Employee perceptions of fairness toward IoT monitoring

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to explore Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled monitoring in a multi-national petrochemical organization in Qatar and finds that the technology does not negatively influence employee perceptions of fairness, challenging current propositions on monitoring and highlighting the emerging role of culture, competition and paradoxical leadership in moderating the relationship between IoT-enabled monitoring and perceptions of fairness. Design/methodology/approach The authors adopted qualitative research as the methodological premise to explore the relationship between IoT-enabled monitoring and perceptions of fairness. They collected data from an oil and gas organization in Qatar to test the validity of the proposed hypotheses. Findings While I0T-enabled monitoring was perceived as pervasive, tracking every move and recording conversations, the diffusion of the technology throughout Qatar desensitized employees who felt it was the new reality around workspaces. The following three important factors reshaped employees’ perceptions toward IoT-enabled monitoring: a culture that is driven by productivity and strongly adheres by policies and standards to reach set goals; a highly competitive job market; and a paradoxical leadership who balances between the competition and lucrative rewards. Research limitations/implications The limitation of this research is that the authors conducted a case study in similar organizations within the oil and gas industry in the State of Qatar to refute the theory that electronic monitoring of employees in the workspace elicits perceptions of unfairness. Future research can conduct quantitative surveys of employee perceptions in different industries within different cultures to be able to generalize and evolve a universal theory. Practical implications The research findings shed light on the escalating pressure global competition exerts on employees that nervousness about pervasive monitoring systems is replaced with fear of job loss and analytics on monitoring data is welcomed as a means of readjusting behavior to meet performance expectations. Originality/value The case study is the first to highlight the desensitization of employees to monitoring and the increasing pressure competition plays in motivating them to exceed expectations.

A new model for investigating the impact of urban knowledge, urban intelligent transportation systems and IT infrastructures on the success of SCM systems in the distributed organizations

“…IoT is a more advanced idea of the internet that connect almost everything, starting from electronic devices to people, products and machinery (Ramakrishnan and Ma, 2018). IoT plays a vital role and improves the quality of human life in a different domain (Al-Hitmi and Sherif, 2018;Rathore et al, 2016). IoT-based information services help to mix information and material flows and can optimize SCM (Papert and Pflaum, 2017;Rymaszewska et al, 2017).…”

Monitoring remote employees: implications for HR

“…HR professionals can play an important role by encouraging an honest and open discussion about what motivates managers to adopt such tools. Such a discussion will help all stakeholders to explore if the use of monitoring will serve the company and employees well and clarify how the captured data will be used (Al-Hitmi and Sherif, 2018). In some cases, HR departments may themselves initiate the debate about monitoring, especially when the data that could be generated are viewed as supporting HR processes (related to development, appraisal and promotions rounds).…”

“…All current and future employees need to be informed that monitoring will be used and in what form. All managers and employees need to receive training and have access to various feedback options for employees and to evaluate these new initiatives (Al-Hitmi and Sherif, 2018; Jeske and Santuzzi, 2015). Some monitoring initiatives may need to be readjusted over time, so there need to be channels and means to collect this information.…”

Effects of employee monitoring notification policies on HR manager opinions

“…Such research has found that managers are more likely to do secret monitoring when they have a high dependence on their employees and their trust level is low (Alge et al, 2004). Perceptions of electronic monitoring can be a function of the perceived fairness of the system and employee performance (Moorman, & Wells, 2003), the role of culture, job competition, consistency, prior experience with monitoring, time to deal with monitoring problems, and amount of control desired (Al-Hitmi & Sherif, 2018), policy violations (Zweig, & Scott, 2007), perceived privacy violations, procedural justice, leave intentions (Hung-Yue, 2018), and perceived organizational justice (Stanton, 2000). Prospect theory was chosen as the lens of analysis for this research as it appears to relate to the rationale for electronic notifications and no notifications.…”