BUSINESS INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Business Information Systems



Business Information Systems

Introduction

From stealing and corruption to bullying and sabotage, the types of deviance happening inside organizations today are vast and costly. It is apparent from media reports and anecdotal accounts that misbehavior, in its variety of forms and intensities, is indeed a reality for many, if not most, organizations. However it is defined or conceptualized, misbehavior often has serious consequences for the individual(s) committing the act, the intra-and interorganizational stakeholders (e.g., coworkers, citizen-customers, partnering firms/agencies, investors, etc.), and overall society. External pressures, such as industry standards and legal mandates, along with those from the inside, such as declining profits and inefficiencies, often pressure managers to curtail mis-behavior within the confines of the organization (Kidwell, 20). Whether it is shirking or other types of withholding effort, controlling employee behavior has long been a theme guiding the study and practice of management. In an effort to identify and decrease employee misbehavior, organizations use a variety of oversight tools, including surveillance technologies.

Monitoring has become an integral part of the control and coordination aspects of the managerial role. In the modern workplace, traditional supervisory observance is being accompanied or altogether replaced by electronic performance monitoring. The latter allows for continuous observance of employee performance data with or without the knowledge of its existence by those under surveillance. This differs greatly from the direct nature of overseeing employee behavior by those in positions of authority and close proximity to the tasks being conducted (e.g., shift supervisors). The electronic monitoring is used to collect information on a wide range of employee behavior related to task performance that may otherwise be unobservable to direct supervision. Some examples include audio-technology telephone monitoring in call centers and geographic positioning systems (GPS) and video surveillance (Irving, 79).

Discussion

Electronic surveillance has also become an important issue in the workplace. Many electronic surveillance methods are easily used to monitor employees. Coupled with the growing reliance on the Internet and computers in many jobs, this trend has escalated sharply in recent years.

The widespread use of GPS tracking systems to monitor and locate vehicles and individuals provides one example. These tracking systems can be installed in a vehicle to monitor historical usage and location. When a GPS receiver is coupled with a transmitter, the resulting system can report the current location and approximate speed of the GPS receiver. Employers have installed and used such systems to monitor taxi, bus, and truck drivers in the United States, in the interest of enforcing workplace rules and increasing overall performance levels. In some cases, employees and users were not informed as to the capabilities of these devices. Behavior patterns that previously seemed normal to employees may no longer escape the detection and discipline of management (Griffith, 49).

Within the workplace, the principles of pervasive or ubiquitous computing, coupled with the advancing speed of telecommunications and computers, already allow users to store their data in a centralized location and to access such data with the computing client of their choice—a mobile phone, PDA, personal ...