Large organizations involved in supply chain relationships increasingly are creating joint sustainability initiatives. The authors investigated sustainability-related discourse directed to and created by employees representing two organizations engaged in a supply chain relationship. CRAWDAD was used to map the concepts appearing in (a) each company’s sustainability-related training material, and (b) sustainability-focused interviews conducted with employees. Shared terms in the training documents included the following: corporate mission, corporate performance, corporate responsibility, product (healthy, sustainable, design), price, packaging, reduced waste, energy (reduction, use), and carbon emission. Overlaps between training texts and interview comments revolved around key corporate business goals as well as sustainability as the right thing to do. In the interviews, value statements (e.g., sustainability as the right thing to do or a “good way to do business”) were especially strong. Within both text and talk, the buyer-supplier relationship was emphasized. Areas of divergence between talk and text and between organizations were identified.
According to communication privacy management (CPM) theory, people manage the boundaries around information that they seek to keep private. How does this theory apply when employees are monitored electronically? Using data from 154 face-to-face interviews with employees from a range of organizations, the authors identified various ways organizations, employees, and coworkers describe electronic surveillance and the privacy expectations, boundaries, and turbulence that arise. Privacy boundaries are established during new-employee orientation when surveillance is described as coercive control, as benefiting the company, and/or as benefiting employees. Correlations exist between the surveillance-related socialization messages interviewees remember receiving and their attitudes. Although little boundary turbulence appeared, employees articulated boundaries that companies should not cross. The authors conclude that CPM theory suppositions need modification to fit the conditions of electronic surveillance.
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