already presents contradictory findings, suggesting that the results could be subjected to influence of culture and social positioning on beliefs and actions (Alvesson & Deetz, 2000). Therefore, we approach our research by identifying and challenging the assumptions of ordinary ways for perceiving, conceiving, and acting (Alvesson & Deetz, 2000) when it comes to employee monitoring techniques and effects on knowledge-based employees.

Critical theorists have distinguished themselves for a long time from other social theorists because they seek to combine moral philosophy with the social sciences (Munir, 2019). According to them, this approach permits their enterprise to be practical in a distinctively moral sense, rather than an instrumental one. Critical theory itself has a two-fold meaning - it is a school of thought and it also refers to a self-conscious critique that is aimed at emancipation through enlightenment and does not “dogmatically cling” to its own doctrinal assumptions (Giroux, 1983). Critical theory is about making the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity as well as what is and what should be (Carr, 2005).

Benson (1977) captured the dialectic optic on the world that critical theory has, further calling to view organizations through this lense in 1997. He based this view on the fact that much organizational thought lacks a processual perspective that focuses on dimension. Benson’s (1997) dialectical analysis is based on 4 fundamental premises or principles - people are continually in a process of constructing and reconstructing the social context; social phenomenon need to be studied in a rational manner as a part of a larger whole that has multiple connections; social arrangements are constructions with latent possibilities of transformation that emerge through inherent contradictions in the social orders; and there is a commitment to praxis, while the limits and potentials of social arrangements are recognized. In order to view organizations through the optic of dialectics, managers need to adopt a different orientation towards their work (Carr, 2005).

4.8 Electronic panopticon

Any kind of performance monitoring impacts a workplace, and a good analogy to better grasp the topic is Benthem’s panopticon prison in which a central tower could have vision of all the cells. The panopticon effect was further examined by Foucault, who saw it as an example of discipline at work and the best way of management (Danaher et al., 2000). This is because the surveilled individuals feel under constant authoritative watch and therefore manage their own behaviours (Bauman & Lyon, 2013). The perception of being surveilled alone can be powerful enough for a manager to potentially impact an individual. However, other scholars argue that in the context of a workplace, close monitoring and surveillance is the result of a lack of trust between managers and

employees. (Holland et al., 2015). Such a point of view developed even further with implementation of electronic monitoring software as the monitoring has become much more intense, continuous and unrelenting (Holland et al., 2015).

McNall and Stanton (2011) stress the importance of giving employees a sense of control over the monitoring and providing them with surveillance-free spaces. They add on the usefulness of explaining the monitoring policies and their specifications (i.e., how they can be turned off and on) to give employees reasonable expectations. Employees cannot perceive the surveillance devices as a tool to control their behaviour as it harms their intrinsic motivation; instead organizations should carefully communicate and implement monitoring policies in a transparent manner (McNall & Stanton, 2011). Giving the employees an option to turn the surveillance off by themselves fosters higher monitoring fairness perceptions via lower privacy invasion perceptions (McNall & Stanton, 2011).

4.9 Organizational Control

Organizational control is a communicative activity which consists of verbal and physical actions that are designed to overcome resistance and exercise control (Glossett, 2012). It is essentially about how organizations convince their members to act in the best interest of the system, instead of themselves (Glossett, 2006). Scholars in the field look into the organizational control processes to better comprehend which strategies and resources managers draw upon when convincing their subordinates to work together (Glossett, 2012). However, a complicating factor is that leaders and their subordinates have competing interests that stem from the fact that managers want to achieve the highest productivity under the lowest costs, whilst the subordinates want to achieve the highest gain with the lowest effort. Through the negotiation delving from respective interests, the actors create, reproduce and transform the particular organizational context (Glossett, 2012).

Tompkins & Cheney (1985) suggest a 3-part framework of organizational control from the communication perspective. The first step is the direction step where the organizational leader gives a direction to the subordinate. The second step - evaluation is when the leader examines the subordinate’s feedback on the initial message with the intention to see how the direction was interpreted. Finally, in the discipline step the leader

provides the subordinate with incentive for complying with the initial direction. Appropriate response is rewarded whilst unsatisfactory response is followed by some punishment in attempt to correct the behaviour (Tomkins & Cheney, 1985).

While early critical studies within organizational control efforts were focusing mostly on organizational processes of control and domination, the focus has shifted more towards the possibilities within employee resistance (Mumby, 2005). Mumby aims to signal a concerted effort of exploring resistance as a constitutive element within the complex dynamic of routine organizing (2005). Edwards (1979) identifies two approaches towards organizational control - simple control which requires a person to direct certain behaviour in order to maintain a system, and structural control in which the control is not in the hands of individual supervisors, but instead in the environment of the organization. Tompkins & Cheney (1985) identify two organizational control strategies - obtrusive which relies upon external sources of influence and unobtrusive which relies on embracing company values and having employees identify with the system as a whole. Barley & Kunda (1992) then categorize management strategies as normative or rational. Within a normative strategy, control processes influence certain employee behaviour by encouraging strong personal relationships within the work environments, focusing on communal and social aspects within the organization. While rational strategy provides influence by giving employees clear tasks, objectives as well as reasonable incentives (Barley & Kunda, 1992).

Another approach was developed by Ouchi and further elaborated by other scholars, where organizational control is exercised via control mechanisms that are generally recognized as critical in achieving objectives (Kirsch, 1996). Each of these mechanisms have their own characteristics that govern different aspects of control. Ouchi first contributed to the theory by identifying three mechanisms focusing on market, bureaucratic and clan control (1979). The mechanism of self-control or self-management has also been discussed by other researchers including Mills (1983) and Kirsch (1996). Market mechanisms are about the use of external market mechanisms (Ouchi, 1979). Bureaucracies are then relying on a mixture of close evaluation and socialized acceptance of common objectives. The third mode - clans are relying on a relatively complete socialization process which essentially eliminates the goal incongruence among

individuals (Ouchi, 1979). In contrast from clan control, self-control stems from individual objectives and standards, with the individual monitoring their behaviour and rewards or sanctions themselves accordingly (Kirsch, 1996). Self-control is great for tasks that involve a lot of autonomy, creativity, and intellectual activity since it is hard for the controllers to identify appropriate behaviours for such cases (Greenberger & Strasser, 1986).

4.10 Strategies of Organizational Control

There are a number of strategies of organizational control, however the most referenced within literature are simple, bureaucratic, cultural conservative and technical control (Glosset, 2012). Simple control is when a manager is directly involved in the supervisory process from direction to disciplinary action (Edwards, 1979). Bureaucratic control relies on rule systems that are made to influence employee behaviour and facilitate collective action - with or without a supervisor present. Cultural control encourages workers to make organizationally appropriate decisions based on the organizational values even without any rule system to guide them (Glossett, 2012). Concretive control stems from cultural control, however it relies more on participatory organizational techniques like team-based management, whereas members work together to achieve organizational objectives.

Technical control relies on intervention of a physical device to substitute supervisor’s tasks like monitoring or disciplinary information. Stemming from the industrial revolution, when work productivity could be based on the pace of production on a conveyor belt, the technical control theory has a significant impact on today’s nature of work. Technical control used to be an excellent management strategy for repetitive work tasks where the supervisor’s control span is too broad to monitor through direct observation (Glosset, 2012). The bigger organizational distance and increasing differences in life situations between capitalists and workers had weakened the extent that personal control and identifications can go (Edwards, 1979). However, nowadays information technology has become an important source of technical control, as IT systems and software assists in monitoring, instructing and providing frames for behaviours (Rennstam, 2017). Key point noted by Rennstam is that instead of being enabling, technology might become deskilling, disciplining and constraining (2017)

which is important to take into consideration when relying on information technology to make work processes more efficient.

Providing a more modern view than technical control, Cram & Wiener (2020) propose the concept of technology-mediated control (TMC), where managers use digital technologies simply as means to influence workers to behave in accordance with organizational expectations. It can either act as a managerial tool to collect insights on workers or to independently monitor and guide employees without any human intervention (Cram & Wiener, 2020). Such an approach is particularly valuable when looking at employees working from home due to the geographical dispersion and increase (Wiener & Cram, 2017). While using technology to support control processes is not entirely a new phenomenon, TMC shows unique characteristics - apart from the behavioural data (Marabelli et al., 2017) it also captures psychological and emotional information which provides further insights. Cram & Wiener (2020) introduce a framework, consisting of context, interventions, mechanisms and outcomes as the foundation of TMC research. With TMC still being an emerging topic that draws on the perspectives of organizational and informational system control, as well as ubiquitous technology, it provides a good base for future research about TMC as a method gradually replacing traditional control relationships (Cram & Wiener, 2020). Furthermore, the authors introduce a number of research gaps to address in order to further develop the theory, one of which is the TMC mechanisms possibly triggering and leading to individual behavioural changes (resistance behaviour). Aspects such as what data is collected, how it is analysed and who gets to see it are raised all of which might have potential negative impacts on worker well-being and performance (Cram & Wiener, 2020). The authors further point out the importance of understanding what role TMC transparency plays in ensuring compliant behaviour but also preventing any negative socio-emotional side effects (Cram & Wiener, 2020).

Furthermore, this paper aims to explore the effect of the place of work (home/office) on knowledge-based worker’s views regarding the use of EPM technologies.

5. Methodology

______In this section we outline the methodological and philosophical choices that guide this research as well as data collection and address the issues of trustworthiness and ethical considerations. ______

5.1 Research Paradigm

In our research methodology development, we relied on the Saunders et al. (2007) “research onion” that guided us through the process in a consistent and structured manner. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the perceptions and feelings of knowledge-based workers in regard to the implementation and dissemination of EPM techniques which are centered on intangible factors such as attitudes, personality characteristics, human relationships, and related emotions. This paper follows a constructivist research philosophy as this philosophy emphasizes that humans create meanings, which we attempt to do by looking into the employee perspectives towards the implementation and dissemination of EPM techniques. This philosophy supports the phenomenon under study as we are trying to deepen our understanding in regard to how people feel, react, and interact with EPM techniques.

The approach that we use for theory development is abductive, as we combine the deductive approach of moving from theory to data with the inductive approach of moving data to theory (Suddaby, 2006). An abductive approach allows flexibility in the exploration of the understudied phenomenon (Saunders, 2019) and is essentially incorporated into grounded theory (Suddaby, 2006). As well as that, we aim to understand the meaning of the social phenomena in its natural setting, therefore we are using a qualitative methodology (Antwi & Hamza, 2015) and the data is presented as a descriptive narration.

This research is exploratory in nature due to the novelty of the situation where more people than ever are working from home and the rapid implementation and dissemination of the EPM among the workforce. The rapid switch to working remotely brings a completely new variable in the EPM research, the effect of which has not yet been investigated. The aim of our study is therefore to look for patterns and ideas and develop rather than test a hypothesis (Collis & Hussey, 2014). Exploratory research is particularly useful if you wish to clarify your understanding of an issue, problem, or phenomenon, such as if you are unsure of its precise nature (Saunders et al., 2016).

5.2 Research strategy

Consequently, following the purpose of gaining a better understanding of the perception that knowledge-based workers have regarding the use of EPM in the workplace, together with the effects that the locational change has on their views, we use grounded theory as our strategy. Furthermore, the paper aims to provide a holistic and faithful representation of the respondents' views which makes grounded theory suitable for the research. Grounded theory can be defined as the discovery of theory from data that was systematically obtained from social research with the aim of generating or discovering a theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). They saw developing theory through a comparative method, which is essentially looking at the same event or process in different settings/situations as the key task of the researcher. This is a good fit for our study, as while manual labor/service workers have been researched to some extent (Holland et al. 2015; Ravid et al., 2020), we are looking at the under-researched perceptions of knowledge-based employees. Furthermore, the shift of remote work from home introduces new settings that may influence workers' perceptions and feelings in regard to EPM. The research relies on mono-method as only qualitative data is collected, while the research is cross-sectional as the process of the collection takes place at a certain point in time.

The version of grounded theory that is used in this paper is constructivist grounded theory developed by Kathy Charmaz. The reason behind is that the original concept of grounded theory by Glaser & Strauss (1967) seeks objectivity, however, that in itself is a questionable goal (Charmaz, 2008). Both constructivist and objectivist versions of

grounded theory adopt a realist position, but constructionists view the learning and portraying of the studied world as problematic (Charmaz, 2008). In essence, the constructionist version of grounded theory redirects the method from the objectivist past and aligns it with the modern 21st century epistemologies (Charmaz, 2008). This approach includes treating the research process as a social construction, scrutinizing research decisions and directions, improvising the methodological and analytic strategies throughout the process of the research, and collecting sufficient data to discern and document how the participants of the research construct their lives and worlds. Data is co-constructed by the researchers and the people interviewed, as it would be naive to assume that the worldviews of the authors does not affect the outcome of the research (Charmaz, 2017). Researchers need to prepare themselves and learn about the worlds of the people interviewed before they get into the process itself. Simultaneous data collection and analysis is key to this approach so you focus early, so you do not make mistakes later as explained by Charmaz (2017). This approach is fluid rather than prescriptive, even research questions might change.

5.3 Data Collection & Sampling

The data was collected via semi-structured interviews in order to have a clear guide and keep participants on the topic. It also gives the participants a chance to express ideas openly and allow changes in direction if necessary. The interviews were recorded and transcribed by the authors for further analysis, all in accordance with the ethics and confidentiality choices discussed below. In line with our research purpose and research strategy the sampling design used was theoretical sampling as the participants have to fit the profile necessary for this research of being knowledge-based employees with remote work experience. A purposive sampling includes the approaching of potential sample members and checking whether they meet the eligibility criteria (Easterby-Smith, Thorpe & Jackson, 2015) before starting the research. We made connections with a group of potential interviewees through social media and personal connections, then we filtered and ranked the potential interviewees based on the criteria outlined previously. After 18 interviews we reached saturation where our interviewees stopped adding any new perspectives to the pool of data that we have collected. Finally, we conducted 2 more

interviews to be sure that we had reached saturation. The sample consisted of a broad spectrum of occupations ranging from programming to consultant jobs with no particular focus except that the occupation has to be knowledge-based, meaning that their basic task is thinking (Reinhardt et al., 2011).

This research depends mainly on primary data collected for this research. The primary data consists of 20 interviews with knowledge-based workers who are working remotely from home (for more information check Appendix 3).

5.4 Data Analysis

In pursuit of consistency with the exploratory nature and abductive approach of this study, the data is framed and interpreted by using grounded analysis. It is an open approach that allows building theory that is essentially “grounded” within the data. Meaning that they are identified by a systematic analysis of the data itself (Charmaz, 2014) and will allow us to derive structure by comparing different data fragments with one another (Easterby- Smith, Thorpe & Jackson, 2015).

The grounded analysis of our data is split into 7 steps suggested by Easterby-Smith, Thorpe & Jackson (2015) - familiarization, reflection, open coding, contextualization, focused re-coding, linking and re-evaluation. In more detail, the process was started by sifting through available data and drawing on the collected information. Further on, we evaluated the data in light of previous research about the phenomenon. The data then was coded to create links between the overwhelming text and introduce a system. The coding was done manually, and the technique chosen was open coding as codes were created based on the data itself. In the conceptualization stage, we looked for patterns among the codes that are characterized by similarity, difference, frequency, sequence, correspondence or causations (Saldana, 2009). After having identified the key concepts, we re-coded some of the data in accordance with the focused codes in order to achieve a more in-depth analysis of what is important. During the process of linking, we conceptualized how key categories and concepts relate to each other and how they could be integrated into a theory (Charmaz, 2014) which was finally followed by a more critical re-evaluation.

5.5 Trustworthiness

The trustworthiness of qualitative research generally is often questioned by positivists, perhaps because their concepts of validity and reliability cannot be addressed in the same way as in naturalistic work (Shenton 2004). Thus, this research will rely on the criteria for qualitative researchers suggested by Guba (1985). The criteria present a four points alternative approach for qualitative researchers to ensure trustworthiness, which are respectively credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability (Shenton 2004).

5.5.1 Credibility

In order to ensure credibility throughout this research, we provided a detailed explanation of our approach, strategy, data collection, selection, and decision-making, in regard to the manner of identifying and selecting participants. Furthermore, we highlighted the shortcomings of our sample and addressed the potential effects on the research outcome, as well as we provided suggestions and avenues for future research that can cover these shortcomings. During the interviews, we relied on an ethical, confidential, respectful, and friendly manner as described in the section "Ethics and Confidentiality" in order to ensure openness and truthful representation of our participants as well as to alleviate any outside pressure.

5.5.2 Transferability

Due to the qualitative nature of this research generalization, in this case, is applicable to the theory rather than the population. However, the diverse professional occupation of the participants provides overarching perspectives of the perception of knowledge-based workers in regard to EPM but for a more accurate reading of the perceptions, quantitative research that focuses on certain occupations may be needed. Regarding the question of the workplace context (home/office), we believe that the finding can be generalized as the participants provided a more coherent and unified perspective on the matter.

5.5.3 Dependability

The research followed the grounded theory approach with all its checks and balances as well as throughout this research, we provided detailed explanations regarding the

approach, methodology, and data collection and analysis. We aim with this rigorous and well-documented approach to provide a more clear and in-depth view of the systematic approach that we relied on to reach our conclusions. That allows the reader to assess the research practices and replicate the work if needed.

5.5.4 Confirmability

The methodological choices throughout this research aimed to provide a clear view of the flow from the collected data to the findings. While the systematic approach of the grounded theory and the process of codification supported by the quotes from the participants aim to present a clear link between the data and constructs emerging from it to the participants' views.

5.6 Ethics and Confidentiality

In order to ensure the ethicality and confidentiality of this research, we relied on the ten principles of ethical practice as presented by Easterby-Smith, Thorpe & Jackson (2015) (See Appendix 2) as well as the guidance for handling personal data in accordance with the GDPR as the research is taking a place in Sweden. Consequently, all the interviewees received a full explanation regarding the aim, purpose, and personal rights in regard to the research as well as that, they have been informed that the outcome of this research will be published to the public. Furthermore, all the interviewees were informed that participation in this research is completely voluntary, and they can withdraw their consent at any point. They were also informed that their data will be recorded anonymously where the only identifiable data about them that would be collected is their age and field of occupation. All interviews were conducted in a private setting outside the business hours in a transparent and respectful manner in order to allow the participant to express themselves freely. In the end, this research has no external financial support, and the researchers have no conflict of interest.

6. Empirical Data

______In this section we will present the empirical findings that emerged from the conducted interviews. The section will be divided based on the themes that emerge from the interviews. ______

The following section provides insight into the findings and themes that have emerged from the interviews with 20 knowledge-based workers regarding the dissemination of EPM. The participants come from different sectors with varying levels of autonomy and have different experiences with EPM- ranging from no known previous interactions with EPM, to actively being monitored via EPM. Furthermore, one participant became aware of the use of EPM in the company a long time after the beginning of their occupation. The overview of the coding is presented in Figure 2 and each category has its own in- depth figure for a clearer understanding.

Figure 2: Overview of the coding covering EPM Perceptions and Monitoring at Home.

6.1 Knowledge-based Worker Perceptions of EPM

In the following section, we present the perceptions of knowledge-based workers regarding the implementation and dissemination of EPM, categorized in 5 main themes that have emerged from the empirical data.

6.1.1 Knowledge-based Worker Perceptions of the Purpose of EPM

Figure 3: Coding for: Knowledge-based Worker Perceptions of the Purpose of EPM.

The overall understanding of why exactly companies monitors their employees revolves around lack of trust and maintaining control instead of employee wellbeing. Participants described the monitoring purposes as organizational gain, emotional pressure to do more, spotting “lazy employees” and standardization of the evaluation process. Essentially, the companies want to make sure that people do their jobs, and the company gets the value that they pay for.

P2 “I think the companies monitor their employees because it is just there, it is an option to easily control them and take a look at what's going on. It is easy to judge them, if everyone else is doing it (monitoring), it's how humans work.” P18 “A company might be using tracking to emotionally pressure people to do more, it is demotivating for people to keep them on such a short leash daily.”

P5 “I think companies use these software to make sure that if they pay someone for their time, they expect that time to be used for working purposes not anything else.”

Delving further into the perceptions of employee data utilization, a pattern of concern regarding collected data sharing emerged. The concern however varies from a more radical view that the company should not sell or trade data in any way to a more flexible approach based on consent or anonymity. Data where an individual is unidentifiable is generally perceived as fine for a company to benefit from, however it should be transparent and require consent.

P3 "The company can resell the data they collect, but it should be not linked or traceable to individuals from my opinion. If it is identifiable then it is against the purpose of the policy where it states what the data is for.” P2 “For companies working in sales, knowing peak hours when people are the most busy is very good. If there is a pattern when people are less busy and can receive calls, then it would be fine to sell such data, it's mutually beneficial.”

To add on the key findings of the reasons why companies monitor their employees, the participants pointed out a number of alternative reasons varying from punishment to security and environmental reasons. Participants even considered monitoring for energy saving, improving work ethics and teamwork and ensuring company safety regulations as logical and justifiable, and would not mind being monitored because of it.

P3 “I think companies monitor employees to protect their assets. Monitoring internet traffic if something like malware is downloaded that needs to be detected. If there is any leakage of confidential information or any use of company assets, then they monitor.” P19 “There are some triggers if the employee is browsing illegal pages with viruses or children sexual content, this will be triggered. For judicial reasons, there are things that need to be accessed. So, I understand monitoring being there.”

A key finding is that participants are very much in favour of monitoring for personal benefits and individual wellbeing. Workload monitoring is found to be extremely useful, especially due to the serious concerns about overworking, which rise in relevance when

working from home, as there are no environmental boundaries. Another point where monitoring is justifiable and even preferred is ensuring employee emotional state, with EPM sensing stress levels or overall wellbeing. These individual reports or group evaluations could then be used by the individual or acted upon by the firm in order to maintain employee happiness and productivity. An interesting point, however, is that some individuals point out that even when seeing benefits of monitoring for employee wellbeing, they would still feel under stress.

P19 “A health analysis app or system that would give me the information at the time I want to see it personally, like how much time I spend on certain things, this kind of analysis might be helpful for me. But I would have to tailor it for myself. “ P14 “If employees are working 20 hours extra at peak times, and are monitored from that angle, then monitor away and help making sure that people feel good and don’t overwork.”

6.1.2 Perceptions Regarding Invasiveness and Control

Figure 4: Coding For: Invasiveness and Control.

6.1.2.1 The Perimeter of Monitoring

The extent to which monitoring is accepted varies, with participants normally accepting record of browsing history, accessing emails and downloads. Some respondents find active time monitoring or any logically useful information for work purposes also

acceptable, while others accept monitoring to any extent but only during working hours. The specific monitoring elements that make people uncomfortable are microphone/camera access, personal conversations and emotional (feelings) monitoring. People generally do not want their emotions to be monitored and that will be further discussed later in this section.

P14 “For me it depends on how I am monitored. If my emails or meetings are monitored, it's fine. But my computer screen or camera is not fine.” P17 “If they have to check how many meetings I go to, I have no problem with that. But I would have to be informed about it. It is not the most disturbing thing to me. When it comes to the monitoring that reflects my personality and behaviour, this gets more private (not that I have anything to hide) but it feels a little bit too much.”

Delving deeper into the topic of emotional monitoring, a common ground between participants is that it is too invasive if not done for employee wellbeing. Tracking personality or feelings is said to be uncomfortable, judging, spying and “off limits”. Many do not see the benefit from the employer side of doing so, and stress the need for personal feelings to remain personal. It was also pointed out that the emotional state of a person does not necessarily affect the work performance and therefore is not logical to monitor. An alternative has been suggested for a less invasive approach to monitoring that is purchasing personality tests tailored for the matter in question and having the employees voluntarily provide the data they think is acceptable.

P6 “If my emotions were monitored or personalities, i would feel very uncomfortable. I wouldn’t mind if they saw the software I was in at the time, but when it comes to monitoring the whole desktop activity, from the music I listen on Spotify or tracking down that, I'm angry.” P4 “I don’t think emotional monitoring affects my productivity, if I am sad maybe I'll focus more on the job instead of my productivity going down.”

P5 “There are certain personality tests that evaluate this kind of thing and you cannot trick them. A company could buy such tests and give their employees a certain amount of time to evaluate these types of criteria – performance, personality etc before hiring

the person. Every six months to check it and see if they are improving. Then you know who you are hiring and how they are evolving. They can take the feedback and develop.”

While emotional monitoring is already delving into the realm of people’s personal life, the participants stress the importance of the line between work matters and personal aspects of life. While the most common view is that no personal aspects should be touched, meaning that social media, private conversations or anything else that could be possible to monitor should never be recorded. Some people however accept all monitoring but only during working hours, meaning when they manually punch in or are specifically aware of being monitored.

P19 “I use my working phone for personal use as well, I have 2 sim cards but they are installed in the same phone. I don’t think there should be any monitoring done on my phone. However in the apps that I have installed for work its okay – email for example. But my chats that I use personally or my photos should be private. I would be very concerned about them capturing my personal data. I would feel that it was a legal breach, they shouldn’t be able to do it no matter what.” P3 “If you, for example, use social media under work hours, then the company should be able to access it. If it is outside working hours – then not.”

When it comes to the individual perceptions and feelings, concerns have been expressed regarding the specifics of monitoring, pointing out that how the work is done or the time it takes to do it should not be monitored, as people have different approaches to work. A major finding is that people think that monitoring should be focused on output and results above all. Data should only be used later in connection to the results with a purpose of providing insights that might help to improve processes later.

P6 “A colleague of mine used to come late and leave early, and the boss didn’t mind that he did that because he was a very valuable employee.” P15 “If you are really unproductive and then you pretend that you are productive, then the software is not useful. If software is made for productivity, it has to show you qualitative outputs in combination with quantitative. It is better to connect the data with

actual outputs because then you can judge when they did that task, how long it took them, and how they did it. Otherwise then the program can be tricked.”

6.1.2.2 Control

The point of data control has been stressed continuously, with people expecting to have control on what is monitored and have access to data collected. Any monitoring practice should require consent, a pre-informed agreement about data gathering with some stating that this should even be included in the employment contract. Another control point that the participants have mentioned is the ability to delete data when there is a need or having the data automatically deleted after they quit. The data should also be anonymized after a certain period of time and in no way traceable to the employees individually.

P3 “As an individual you should have the right to have control of the information. If you are asking for your data to be deleted it will not affect the business directly, it should be. All of this again should be approved to be captured” P5 “As a person, I should be allowed to request to delete it. After 1 year or 3 years it should get deleted and it should be in the contract.”

6.1.2.3 Protection Measures

An interesting prediction is that EPM is likely going to become a norm in the future and people will be fine with being monitored at all times, including work. In such cases, the law and unions should set limits to the monitoring and extent to which an employee could control their data. Participants also presented the concern over the safety of data that their respective company stores about them. Secure data handling with possible assistance from a 3rd party is considered to be an important aspect of data collection.

P3 “In the beginning you could choose if you want to be monitored or not. But if it becomes a market standard then it will not be a decision for the employee to say yes or no, the decision will be to the extent to which these policies affect you as a person. The unions and law should set an acceptable level of monitoring.”

P19 “More technology is entering our lives, and eventually we will just accept it. maybe for now it seems to be unreasonable. But 10 years ago there were many things that people though was unreasonable then and now its normal, people are broadcasting their lives on social media now.”

6.1.2.4 Scope of Monitoring

When it comes to the distinction of individual or department/team-based monitoring, the opinions differ depending on the person. A number of participants stressed the value of individual monitoring for self-reflection and even competitive purposes. Such opinions came from people who do not think that monitoring affects their work in any way and that claim to have “nothing to hide”. Another group showed preference of department- based monitoring due to the differences in people and their talents, while a final group of people suggested a mix between both for self-reflection and possibility to improve teamwork. While a competitive environment is considered to be preferable by some, most of the respondents claim that monitoring for comparison can create a hostile culture and harm company atmosphere.

P20 “I think the company culture would become more competitive, it would make the atmosphere in the company like they don’t trust us, they want to have all the data about us, it wouldn’t be a trustworthy company atmosphere. I think it would cause hostility; people would start suspecting each other. If there are big differences in productivity, then people would start talking about it and comparing between themselves.” P10 “My individual performance being monitored would allow me to be more competitive, others to be more competitive with each other. It would make it easier for managers to see your performance. You could take advantage of that to improve your position within the company either by asking for promotion or asking for more money.”

6.1.3 Data Collection and Delivery Preferences

Figure 5: Coding for: Data Collection and Delivery Preferences.

6.1.3.1 Span of Collection

Span of data collection generally split into collection throughout the whole working day and random collection of snapshots throughout the day. Random data collection was mostly preferred because it does not last the whole day, so it is less intense and less information can be collected that way, so it is also less intrusive. Others feel that random snapshots are not useful, since they can be taken out of context and whole-day monitoring helps build a better picture of general performance. Another idea was that while monitoring should be passive in the background, it could be activated only when certain triggers are reached, for example if people access confidential information.

P1 “I would prefer my data to be collected randomly instead of continuously. Just the idea of being surveilled 8 hours straight makes me feel discomfort. I like random and only when it's working hours.” P6 “Sometimes I would work overtime per day and then other days I would be working slowly, I then would be distracted and talk about other stuff. Therefore I would like them to collect everything because my performance fluctuates and if they only took screenshots of the data they wouldn’t get the full scope of it.”

6.1.3.2 Feedback Delivery

The preferred EPM data feedback delivery is through the software itself with some people pointing out that quarterly/yearly discussions with managers over the data could follow

later. Collected data is quite self-explanatory and if provided in a clear way does not require a manager’s opinion. Some participants, however, feel that discussing the feedback with a manager and getting their input is much more valuable than plain data itself and would only like delivery directly by a supervisor. It should however be accessible to them in order to be able to prepare for the conversation and not be caught “off-guard”.

P15 “I would prefer the data to be delivered via a conversation with the boss. What the boss thinks about the data, so you would get a deeper understanding.” P2 “I would like the data to be presented to me through the software. It is more transparent if the computer does it with all the disclosure of what's monitored. It feels a little less invasive although it’s the same. Even if the boss does see it, I pick the lesser evil.” P14 “(...) But then for those bigger reviews, then I would like the manager to be involved. So I would like the data to be reviewed with my manager, since the workload depends on the time of the year in my company. Some months I have too much work, and it shows in my data that I am working so much overtime, then they maybe should spread out their launches a bit more evenly during the year.”

When it comes to feedback on patterns or unproductive behaviour identified by EPM techniques, there are two differing opinions. Firstly, if a person spends too much time reading an email, browsing social media or doing any other kind of activity, a preference of having real-time delivery is identified. Participants who prefer such delivery state that it would help them be more mindful of their behaviour and adjust in real-time. The other group of people prefer monthly or weekly reports being delivered to them about their patterns, as there are too many things happening during the workday already. Real-time feedback is considered as spam and they are already aware of what they are doing without the software pointing it out. If a real issue is noticed in a report, then they would like to have an option to turn on real-time notifications manually.

P8 “I think a push notification to inform about some insight of your behaviour would be interesting (...) it would be nice to get informed that you are spending too much time on

something and it would be nice to know how much time it takes for me to go through a policy paper. Reminder to take breaks would help with my work-life balance.” P18 “Notifications are already too many during the day, it would just stress people out even more. there is already attention being stolen by other things. However, if I got a report that says I spend too much time reading emails, then I would be more mindful of what I do, then I would be happy to choose an option to be able to turn on notifications if I want it to help me to control this habit of mine.”

6.1.4 Transparency over Data

Figure 6: Coding for “Transparency over Data”.

6.1.4.1 Level of Communication and Knowledge

A united opinion regarding data collection is that it should be transparent, and employees should be aware of it. Uninformed monitoring is described as ethically wrong or illegal, however the same participants who express this opinion also present evidence of being monitored within their company without being in the know. Companies should communicate what is the purpose of monitoring, what data is being collected, who is the contact person for data related questions, what software is being used, who is collecting it, how is the data going to be protected and how it will affect employee evaluation processes.

P15 “What kind of information should be provided is – what program is used, what you will be monitored on, how it's going to be affecting the decisions on your everyday tasks and salaries, what do you get from it as an employee. They must be transparent about it. If they do it for bad reasons they still need to disclose it.” P6 “Sometimes they share information that our employees use specific websites when working without telling the employees that they’re being monitored. Where are they getting these reports from then?”

There should be strong and logical reasons provided on why monitoring practices are used and the information about monitoring should be presented in a concise and easily comprehensible manner. The first day that monitoring is implemented, the employees should be informed, the information should be included in the contract and updated in case of changes with employee consent.

P19 “I think these tools should help us to be more productive but not a big brother culture, so people wouldn’t have to be stuck to the computer when they don’t have to, maybe they can listen to a meeting and make a coffee at the same time. There should be a strong reason why it's beneficial for both management and employees.”

6.1.4.2 Access to Data

The most prominent opinion in the findings is that people want to have access to the data collected about them personally, as it would add to the transparency of monitoring and would generally be useful. The opinions split in the feelings whether a direct manager should access it, with some saying that the information is only useful to them as they manage employees and confront them if needed. The other group of people disagree, by stressing that trust is enough between a direct manager and an employee and insist on a specific department having access to it instead. That could be HR or security depending on the specific purpose of monitoring, with one participant mentioning an involvement of a third party to make the process even more transparent. This would ensure that the employee rights are respected and not used for intimidating or blackmailing purposes. A solid opinion has been expressed about access to data by higher management, pinpointing the need for it to be aggregated, generalized and not related to an individual. Colleagues

should not see the individual performance statistics either, as this would lead to comparisons, demotivate people and cause problems within the team itself.

P14 “The access to the data should belong to the security maybe if it's needed. In some cases HR if it is about you feeling okay at work, but that should come from them reaching out and making sure that you are okay. I would also like to be able to access it personally. I don’t think the manager shouldn’t access it, there should be strong trust in this relationship.” P8 “The access to this data should belong to me, then it would actually be interesting. To some extent there is a reason for your closer management to have access and in top management and a generalized level, aggregated level.”

6.1.4.3 Data Ownership Most commonly participants referred to companies as owners of data because they own the hardware, they pay for the work and they manage it. However, there should be certain limitations of ownership that are disclosed in an agreement and done transparently. If the data is collected about employee emotions and personal information, then it should be owned by the employee. While one participant thinks that all of the data from EPM should belong to the individual. An interesting observation is that if a company is using outside software to monitor their employees, the data is likely stored in the provider’s cloud storage, which would make them the owners of it. This in turn should be in accordance with certain standards and security certificates.

P8 “If this data is related to how generally the employee is performing, then the data is owned by the company since its focused on productivity and tasks. However, when it comes to employees personal behavior, then the employees should have ownership of this data.” P10 “Ownership of data belongs to the company, they are paying for the time therefore the data is owned by the company. (…) same as if you created a device during working hours, then it is the property of the company.”

6.2 Reaction to Monitoring

Figure 7: Coding for: Reaction to Monitoring.

In general, all participants have a negative feeling regarding the use of EPM as they view it as an issue of trust and a form of micromanagement. This opinion stems from the nature of the active monitoring and perceived invasiveness of EPM, as the majority of the participants felt that there are better alternatives for ensuring productivity.

P7 “I trust my company a lot and my company trust me a lot so no one would care if I wasn’t there 8 hours, as long as I do my job. My job is monitored by how I’m working with my coworkers, if I don’t do my job that would show and affect a lot of people. I need to do my job since its affects people around me that makes me feel monitored enough.” P12 “I believe more in humans than in numbers. I would prefer talking to people and discussing their view and trusting each other instead of going with the numbers.”

The participants were concerned about the interference of the use of EPM on their working day as many thought that just the notion of being monitored will make them more stressed, distracted, and add a new level of complexity to their work as it is one more thing to keep in mind.

P5 “I think that the software existing would stress me out, I would try to seem like a good employee. It would distract me a lot from work, trying to prove like I’m working. It’s the same as someone is always watching over your shoulder.” P19 “The software wouldn’t affect the way I do work currently; I would still work the same… It would definitely make me more unnecessarily tense and stressed, and it would not bring any benefit. It would have a negative effect on my productivity, because you will always have in the back of your mind – am I doing enough, is my productivity good enough, am I spending too much time doing something. We should instead help people find a balance in a positive sense.”

Furthermore, some participants express that they are becoming more careful regarding what type of information they are sharing with their colleagues and being more careful not to express negative opinions.

P18 “I’m feeling freaked about it. I also hold back from talking bad about my coworkers.”

Some participants felt that the use of EPM may lead to a surveillance culture where this monitoring will be conducted for the sake of monitoring.

P19 “I think these tools should help us to be more productive but not a big brother culture, so people wouldn’t have to be stuck to the computer when they don’t have to, maybe they can listen to a meeting and make a coffee at the same time. There should be a strong reason of why its beneficial for both management and employees.”

When the use of EPM is viewed as an inaccurate measure of employee productivity, half of the participants indicate that they may take an extra measure to prove their productivity to the software such as moving the mouse or leaving pages open. In fact, some of the participants who already work in companies where EPM is being actively used shared with us some of the tips that have been used by their colleagues to prove their productivity to the software and avoid any unnecessary remarks from their boss on their productivity.

P17 “My online status turns yellow if I am inactive, so I move my mouse if I am in a meeting for it to turn green. No one said there is monitoring behind it, but I feel social pressure behind this thing.” P4 “I have a friend who worked in a company where it monitored it if the screen would go to sleep, so they would just move their mouse a little.”

Simultaneously some participants shared with us that their companies are becoming more aware of the negative effect of monitoring on their employees, and they took some steps to alleviate the stress such as turning off the software, removing sensors, and distributing camera blockers. Another fear that was present is regarding the fact that this data gives more power to companies and managers alike, as they can use this data to justify firing anyone when needed as well as a tool to pressure people to do more all the time. Also, this possibility of continuous comparison among the employees will create a culture of hostile competitiveness.

P8 “That would create a hostile culture, we have a lot of high performance in my department, and it would create a toxic culture to monitor people all the time.” P12 “If you dislike a person, you can use the data to screw them over, you can give them more work just because you have data that shows that they are done with their work.” P19 “I think the company culture would become more competitive, it would make the atmosphere in the company like they don’t trust us, they want to have all the data about us, it wouldn’t be a trustworthy company atmosphere. I think it would cause hostility; people would start suspecting each other. If there are big differences in productivity, then people would start talking about it and comparing between themselves.”

Despite the generally negative views of EPM and the shared beliefs among the participants that it's a bad and ineffective way to measure productivity among knowledge- based workers, half of the participants said that they would consider taking a job where EPM is being implemented if that job provided a substantial raise in salary or other benefits. However, all the participants that said they would accept the job highlighted that they would do it for the financial gain for a limited period of time. This despite that all

the participants said that the EPM would affect their decision of joining a company and if there was a reasonable alternative, they would take it instead.

P2 “If it is the right amount of money, I will live with EPM for a while but then I would never do it again. I would then if I have all this information be more careful with the company laptop.” P3 “The trade-off states if there is big money involved then I would stay for some time. I would also have options and different parameters to help me choose how to be monitored in what way and what trade-off is given.”

Finally, three participants pointed out that EPM may become a market standard or an acceptable norm leaving the employee with no other realistic choice than accepting it.

P3 “In the beginning you could choose if you wanna be monitored or not. But if it becomes a market standard then it won’t be a big decision for the employee to say yes or no, the decision will be to the extent to which these policies affect you as a person. The unions and law should set an acceptable level of monitoring. What you can say no to as an employee what you cannot say no to as an employee. While you can choose whether to sign the contract or not, if it becomes a norm it changes. We will probably sign it”

6.3 Monitoring at Home

Figure 8: Coding for “Monitoring at Home”.

Starting from the principle of monitoring employees at home, two prominent opinions surged. First, some of the respondents showed a moderate level of acceptance of monitoring at home. They relate their opinion to the assumption that the company has the right to ensure that the employees are complying with their end of the bargain and doing what they should be doing.

P15 “Overall this software is good if you’re working from home because managers don’t have access to monitor employees the same way as working from the office.” P20 “I think when it comes to working from home it is ethical, since there needs to be some kind of overlook over the employees.”

While the second opinion was more suspicious of the principle, ethicality, and viability of the employee monitoring at home, stating their disapproval of the approach. They relate their disapproval of the use of EPM at home to their belief that these techniques infringe on their rights to privacy.

P2 “If I work from home, I want to opt out of any monitoring there is.”

While others linked the intrusion of privacy to techniques that collect information about the surrounding environment, but they showed more leniency to other techniques such as email monitoring.

P14 “I think personally if someone accesses my camera, then it’s an intrusion of privacy. At the office it's okay, there are cameras everywhere, but at home it should be different so they wouldn’t see my laundry etc.”

Some participants viewed the use of EPM for measuring and monitoring productivity as inaccurate and/or ineffective, wondering if this type of monitoring would provide any utility beyond surveillance for the sake of surveillance.

P7 “If you are dividing your work when you’re at home, then maybe it’s impossible to monitor all the things.” P17 “I think it’s a very simplistic way of looking into productivity and the value that an employee brings into your company. I think a good company should trust their employees. If I am not on my computer for 10 minutes, it doesn’t mean that I am not working. If an employer thinks that I am not working if I am not touching the computer, then that is not fair, and I wouldn’t want to work in this kind of company.”

However, the one prominent topic that was obvious in all interviews was the feeling of distrust as all participants mention the lack of trust as the main reason why companies implement EPM. Furthermore, some participants highlighted that the implementation of EPM at home-office hours is a symptom of wider issues.

P8 “How I get to the deliverable is not my bosses’ issue since I deliver on time. But a company I assume would monitor people for trust issues since there is no way to see if people are working at their home and not slacking off. However, if you implement very active monitoring there must be some trust issues.”

P13 “The company culture is getting affected if they are monitoring their employees. Because if they don’t trust them, why do they hire them. If they trust them, why do they monitor them… If you don’t trust your employee to do the same thing at home as at the office, it's bad.”

Albeit these two opinions in a vacuum do not reflect the complete picture as on both ends of the spectrum, there were a lot of asterisks and caveats to what is acceptable and what is not, which stems from the special nature of the home and its association to privacy as well as the change of the work routine while working from home.

6.3.1 The overlap between home and office

Majority of the participants express their hesitation towards the use of EPM at home due to the established expected privacy at home. Where they view the implementation of EPM

to intrude on their rights in a manner that they cannot control due to the fact that many of the activities at home continue regardless of if somebody is working or not.

P2 “Home is different from work because we are more vulnerable. Home is where we relax and not meant to be facing people in real life the same way. Our guards are down as people. At home, its invasion of privacy, does not matter what I’m doing. Normal life doesn’t take a break just because you’re online and working.” P3 “At home, you don’t have 100% control of your surroundings... It is almost impossible however to control the ambiance around you at home and it should be protected by privacy.” This concern was shared among all participants, even the ones that were most open to the use of EPM.

P4 “The type of data collected doesn’t matter to me, I am okay with all data being collected about me, I don’t have problems about that. I am not a fan of the idea, but it would not be a big problem for me…I don’t have anything to hide, in general in a company you shouldn’t have something to hide. If it’s a company laptop, it’s their property however my home through a video camera is not owned.”

At the same time, participants that have the privilege of having a home office or a private area for working at home were less inclined to resist the use of EPM. However, they still expressed a level of concern regarding capturing data from their surrounding environment.

P11 “when I work from home, I would perform the same as if I was at work. Personal conversations getting recorded through working from home however is possible for people who don’t have an office where they can close the door and work, where there are people around, that wouldn’t be great. That would not be data that a company should store. I never thought about it, but it could be a big issue.” P10 “If my personal environment was monitored, that would be in my opinion a thorough invasion of privacy. Either your contract is signed to work from home from the start and you need a dedicated space at home for you to work, and you would configure that space to perform for that job. In such instances, it's already agreed that

you are in your own space and you shouldn’t be interrupted. Then it would be like you’re in the office. However, at this moment, working from home is a temporary thing, so it hasn’t been formal, the fact that we are all sent to work from home. If you start recording in these circumstances, you are recording a personal space.”

Other aspects of this overlapping were that many participants felt it is an inconvenience to keep switching between work devices and personal devices. Especially when they have to perform small tasks around both domains, as life and work keep overlapping. Combined with people that use one device for both work and personal use as their default option, led to the increase of the concern in regard to EPM capturing personal data.

P18 “I use my work computer as my personal computer.” P20 “I use my working phone for personal use as well… I don’t think there should be any monitoring done on my phone. However, in the apps that I have installed for work it's okay – email for example. However, my chats that I use personally or my photos should be private. For my computer, I have a private computer as well. I would be very concerned about them capturing my personal data. I would feel that it was a legal breach, they shouldn’t be able to do it no matter what.”

6.3.2 Unorthodox working hours

All the participants have expressed that working from home has affected their work routine. Albeit not to the same effect as some participants expressed that they may skip on breaks and/or lunch in favor of shortening the workday, while others took a more relaxed approach segmenting their working hour across the whole day.

P6 “Productivity increased immensely through working from home since there were no more coffee breaks etc.” P7 “The workplace surveillance in office or at home should be maybe different. In the office you work 8 hours straight, however at home you divide the work more. The habits at home could look a bit different therefore monitoring would be different. If you are dividing your work when you’re at home, then maybe it’s impossible to monitor all the things.”

P4“Working from home during the first few weeks were more difficult than working from the office. After that It seemed more productive, you have more freedom, and you save a lot more time from commuting. If you’re hungry and thirsty everything is there and it’s a lot more flexible.” This flexibility allowed people to be more productive and agile, while they felt that they had more control over how their day progressed. Simultaneously this created a parallel issue in regard to work leisure balance and the ability of employees to distance themselves from work. This led to many participants to report that they feel overworked, isolated and overwhelmed.

P1” People aren’t feeling happy, feeling depressed from working from home all the time now. Even because it's temporary, you cannot judge a person the same when working from home. Social interactions are missing and of course the productivity will go down. If the data shows that a person is becoming lazy, it is probably because he is working from home all this time.” P2 “I think I am less productive working from home. But at the same time at home, I work a little more than I would work in an office. I do not notice how time passes at home. I also don’t like being home too much, it is a little bit like a prison. It is not nice to have work enter your private domain.”

Furthermore, the participants with a job that requires a high level of human interaction or the guidance of a supervisor expressed higher levels of discomfort and difficulties.

P5 “Also, the home environment is not helping with productivity. Working from home is more difficult, at work it's much less distracting and you are also always with a colleague.” P15 “I can’t stand being on my own, I can’t work from home. I didn’t really know what I was doing, when you have a big project and you don’t have the right experience in it, it was really difficult to get the necessary help. So, I spent most of the time in meetings instead of producing something.”

6.3.3 The effect of working from home on EPM preferences

In general, the participants expressed a higher level of concern regarding the use of EPM when working from home. The most prominent aspect was regarding transparency as participants stressed the need for full transparency regarding the use of any monitoring software or devices. This opinion was shared among both ends of the spectrum and everyone in between. This opinion stems from the need for employees to be prepared and aware of the monitoring to minimize the risk of their personal data being captured by their company.

P18 “It's a thin line between my private data and company productivity metrics. If they push something about how many songs I play or videos I watch, but it's nasty to share this data with somebody random. If they were to share how many meetings the company has in general, then this is crowd data, how much time we spend talking, working, etc. then it would be fine…The whole working from home thing is very tricky when it comes to tracking. I believe that honest people do what they can and be flexible. It’s all about communication. I’m fine with data being collected, but it has to be explained clearly, transparently.” P16 “Home office is supposed to still be an office but it’s also your home. If you are with your family, you don’t want anyone listening in and looking at that.”

On the same line the participants demanded more control over the use of EPM and the collected data such as the possibility of postponing or pausing monitoring when needed as well as the possibility of deleting data that they believe it's infringing on their privacy such as personal conversations.

P4 “The amount of control I have regarding the data, if it's automated we saw a naked person and let you delete it since it is something that you wouldn’t appreciate being shared.”

P1 “As long as I am informed about being monitored, I’m okay. Also, it has to stay within my professional time. People wouldn’t be as offended and freaked out by EPM if they were properly informed.” However, the participants were also aware of the effect of such personal control over the fidelity of the data.

P5 “I think I should be able to review the info collected, delete it if I need to. However how reliable would it be if I could delete parts of it”

Furthermore, the participants stressed that the monitoring should take into consideration the different work styles and the various working hours in order for the data to be representative and accurate.

P4 “Everyone has their own style of working, even in different levels of the hierarchy.” P14 “If they do snapshots at random times, it might look like I am never working since I might be working early in the morning or late at night.”

When it comes to the purpose and reasoning behind introducing the use of EPM the participants were more willing to accept the use of EMP when it was linked to health and wellbeing as almost all the participants agreed that it may be an effective tool to assist people in striking a better balance between life and work. However, some of the participants highlighted that they don't trust the companies to not use the data for other reasons besides what is officially introduced for, while all the participants expressed a negative reaction in regard to discovering any evidence of monitoring under false pretences.

P3 “Working from home is different, you are not sure if you are doing enough. It would show employees that they are doing okay or they’re doing bad, a good way of self- reflection. This however should be informed about in advance.” P7 “The type of information or data getting monitored could be to see if we are doing our job and if we are at the office. It could be good if it was for our own health benefits. Since working from home sometimes leads to working more, longer hours. If it’s for health, then it would be okay.”

P8 “In person you can see if a person is stressed, from a wellbeing point of view, in person it’s easier to see if the person is staying way too long and looks tired, works too long. If I am at home people don’t see that and the software could change it, could help to see those emotions that are invisible at home.

7. Analysis and Discussion

______In this section we will present the analysis of the empirical data in light of the theoretical framework we previously outlined. ______

During the interviews, we managed to observe some interesting factors and paradoxes that shaped the answers and views of the participants. First, many of the participants explicitly stated that they are not monitored, nor their companies use any form of EPM, however, during the interviews, these participants start talking and referring to many EPM software and techniques such as Microsoft Workplace Analytics, ticket systems, file editing records, registration systems, etc. This led to the realization of some participants that they are being monitored, while the connection was not made by others. On the contrary, the majority of our participants stated that they have not been informed of any monitoring nor was it stated in their contracts.

The second observation was regarding the level of knowledge about the topic- as knowledge increases the participants started to see more potential of EPM beyond surveillance. However, this did not change their opinion regarding accepting the use of EPM, but it created certain scenarios where they found the use of EPM justified and indicated that they would tolerate it.

The third point was regarding some contradictory statements which arise from the wishes of some participants to project certain identity trades and try to fit in what they believe is the right view. For example, some participants rejected the notion that they would trick the system or try to demonstrate productivity in a manner that the software can measure upon asking them directly, however further down the discussion they started to list scenarios where they would do just that. Finally, participants that had jobs with higher

autonomy or that they were in higher positions tended to have more resistance and negative feelings regarding the implementation of EPM.

7.1 EPM and knowledge-based workers

Looking at the perceptions of knowledge-based workers towards the implementation and dissemination of EPM techniques, our goal was to find whether there are any discrepancies of the frequently researched groups of people (manual, service workers) and the arguably under-researched point of view of employees whose main capital is knowledge. Right off the bat we discovered that performance monitoring is preferred to be based on results that people produce instead of the steps showing how they get to that point. The approach where people’s behaviour is monitored (screen time, speed, etc.) is said to be too invasive and not representative, especially since knowledge-based employee’s working styles differ so significantly. However, people who express strong feelings of trust towards their company are more willing to discuss different approaches to monitoring to find value.

As well as that, certain limits to monitoring should be present. People consider access to browsing history, accessing emails and downloads acceptable but only during working hours. However, what makes them especially uncomfortable in monitoring is the possible access to their microphones and cameras, listening into their private conversations and monitoring their feelings. Personality tracking is considered to be completely off-limits, as it makes people feel judged and spied upon and in no way improves performance. Overall, when data ownership is concerned, we found that normally data is expected to be owned by the company. However, individuals feel like when the data touches upon their emotions and personal information, they should be the ones holding ownership.

As previously discovered by McNall & Roch (2009) and other scholars (Ravid et al., 2020), monitoring for the purpose of employee development instead of control is looked upon more favourably. EPM could help to increase employee performance by providing a solution of monitoring data being connected to personal results, for the purpose of getting insights and making further improvements for their own development. Individual

wellbeing and personal benefits are in general something that people are in favour of as a reason for monitoring because they see how such insights can help alleviate the common concerns of stress and overworking. Monitoring for admin and safety purposes was found to communicate to individuals that their safety and well-being is valued but might at times be seens as paternalistic or overbearing (Sewell, Barker & Nyberg, 2012). Our findings show that while this might be true, less invasive ways of ensuring such security are possible and should be implemented instead.

7.1.1 Access to Data

While opinions among knowledge-based workers on who should have access to the data differ, one remains common – data should only be accessed by those parties who have a logical reason to access it. Meaning that if data is collected about employee wellbeing, the direct managers should not access it, but instead the HR department that can later communicate this information to make appropriate changes. While higher (not direct) management should have access to this data, it should be presented in an aggregated manner and in no way relatable to the individual. This goes further to other parties that can make use of these statistics, as it is considered fine for the company to even sell the statistics, as long as it is done transparently and with employee consent in an aggregated and anonymous form.

7.1.2 Data Collection

Regarding data collection being predictable (continuous) or unpredictable (random), it appears that there is no consensus on how knowledge-based employees prefer to be monitored. Jeske & Santuzzi had previously found that predictable monitoring leads to higher job satisfaction (2015) when looking into the preferences of employed higher education students. Our findings are different, showing that some knowledge-based workers that want to minimize the amount of data collected prefer random data collection that is scattered throughout the workday, as in this way the monitoring feels less intense and intrusive. Others prefer whole-day monitoring as they are more concerned about the organization getting the real picture of their actual performance rather than screenshots that might misrepresent them. This shows a clear split in personal preferences, with people who are more individual, competitive and eager to prove their work being more

open to monitoring than ones who are more private and prefer team-level monitoring. The only way that the private individuals would be willing to accept monitoring is if it is for their own self-reflection and not for comparison within a team, as that can create a hostile culture and harm the company atmosphere. As argued by Alder (2001), we found that organizational culture might also be a factor influencing such perceptions, as in companies that are strongly based on teamwork people tend to prefer department-level evaluations, and the other way around. Alder (2001) adds that bureaucratic cultures respond to monitoring more favourably than supportive ones, which stresses the importance for companies to act accordingly.

7.2 The Context of Working From Home

In general, the participants were more resistant to the use of EPM while working from home, maintaining the same views from the scenario of implementing EPM at the office. However, the participants showed more resistance and negative perspective if the EPM was implemented as a reaction to working from home. The participants acknowledged the organization's underlying suspicion regarding employees working from home, where organizations fear that employees may become less productive and underperform. They attribute the introduction of EPM due to working from home to a lack of trust and viewed it as a pressuring and intimidating mechanism. As one participant said, "If you trust me to do my work at the office, I see no reason why you should not trust me to do it while I'm at home". When EPM was implemented both at home and the office, the main concern was surrounding two main points: the loss of privacy, and the perceived lack of accuracy.

The loss of privacy stemmed from the nature of home where people have a higher expectation of privacy and the introduction of EPM was viewed as a privacy invasion that either infringes on the employees' right to privacy or constrains it. As the level of the EPM invasiveness increased - the level of resistance and negative feelings increased. On one hand, the participants showed leniency towards metrics that target work-related productivity directly, on the other hand their level of resistance increased dramatically towards metrics that target behavioural and personal characteristics regardless of their effect on productivity. This result is in line with other results on the perception of privacy

invasion of EPM in other sectors where the results showed that the increase of the perception of privacy invasion correlated with negative feelings (e.g., Zweig & Webster, 2003; McNall & Stanton, 2011; Yost et al., 2019). However, many factors showed the potential to mediate these negative feelings; for example, participants that had a private place at their apartment to use as a work office responded with less negative reactions. Furthermore, transparency and a higher level of control showed the potential to medicate issues related to unwanted and intrusive surveillance, as these factors addressed the feeling of loss of control over privacy. Moreover, the participants showed more leniency towards the use of EPM as a tool for health and wellbeing, as many participants felt that they are working more hours and taking fewer breaks when they are working at home. The participants were willing to give up some of their privacy in return for aid in regulating their working hours and workload.

The second point was in regard to the perceived lack of accuracy. Many participants felt that using these types of EPM would contradict the benefit gained from working at home, such as working in more flexible hours and the possibility to switch between personal or professional tasks. As the participants felt that they will have to conform to certain work expectations that are being set by the way the EPM operates. Thus, many participants viewed EPM to be restraining and distracting where they have to prove to the software that they are doing their work and spent time and energy to explain the discrepancy in the data. Moreover, the nature of working at home where the employees are interacting with factors outside of their control may dilute the data and open the door for EPM to capture unrelated work data.

7.3 Electronic Panopticon

Reflecting on the panopticon concept in which surveilled individuals feel under an authoritative watch and in turn manage their own behaviours (Bauman & Lyon, 2013) - while there are some studies found that in comparison to traditional monitoring or no monitoring at all, EPM is associated with higher task performance, productivity, and attitudes (Ravid et al., 2020). Our findings are more in line with the view that close performance monitoring has negative effects on job attitudes (Jeske & Santuzzi, 2015) as the perceived reasoning behind EPM implementation is lack of trust from the company and the need for managers to feel in control of their employees. As found by McNall &

Roch (2009), such feelings can be mitigated with complete transparency over the data that is collected, providing the employees with all the relevant information - from purpose to software that is used. This information should be delivered in a clear and easily understandable way with “no legal nonsense” together with strong reasons why EPM is implemented in general. Employees also expect to have control over the data that is collected about them - including giving consent to it, being able to access the data and delete it, as well as if necessary having the option to opt-out. We found that transparency and perceived control over data are key in reducing the negative effects of EPM within organizations, which is in line with the findings about student workers by Zweig & Webster (2003) and Hovorka-Mead et al. (2002). Therefore, including employees in this process and collecting their opinions and consent can lead to higher levels of acceptance of the implementation.

7.4 EPM in the Context of Organizational Control

In the general sense, EPM can be considered as technological control, as a device substitutes the manager's job of monitoring and disciplining, as previously found by Alder et al. (2006). However, our findings show that knowledge-based employees make a clear distinction between passive and ubiquitous electronic control, for example, the participants did not express any psychological reaction toward the use of website blocker software in comparison to more invasive electronic control techniques such as EPM. This distinction arises from the EPM characteristics of invasiveness, synchronicity, the ability to capture psychological and emotional data, and the ability to operate in a covert fashion. Thus the concept of technology-mediated control (TMC) presented by Cram & Wiener (2020) provides a more accurate and holistic lens to view EPM in comparison to the traditional organizational and informational system control theories. In previous research, Ravid et al. (2020) establish a clear distinction between EPM, traditional monitoring, and close supervision building on the work of Stanton (2000), however, there is a need for more defined theories and frameworks that address the role of these novel digital technologies that can monitor and guide employees with or without any human intervention and its wider effect on organizational control and culture.

Furthermore, our findings show that knowledge-based employees are not fond of monitoring with no explicit rationale behind it - referring to it as surveillance for the sake

of control. Such an approach has been proven to be great in repetitive jobs where the output is easily calculated, however, the value for knowledge-based workers is questionable, as it is hard to precisely measure their respective activities. An interesting observation is that the majority of people do not want the data collected to be delivered to them by a supervisor. Which would mean that the preferred type of organizational control for autonomous and creative individuals who have a lot of intellectual activity is self-control (Greenberger & Strasser, 1986). To build on that, we found that knowledge- based workers have vastly different approaches to work, which makes it difficult to standardize. Knowledge-based employees are open for EPM directed to their personal development however they do have varying limits on who besides them can access the data later. Even the feedback is preferred to be directly delivered to them, with possible supervisor involvement only in weekly/monthly discussions regarding the electronically received reports for possible improvements. Whether the EPM feedback is delivered in real-time or weekly/monthly basis depends on the individual - some see the value of real- time delivery as they can be more mindful of their behaviour, while others would consider it as spam to get a notification every time odd behaviour is detected. As one participant said, "I'm aware that I have been spending the last hour reading a document, you don't need to add to my frustration. Some tasks are just more complicated and take more time."

This finding was in line with the framework introduced by Cram & Wiener (2020) consisting of context, interventions, mechanisms, and outcomes as the foundation of TMC research and provided empirical data that addressed the outlined gaps in the framework. Mainly in regard to what data should be collected, how it should be analysed, who gets access to the data, and the associated behavioural changes. Furthermore, we explored the potential negative impacts on worker well-being and performance and the essential role of transparency in this process.

7.5 Critical Points on the Dissemination of EMP

The reality is that EPM is here to stay at least for the foreseeable future due to the shift within the nature of work towards more remote practices and the perceived benefit of EPM from the organizations, which is further supported by emotional factors such as the need of some managers to exert control over their subordinates. However, the empirical evidence shows that at least in the domain of knowledge-based workers, these benefits

are not being realized, and many negative attributes are being increased as a side effect of implementing EPM. Furthermore, the discrepancies do not confine in the contradictions between empirical data and presumptions, but they extend to theory in management, organizational control, and human behaviour.

7.5.1 The Effect on Productivity

The nature of knowledge-based work covers a wide range of activities, many of them are based on creativity and creation (Reinhardt et al., 2011), which is hard to quantify and closely monitor due to the different styles of processes that lead the person to a conclusion. Forcing employees to conform to a certain matrix leads to stress, confusion, and limits their abilities, as the employees have to express their productivity in a manner that is to be measured according to those metrics. This leads to a certain level of non- productive work that is aimed to satisfy the matrix as the data shows. The finding is supported by Ravid, et al. (2020) who note that individuals within more empowering jobs tend to report greater levels of counterproductive work behaviours in response to monitoring. From a theoretical perspective, these behaviours lead to non-representative data which severely impacts the process of evaluation, leading to more decisions that are supported by non-representative data. That later leads to loss of productivity and a culture of distrust and deceptions. This perspective is also noted by Rennstam (2017) where he points that technology might become deskilling, disciplining and constraining when relying on information technology to make work processes more efficient. This impact goes beyond productivity as the negative influence on organizational culture leads to decreasing innovation, as trust and openness are essential factors of innovation (Martins & Terblanche, 2003; Leavy, 2005; Dobni, 2008; Coffman, 2011). Moreover, the loss of connection between the employees and the company's values lead to a higher level of turnover and more difficulties in attracting talent (Leavy, 2005; Coffman, 2011).

7.5.2 Informed consent and the future of consent

The concept of consent was prominent in all the interviews and all participants stressed its importance. Majority of the participants went forward to note that consent does not mean merely providing an abstract form that they have to sign, rather the organization

has to provide a detailed explanation of the reasons and the perimeter. It should also include the employees in the decision-making process as well as maintain the right to opt- out of the monitoring without consequences. However, the consent in this context can become quite vague due to the inequivalent distribution of power, the outdated laws and legislation, and the fact that many of the laws are based on reasonable expectations of privacy, which make them easily circumvented (Sprague, 2018). Furthermore, Ball and Margulis (2011) pointed out that consent to electronic monitoring is rarely given freely in the workplace, and noted it is unclear how broad consent must be with the potential of EPM to capture incidental information that is unrelated to job performance. In a recent incident, a Canadian school custodian got fired due to her refusal to download a phone app that monitors her location (Johnson, 2021). These discrepancies in consent may have a negative effect on organizational control inflaming the competing interests between leaders and their subordinates making the process of establishing an acceptable common ground more of a problematic issue. This could lead to a counterintuitive culture within the organization where the EPM viewed as a controlling mechanism for deskilling and disciplining, thus breeding counterproductive behaviour and resistance among the employees. An interesting perspective was that some of the participants stated that they would agree to work for a company that uses EPM for significant financial gain despite their objections to the concept. Albeit they all digressed stating that they would do it for a certain period then quit, however, this behaviour will facilitate the dissemination of EPM in a manner that opposes their interests. Some participants stated that through this behaviour it is inevitable that EPM will become a market standard then companies will not have to pay a premium for using it, while the employees will lose the privilege of choice. This scenario has further implications on the way that employees view the use of EPM pushing them more toward viewing EPM as a surveillance and punishment tool, thus defeating the purpose of improving productivity as research shows that employees would engage more in counterproductive activity as a method of regaining their autonomy (Ravid et al., 2020).

7.5.3 Data security, Privacy, and the Risk of Cyber-espionage

In the last few years, there has been an increasing concern regarding privacy and security in cyberspace, which has been fuelled by a wide variety of news and scandals regarding unethical behaviour of some actors and a continuous increase in cyber-attacks both in size and severity (Cyphers & Gullo, 2020). This concern was evident within our interviews as the majority of interviewees demanded that companies should disclose the period that the companies intend to keep the data for as well as the level of anonymity in which the data would be kept. The participants stated that they trust their companies to do the required due diligence to secure the data, however, they were concerned about the lack of the legal framework, as the laws surrounding data ownership and privacy are still inadequate especially in the workplace context which is a legitimate concern supported by (Kidwell & Sprague, 2009; Sprague, 2018). In fact, these issues already started to surface as an article by Gurley (2021) stated that Amazon delivery drivers would lose their job if they refused to sign a "biometric consent" that gives the company access to their location, movement, and biometric data during working hours. This lack of the legal framework exposes the employees to a wide range of exploitative behaviour as the data collected for work-related purposes can use to infer highly personal information such as religious affiliation, sexual orientation, and political views (Kosinski et al., 2014; Wang & Kosinski, 2018) which can be used as a bases of discrimination. Another important aspect is the role of the EPM solutions providers as it is not clear how much control or access, they have over this data. However even by assuming the best- case scenario where we give these companies all the benefits of the doubt these solutions still represent a significant risk to the organizations implementing their solutions. These solutions can be used for surveillance by design as they create backdoor access to the intended target operating system which can be exploited by hackers to access the company data on multiple levels. This type of hacking is known as "supply chain attack" where the hackers target a service provider of an intended target and use their access to spy on the intended target, thus bypassing the security measures of the intended target. What makes these attacks harder to detect is the fact that hackers hide their stolen data among the normal data traffic from the service provider. In a Security Threat Report by Symantec (2019), they highlighted the growing popularity of these types of attacks as they increased by 78 percent in 2018. In the last couple of years multiple companies were

targeted through these types of attacks such as SolarWinds and Microsoft Exchange Servers.

7.5.4 EPM and Organizational Culture in the Context of Organizational Control

During the interviews, it was obvious that all the participants were working in companies that rely on a mixed approach to organizational control. However, the companies tend to rely more on approaches like personal controls, output controls, cultural control, and market controls as the main control mechanisms in comparison to bureaucratic controls and control through incentives. This finding is in line with much established research that tends to favour personal and cultural control within companies that deal with innovation, agility, and interdisciplinary interaction (Barros & Ferreira, 2019; Haustein, Luther & Schuster, 2014). The participants stated continuously that personal responsibility, accountability to their teammates, and their participation in pushing the company agenda were their main motivation for staying on track and completing their task. The participants noted that there is a high level of trust in their companies where they were trusted to follow the company vision and trusted their colleagues to hold their end of the bargain. However, all participants viewed the introduction of EPM as a lack of trust which internally affects their view on their company and its values. This negative reaction can have a severe impact on the organization culture and counterproductive effects on productivity. The empirical data shows that the negative effect of introducing such an invasive bureaucratic controlling mechanism goes beyond trust affecting employee’s satisfaction, morale, turnover, affective commitment, access to information, and communication which is in line with research in other fields (Rafnsdóttir & Gudmundsdottir, 2011; Jeske & Santuzzi, 2015). Thus, introducing such a controlling mechanism requires a systematic approach that lines a clear purpose of the implementation and considers the individual differences among the employees. Furthermore, the company should evaluate its culture and its existing control mechanisms before implementing EPM as it is crucial for the EPM's success to be a part of the bigger picture with premeditated intent rather than an afterthought. This importance arises from the unique characteristics of EPM in comparison to traditional technological control approaches due to its inherent influence on the employees' psychology.

7.5.5 Fear of Exploitation

A recurring theme that was kept showing in the interviews was the fear of the participants that EPM will be used against them due to the lack of regulations and norms. Some participants stated that the companies may use EPM to pressure the employees to overwork, for example, if the data showed that an employee is working productively and finishing his tasks relatively faster than others the manager will tend to increase this employee workload. Thus, EPM was viewed as a tool to punish the overachievers and reward mediocrity. While other participants had a contrasting view where they expressed that EPM will be used to pressure the employees to perform on the same level as their workaholic colleagues, which will breed a culture of negativity and resentment. Another perspective was the fear that EPM would open the door for managers to intrude on the employee's personal life especially if these techniques can analyse personal behaviour and characteristics. As one participant said, "I think these techniques will kill the concept of professionalism. It is not my boss's business if I am tired, depressed, or having some personal difficulties as long as I am conducting myself in a professional way during work hours". These two perspectives align with the views of D’urso (2006), and Ball & Wilson (2000) that EPM coerces employees to the power of management and increases power differentials between supervisors and subordinates as well as work on controlling employees’ behaviour; increasing efficiency, and formalizing performance criteria. However, some participants acknowledged that this monitoring may prove useful in combating some cases of favouritism, sexual harassment, hostile work environment, etc. One of the most prominent concerns was regarding the increased power gap between the employer and the employee as EPM will provide the employer with highly personalized data that could be used against the employee. When the organization has such wide, detailed, and invasive data about each employee this data can be arranged and displayed in a manner that can justify any decision on the behalf of the organization. Such a view is in line with one of West & Bowman (2016) that EPM can in fact contribute to the rising concept of “at-will” employment, hiring and firing employees continuously and terminating contracts without prior notice or without a sensible reason.

8. Conclusion

______In this section we provide an overall summary of the findings of this research followed by the contributions, limitations and suggestions for future research. ______

In this research we provided an overview of the perspective of knowledge-based workers in regard to the dissemination of EPM relying on a theory-based typology of EPM characteristics that takes into consideration the contextual and psychological variables developed by Ravid et al. (2020). Furthermore, we explored the effect of the context of working from home on the implementation of EPM on knowledge-based workers and provided a wider discussion in regard to organizational control, privacy concerns, and technical control mechanisms. In order to answer the proposed research questions, here we summarize the major findings on each of the questions.

Q1: What are the perceptions of knowledge-based workers towards the implementation and dissemination of EPM techniques?

We found that knowledge-based workers tend to view EPM as a sign of lack of trust and a mechanism of intimidation and surveillance. Largely, the participants had a negative reaction towards EPM and viewed it as an inaccurate and simplistic way of measuring their productivity. However, the participants tend to show more leniency towards the implementation of EPM in the context of development and health and wellbeing. While purposes such as safety, security and improved sustainability, etc. tend to be viewed as illegitimate reasoning, as the employees believe that there are more effective ways to achieve these goals without sacrificing their privacy. Furthermore, knowledge-based workers tend to have a wide range of preferences towards the invasiveness of EPM. However, in general they believe that the monitoring should be strictly limited to working hours and linked directly to matrixes that address productivity and performance. Moreover, matrixes that target personality and behavioural traits had been viewed negatively due to privacy concerns. Meanwhile, issues such as the level of monitoring and access to the data were heavily context dependent. The issues of collection and feedback remain tied to individual characteristics, as for example highly competitive

people prefer continuous monitoring. In line with other research, transparency tended to be an essential issue regarding EPM, as higher levels of transparency signals more acceptance towards EPM. Furthermore, transparency did not stop at the issue of the implementation of EPM and the manner in which the data will be analysed, but also spanned towards the wider issues of data ownership and data monetization. Finally, the workers expressed their fears of exploitation due to the lack of legal protection and the nature of the highly personalized data that may infer information beyond the work-related context.

In general, the utilization of EPM shows signs of wider ramifications, such as increasing turnover, cost of personnel and harder talent acquisition. Furthermore, the implementation of EPM shows signs of counterproductive work behaviours among knowledge-based workers, loss of communication and wider effects on organizational culture, such as reduction in job satisfaction, increased competitiveness and reduction in trust and openness.

Q2: Does the workplace context (home/office) have an effect on knowledge-based worker’s perceptions towards the implementation and dissemination of EPM techniques?

In general, the preference of knowledge-based workers in regard to EPM did not change widely in the context of working from home, however it tended to elevate concerns regarding transparency, type of data collected, control and the span of data collection. Regarding purpose, employees tend to require further clarifications behind the reasoning of implementing EPM, which stems from the sensitive nature of privacy at home. When EPM was implemented as a reaction to working from home, employees tended to view it more negatively and as a sign of mistrust, while when it was implemented across home and office, employees viewed it in a more lenient manner. However, employees tend to show more acceptance towards implementing EPM for the reasoning of personal development, health and wellbeing. Furthermore, the employees demanded more control in regard to what type of data is being collected, the time of collection and the possibility of removing data that they deemed to infringe on their privacy. Moreover, the employees demanded that EPM would take into consideration the context of working from home in regard to the more flexible working hours. Finally, transparency was a cornerstone in

implementing EPM while working from home, as any sign of covert monitoring while employees are working from home tends to provoke highly negative feelings.

9. Contributions

This research provides significant contributions from both theoretical and managerial perspectives.

9.1 Theoretical Contribution

This research provides insights into the underexplored phenomenon of the perceptions of knowledge-based workers on the use and dissemination of EPM using a theory-based typology of EPM characteristics that takes into consideration the contextual and psychological variables developed by Ravid et al. (2020). Moreover, this research presented a new contextual context of using EPM while working from home. As far as the researchers know this is the first research into the perspectives of knowledge-based workers which takes into consideration the theory-based typology of EPM characteristics as well as the context of working from home. Furthermore, this research expanded the theoretical discussion regarding the organizational control theory as a whole and provided insights into the discussion regarding technological control strategies as well as the emerging ubiquitous technologies. The research contributed to the emerging concept of technology-mediated control (TMC) and provided empirical data that support the proposed framework by Cram & Wiener (2020) as well as addressed multiple predefined gaps in the theory. Finally, the researchers provided avenues for future possible research.

9.2 Managerial Contribution

The research provided organizations that wish to implement EPM with much-needed insight regarding the perceptions of knowledge-based workers towards these techniques. Furthermore, it provided managers with suggestions regarding how they should handle the implementation process as well as suggestions regarding techniques that help mediate negative perceptions and counterproductive actions. Finally, the research provided managers with a more holistic perspective regarding the ramifications of implementing EPM on organizational control and culture.

10. Limitations

During this research, some limitations came to light which we aim to address in this section. First, the research was conducted within a European context, thus the participants provided certain cultural views to the phenomena where other national cultures may provide different views based on the specificity of their cultural factors such as privacy, hierarchy, workplace culture, etc. Second, all the participants were Millennials and Gen Z between the age of 18-40, thus they are all digital natives who grew up in the era of social media and hyper-connectivity which may impose certain beliefs and expectations that could influence their views on the usage of EPM. Finally, this research dressed the perspective of knowledge-based workers as a homogeneous group, however, some evidence that arose during the research indicates that a more occupational-specific sampling may provide a more unified perspective. Albeit this doesn't affect the integrity or the validity of the data rather it just provides an avenue for a more unified consensus.

11. Future Research

In the following section, we discuss several avenues for future EPM research.

11.1 Cross-cultural perspective The need for research that explores how national culture influences and predicts individual reactions to EPM have been highlighted by previous researchers (e.g. Ravid et al., 2020; Panina & Aiello, 2005). Furthermore, Wang et al. (2021) found that the Chinese workers are open to EPM and look at it positively, however, the cultural factors in this study were one factor within a wider framework on achieving effective remote working during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Thus, we call again for research that explores the role of national culture in influencing and predicting individual reactions to EPM.

11.2 Access to data The previous discussions regarding access to data in regard to guidance and feedback were surrounding which groups of the various managerial levels and departments should have access to this data. However, a new perspective emerged during the interviews which suggest that the supervision of this data should be allocated to a third party or certain team within the organization in isolation of the direct managers. Where this team provides feedback directly to the employees in order to avoid the possibility that managers

may create a certain expectation and perceptions on the employees relying on what is perceived by the employees as data outside of the context. This approach may help to promote the adaptation of EPM and elevate some of the concerns regarding managers obtaining highly personal information about their subordinates. Thus, there is a need for research that explores and compares the various approaches to the constraint on data access and the various forms of handling the supervision and feedback mechanism of that data.

11.3 Ethicality and legality of EPM Due to the rapid and continuous development of digital control technologies, many legal frameworks that are established to govern the relationship between the employer and employees are becoming outdated. This continuous shifting environment does not only require revisiting this law and legislations but also requires a more holistic review of the ethicality of EPM in light of issues of consent, invasiveness, the utilization of the data, and the intrusion of privacy.

11.4 Digital natives and digital immigrants As all the participants in this research were digital natives i.e., people who were born after the year 1980s and grow up using technology, we suggest that a similar result should be conducted with a sample of knowledge-based workers who are digital immigrants with the aim to compare and contrast the perspectives between the two groups toward the implementation and dissemination EPM.

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13. Appendix

Appendix 1

Table: Common surveillance features of bossware products: Activity Screenshots Can be monitoring Webcam/ or screen Keylogging microphone made (apps, activation recordings "invisible" websites)

ActivTrak confirmed confirmed confirmed

confir med CleverCon confirmed confirmed confirmed confirmed trol (1, 2)

DeskTime confirmed confirmed confirmed

Hubstaff confirmed confirmed

Interguard confirmed confirmed confirmed confirmed

confir med StaffCop confirmed confirmed confirmed confirmed

(1, 2)

Teramind confirmed confirmed confirmed confirmed

TimeDoct confirmed confirmed confirmed or

Work confirmed confirmed confirmed confirmed Examiner

WorkPuls confirmed confirmed confirmed

Features of several worker-monitoring products, based on the companies’ marketing material. 9 of the 10 companies we looked at offered “silent” or “invisible” monitoring software, which can collect data without worker knowledge (Cyphers & Gullo, 2020).

Appendix 2

Appendix 3

Participant Age Occupation Data Collection Duration 1 37 Operational Manager Video Call 1 hour

2 30 Business Analyst Telecom Video Call 1 hour 3 36 Business Consultant in a Video Call 1 hour pharmaceutical company 4 23 Capital Analyst Video Call 1 hour 5 23 Child Psychologist Video Call 1 hour

6 24 HR - CSR Communication Video Call 1 hour Specialist 7 24 Sales Administrator Video Call 1 hour

8 26 Business Analyst Video Call 1 hour 9 30 Pharmacist Video Call 1 hour 10 33 Product Manager Video Call 1 hour

11 25 Damage Claim Adjuster Video Call 1 hour 12 24 Compliance Associate Video Call 1 hour 13 23 Junior Financial Advisor Video Call 1 hour

14 27 Category Marketing Specialist Video Call 1 hour 15 23 Architect Assistant Video Call 1 hour 16 29 IT Service Manager Video Call 1 hour

17 25 Sustainability Analyst Video Call 1 hour

18 24 User Experience Designer Video Call 1 hour 19 35 Sustainability Manager Video Call 1 hour

20 24 Coordinator of Communications Video Call 1 hour