Socioeconomic and Job Status Differences in the Experience of Perceived Unacceptable Electronic Performance Monitoring

Abstract

Electronic performance monitoring (EPM) technologies are widely used by organizations, but research has shown that workers feel EPM is unacceptable when it violates their needs for autonomy and transparency. These negative consequences of EPM have the potential to contribute to broader issues of workplace inequality, such that more vulnerable workers are disproportionately affected. Reasoning about how worker status may affect perceived autonomy and transparency with regard to EPM led to the prediction that workers with lower socioeconomic status [SES] (education and income) and job status (job zone, job security, tenure) experience more EPM that they perceive to be unacceptable (perceived unacceptable EPM [EPM-U]). Additionally, we explored whether workers endorse justifications for EPM based on consent, transparency, and autonomy differentially based on SES and job status. Results from a sample of 267 diverse workers showed that tenure predicted EPM-U, but other indicators of SES and job status did not. Supplementary analyses examining different operationalizations of perceived EPM acceptability as outcomes also supported the effect of tenure. On average, participants endorsed the consent and transparency EPM justifications at a high rate but not the autonomy justification, and status differences did not affect these rates. Results showed that workers in general feel that EPM is only sometimes acceptable, depending on how the organization justifies it. We discuss theoretical implications for technology in the workplace, practical implications regarding how EPM should be implemented in ways that benefit all workers, and suggestions for future research.