Solution
David answered on
Dec 20 2021
Introduction
The privacy of an individual in an organization is certainly more important than that of
any other consideration. Although surveillance and monitoring have been used interchangeably
to mean the same thing by the public, organizational sociologists believe that surveillance is
intertwined with politics, power and resistance while monitoring is associated with only direct
supervision by the employer. However, the main concern has been the manner in which
monitoring is applied in organizational management as it may have detrimental impact on the
usiness (Ball, 2010). As insinuated above, surveillance at the workplace may seek to discover
personal information or particular behavior among employees. As a result, information collected
through different surveillance methods is usually used in different ways. For instance, an
employer may make conclusions about the performance of an employee, which may have impact
oth in the workplace and outside (Luragesi, 2010).
Analysis
In order to ca
y out effective workplace surveillance, there are several techniques that
have been found to be effective in allowing managers to access employees’ private information
and monitor their behavior while they are working. These practices include, but are not limited
to, mystery shopping, mobility tracking, CCTV, computer and telephone logging, and electronic
ecruitment (Ball, 2010). Such techniques are commonly applied in service industries although
other industries like manufacturing also monitor employees at workplaces. With no doubt, such
massive use of these surveillance techniques has been augmented by a rise in internet usage
around the globe with an approximated 27 million employees being monitored in the world.
Low resistance to these practices is common in gambling, logistics, and contact-center
industries where there are no unions to sensitize and advocate for employee privacy (Luragesi,
2010). In general, workplace surveillance can be viewed from two perspectives. It is believed to
e a normal practice as employees expect a review of their performance, whereabouts, and set
objectives. On the other hand, extreme usage does raise controversies.
Ethical Theories
Business Ethics are a form of professional ethics or corporate ethics examining ethical
principles as well as moral of ethical problems su
ounding the business environment. Business
ethics is applied to forms as well as aspects of business conduct and it decides the conduct of
employees of an organization and the business house as a whole (Elibol, 2009). Two types of
usiness ethics are normative and descriptive ethics. The corporate practice of business ethics is
mainly limited to normative ethics. Business ethics are necessary in an organization to align the
conduct of employees and organization to the mission, vision and goal of the company. It
decides on whether a company has an ethical framework or is resorting to unethical practices of
trade and business (Hunt, 2006).
(Stanley Krolick, 1998) defined for styles of ethical decision making. The first style
identified by him was individualistic which was primarily driven by personal survival,
preservation as well as natural reason. Krolick defined second style as the altruists, a person who
is majorly concerned for others. Pragmatists are the third style of ethical decision making, which
is defined as the person who behaves depending upon the situations. The fourth style was the
idealist which means that the decisions are influenced by principles and rules.
Business ethics sometimes clashes as well as overlaps with the fundamental purposes of
the company. For e.g. primary aim of the company could be to maximize the return for its
shareholders, but still it is sometimes deemed unethical in a way the company considers interests
of the class of stakeholders (La
ai, 2007). Another important aspect of business ethics is
corporate governance and corporate social responsibility. Corporate governance policies decides
the ethical framework of the company, as the executives, board members and all other employees
of the company are required to abide by the same set of procedures (La
ai, 2007).
In the utilitarian approach to ethical reasoning, one emphasizes the utility, or the overall
amount of good, that might be produced by an action or a decision. Utilitarianism asserts that the
morally right thing to do is to maximize the overall amount of happiness. The most influential
variety, hedonistic utilitarianism, defines happiness as pleasure and the absence of displeasure.
There are two basic kinds of utilitarianism: act-utilitarianism, according to which each of our
acts should maximize happiness, and rule-utilitarianism, according to which we should each
follow a set of rules which would maximize happiness if universally adopted.
From the employee’s perspective
While there is support for surveillance in some places of work, the magnitude and the
overall impact of such approaches on organizational management remains a major point of
concern (Ball, 2010). It is true that workplace surveillance is important in productivity and asset
management, keeping company or trade secrets, and guarding against legal liabilities. However,
excessive and unnecessary surveillance has a wide range of effects on employees. The first
concern is that surveillance heightens the risk of privacy compromise when a third party is
allowed to handle employees’ private information. In some cases, employees may feel threatened
especially when information about their physical whereabouts is exposed to their employers
(Ball, 2010).
Another argument against workplace surveillance is that it may lead to functional creep
(Ball, 2010). The reason behind this postulate is the fact that some surveillance technologies may
eveal too much information that could be unnecessary. In other words, it is possible to engage
certain methods of employee monitoring and collect unintended information. In this regard, it is
important for employers to avoid extending surveillance practices to such levels without seeking
approval and consent of the respective employees. This is quite essential especially in cases
where the information being sought is to form a decision making basis like promotion and pay-
aises (Ball, 2010). Additionally, the use of surveillance may lead to “faking” of behavior and
character among employees. When a person discovers that he or she is being monitored, there is
usually a higher tendency of behavior camouflage so as not to reveal what the “monitor” could
e looking for.
Depending on the nature of the surveillance technique, quantity versus quality of work
done may be a point of concern among employees and the benefits of working as a team
compared to individual...