Some Problems with Employee Monitoring

9 Pages Posted: 28 May 2009 Last revised: 28 Feb 2014

See all articles by Kirsten Martin

Kirsten Martin

University of Notre Dame

R. Edward Freeman

University of Virginia - Darden School of Business

Date Written: April 1, 2003

Abstract

Employee monitoring has raised concerns from all areas of society – business organizations, employee interest groups, privacy advocates, civil libertarians, lawyers, professional ethicists, and every combination possible. Each advocate has its own rationale for or against employee monitoring whether it be economic, legal, or ethical. However, no matter what the form of reasoning, seven key arguments emerge from the pool of analysis. These arguments have been used equally from all sides of the debate. The purpose of this paper is to examine the seven key arguments that have been made with respect to employee monitoring. None of these arguments is conclusive and each calls for managerial and moral consideration. We conclude that a more comprehensive inquiry with ethical concern at the center is necessary to make further progress on understanding the complexity of employee monitoring. The final section of this paper sketches out how such an inquiry would proceed.

Keywords: Technology, monitoring, ethics, privacy, information technology, business ethics

JEL Classification: M14

Suggested Citation

Martin, Kirsten and Freeman, R. Edward, Some Problems with Employee Monitoring (April 1, 2003). Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 43, No. 4, pp. 351-363, 2003, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1410842

Kirsten Martin (Contact Author)

University of Notre Dame ( email )

364 Mendoza
South Bend, IN 46530
United States

R. Edward Freeman

University of Virginia - Darden School of Business ( email )

P.O. Box 6550
Charlottesville, VA 22906-6550
United States
804-924-0935 (Phone)
804-924-6378 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://www.darden.virginia.edu/faculty/freeman.htm

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