Electronic Performance Monitoring Research Articles

Human-Data Interaction as a critical enabler of Electronic Performance Monitoring at construction sites

Human-Data Interaction (HDI) revolves around how humans generate, process, and utilise data. HDI plays a crucial role in evaluating data collection and use in the context of the construction industry, considering the impact on stakeholders such as site managers and labourers. One significant application of HDI is in on-site Electronic Performance Monitoring (EPM), which aims to leverage workplace innovations to enhance productivity, safety, and health. However, the integration and implications of HDI and EPM lack comprehensive understanding. This research seeks to bridge this knowledge gap by presenting a human-data perspective on sensored construction sites, emphasising the challenges and opportunities for driving innovative EPM initiatives. Through a combination of literature review, surveys with HDI experts, and the authors' perspectives and abduction, conceptual frameworks are developed that cluster HDI and EPM. The study's implications are multifaceted, impacting both theoretical understanding and practical applications. The findings highlight the key actors and the data they generate and manipulate across different platforms during EPM deployment. Through the lens of explanatory theories, sociomateriality, and work sociology, the research contributes to understanding the fragmented nature of HDI and EPM as a managerial issue embedded in the work environment. It sheds light on the interactions of actors using digital EPM devices and relevant data streams influenced by the limited agency of specific stakeholders, such as labourers, and the potential neglect of factors related to their well-being. This research distinguishes itself by focusing on the less explored intersection of HDI and EPM in the construction industry. It offers a novel perspective by considering the sensored environment of construction sites as a venue for analysing human-data interactions.

Delivering the Brand Promise Through Gig Workers: Internal Brand Management in Ride-Hailing Platforms

This paper explores the intersection of Internal Brand Management (IBM) and the Sharing Economy, specifically how platform organizations ensure brand-aligned service while relying on gig workers. Basic IBM relationships are examined for continued validity in two ride-hailing platforms. Potential moderators are explored, including electronic performance monitoring, qualitative job insecurity, and platform fairness. Findings reveal that IBM relationships persist, offering a scalable solution for consistent brand delivery. Moderating effects are identified, offering insights for platform managers and prompting avenues for future research. With growth of the gig economy, understanding the adaptability of IBM in platform contexts is crucial for brand success.

The threat of electronic performance monitoring: Exploring the role of leader-member exchange on employee privacy invasion

Advances in digitalization have led employers to increasingly adopt electronic performance monitoring technologies that allow supervisors to observe, analyze and evaluate not only employees' work activities, but also their cognitive and behavioral data. This has significant implications for employees' perceptions of privacy, and, in turn, for their basic needs, intrinsic motivation, and turnover intentions. However, the extent of perceiving privacy invasion may also depend on the relationship with those individuals for whom information is shared. This relationship should play a pivotal role in defining and negotiating boundaries and establishing comfort levels in information sharing. Building on communication privacy management theory and self-determination theory, we examined in three studies (two experiments and one field study) how the relationship with the supervisor (LMX) shapes the associations between (a) supervisor's use of EPM, its perceived invasiveness, and privacy invasion (Study 1, 2, 3), and (b) privacy invasion and needs, intrinsic motivation, and turnover intentions (Study 3). Specifically, we theorized that a high LMX that builds on trust should mitigate privacy invasion from invasive electronic performance monitoring. In addition, we hypothesized that high LMX can help employees cope with privacy invasion and consequently reduce need thwarting, decreased intrinsic motivation, and turnover intention. While we found some support for the role of LMX in the emergence of privacy invasion from invasive EPM, our data did not reveal that a high LMX reduces need thwarting and related outcomes due to perceived privacy invasion. This research provides timely insights with a multimethod approach into if and how the social context shapes unintended consequences from using electronic monitoring.

How Organizational Electronic Performance Monitoring Affects Employee Proactive Behaviors: The Psychological Reactance Perspective

Nowadays, numerous enterprises are actively adopting electronic performance monitoring (EPM) systems with the goal of enhancing organizational performance by stimulating employee proactive behavior. However, some companies have reported that the EPM system didn't achieve the expected results and even led to the opposite. To address this paradoxical phenomenon, we employed psychological reactance theory to investigate the impacts of employee differentiate perceptions of EPM (developmental EPM [DEPM] and preventive EPM [PEPM]) on individual psychological and behavior reactance. By conducting a three-wave survey questionnaire among 446 corporate employees, we find that DEPM facilitates proactive behavior, while PEPM inhibits such behaviors; Second, psychological reactance mediates the relationships among DEPM, PEPM, and proactive behavior; Third, individual trait mindfulness positively (negatively) moderates the impact of DEPM (PEPM) on psychological reactance. This research elucidates the effects of EPM on proactive behavior, providing valuable information to support attempts to refine digitally driven monitoring models within organizations.

Everything Under Control? The Impact of Electronic Monitoring Type and Social Norms on Privacy and Reactance

Abstract: Digitalization enables continuous monitoring of not only work processes but also employees’ cognitive, emotional, and behavioral activities. This study investigated how different types of electronic monitoring affect employees’ privacy and reactance and how social norms regarding electronic monitoring (opposition or support) shape these reactions. In a scenario study, we found higher privacy invasion and reactance when not solely screen time was monitored, but screen activity via screenshots or social interactions via face reader. The social norm did not influence these relations. However, we found strong compliance with the social norm of rejecting electronic monitoring, indicating a strong negative attitude toward electronic monitoring. The results suggest that invasiveness of electronic performance monitoring beyond screen time monitoring is perceived as high privacy-invasive and comparatively reactance-evoking.

Everything is in hand: when and why electronic performance monitoring leads to supervisor undermining

PurposeThis research aims to address the knowledge gap regarding the influence of electronic performance monitoring (EPM) on supervisors' behavior. Building upon the sociomaterial perspective and the general model of disinhibition, the study explores the internal mechanisms and boundary conditions between supervisor EPM use and supervisor undermining.Design/methodology/approachAn online survey was administered via the Sojump platform, inviting supervisors from diverse industries in China to participate in a three-wave study, each wave being approximately two weeks apart. The study gathered multi-wave data from 225 supervisors to assess the conceptual model.FindingsThe results showed that supervisor EPM use was positively related to sense of power, which in turn positively related to supervisor undermining. Furthermore, supervisors' individual identity orientation moderates the relationship between supervisor EPM use and sense of power, as well as the indirect relationship between supervisor EPM use and supervisor undermining through sense of power.Practical implicationsThis study advocates for responsible EPM use to mitigate supervisor undermining (e.g. making subordinates feel incompetent) and minimize negative leadership behaviors.Originality/valueThe presented results signify a substantial progression in comprehending the interplay between supervisor EPM use and individual identity orientation, and their combined impact on the sense of power and subsequent supervisor undermining.

Private Eyes, They See Your Every Move: Workplace Surveillance and Worker Well-Being.

Despite a surge in the number of organizations using surveillance technology to monitor their workers, understanding of the health impacts of these technologies in the broader working population is limited. The current study addresses this omission using a novel measure of an individual's overall perception of workplace surveillance, which enables it to be asked of all workers, rather than only those in specific occupations or work contexts that have historically been vulnerable to electronic performance monitoring. Structural equation modeling analyses based on a national sample of Canadian workers (N = 3,508) reveal that surveillance perceptions are indirectly associated with increased psychological distress and lower job satisfaction through stress proliferation. Findings demonstrate that the negative consequences of surveillance are explained by its positive association with three secondary work stressors: job pressures, reduced autonomy, and privacy violations. In the case of psychological distress, these stressors fully mediate a positive association with surveillance. The relationship between surveillance and job satisfaction is more complex, however, with the indirect effects of stress proliferation balanced out by a positive direct effect of surveillance on satisfaction. These results support the use of a stress process framework to examine how surveillance impacts worker well-being through stress proliferation.

Electronic performance monitoring framework to quantify unhealthy and unsafe on-site behaviours

Health and Safety (H&S) should be a significant concern in construction projects. The quantification of the work injury accidents started with work A. W. Heinrich (1931), passing per Frank E. Bird Jr. (1969) to a study by ConocoPhillips Marine (2003). These theories, also known as the Accident triangle, Heinrich's triangle, or Bird's triangle, are a base for industrial accident prevention applied in practice by the Dupont STOPTM methodology. Over this methodology, the number of unhealthy and unsafe behaviours is classified and accounted for to diagnose the potential workers' recordable injuries, lost workdays, and fatalities. The At-risk behaviours and the Near Misses are the most challenging safety measurement approach as they depend on the human-observation notes usually conducted in a safety audit. Electronic Performance Monitoring (EPM) concerns the use of innovative hardware and software to assess on-site safety and productivity. The electronic monitoring of construction workers can contribute to evaluating unsafe behaviours. At-risk behaviours could be measured based on location, trajectory, and motions. Also, with the monitoring of the equipment and vehicles, it is possible to measure Near Misses. The Information Technologies integration allows for collecting information about Recordable Injuries, Lost workdays, and Fatalities. This work discusses and presents a framework connecting EPM deployment to data acquisition of unhealthy and unsafe on-site behaviours. The contributions in the theoretical and practical fields concern the opportunities of using new technological assumptions to increase data acquisition and improve the accuracy and effectiveness of quantitative safety analysis.

Chronicles of the midnight strain: Exploring graveyard shift stress and its impact on employee burnout in call centers

This study, titled “Chronicles of the Midnight Strain: Exploring Graveyard Shift Stress and Its Impact on Employee Burnout in Call Centers,” delves into the intricate relationship between the demanding nature of graveyard shift work in call centers and its potential consequences on employee burnout. The research adopts a comprehensive approach, investigating various factors such as electronic performance monitoring, job demands, physiological indicators, and the role of lifestyle factors in cardiovascular health. Drawing from a vast array of literature, the study explores the causal links and mechanisms of action, emphasizing the significant role of sleep disruption and circadian rhythm desynchronization in contributing to cardiovascular disease among shift workers. Additionally, it considers the impact of stress, working hours, and dietary patterns on the overall well- being of employees working during the unconventional hours of the night. The study reviews existing theories proposing connections between shiftwork, sleep loss, and cardiovascular diseases. It scrutinizes factors like inflammation, blood coagulation, cardiac autonomic function, and the interplay between stress-related hormones and cardiovascular health. Multiple hypotheses are examined, including the influence of a stressful work environment, disturbed sleep on the immune system, and lifestyle factors such as dietary habits and substance use. Despite over two decades of continuous research, the findings in this area remain inconclusive regarding the precise role of shiftwork in cardiovascular disease. The study aims to contribute valuable insights into mitigating the potential adverse effects of graveyard shift stress on employee burnout in call centers, providing a foundation for further research and the development of targeted interventions.

Guidelines for the use of electronic performance monitoring

Guidelines for the use of electronic performance monitoring

Research on the Double-edged Sword Effect of Electronic Performance Monitoring in Workplace

In the digital era, in order to improve organizational performance and achieve high-quality development, more and more modern enterprises begin to use electronic performance monitoring, and the accompanying work pressure directly affects employees' role behavior. However, the existing research on electronic performance monitoring is still in the stage of its concept definition, theoretical basis and influencing factors, especially the research on the influence mechanism of electronic performance monitoring on employee role behavior is very scarce. Based on the work resource-requirement model and stress cognitive evaluation theory, this paper discusses the double-edged sword effect of two dimensions of electronic performance monitoring on employees' role behavior, and analyzes the mediating role of work stress perception and the regulating role of monitoring transparency. Through a questionnaire survey of 330 employees, a total of 308 valid questionnaires were collected. The empirical results show that: (1) Developmental electronic performance monitoring has a significant positive impact on employees' role behavior; (2) Preventive electronic performance monitoring has a significant positive impact on employees' in-role behavior and a significant negative impact on employees' out-of-role behavior. (3) Challenging pressure plays an intermediary role between developmental electronic performance monitoring and employees' in-role behavior. (4) Obstructive stress plays an intermediary role between preventive electronic performance monitoring and employee role behavior; (5) Monitoring transparency positively regulates the relationship between developmental electronic performance monitoring and challenging pressure; (6) Monitoring transparency negatively regulates the relationship between preventive electronic performance monitoring and obstructive stress. The research results verify the double-edged sword effect of electronic performance monitoring on employees' role behavior.

Employee acceptance of digital monitoring systems while working from home

AbstractDigitalisation and COVID‐19 led to an expansion of remote work arrangements, raising the question of whether and how employers should monitor remote workplaces. However, before the implementation of monitoring methods, it is important to consider employees' acceptance of this approach. Therefore, we contribute to current research on electronic performance monitoring by empirically investigating employees' evaluations of performance monitoring at home. This paper presents an analysis of how certain monitoring technologies for work‐from‐home arrangements are perceived as undesirable and whether other job aspects can compensate for these unattractive monitoring components. Using an experimental factorial survey design, German employees evaluated remote work arrangements with randomly varying characteristics. We show that respondents accept a certain degree of monitoring at home but increasingly reject monitoring systems as they become more invasive. However, in some cases, the negative impact of monitoring at home can be mitigated by certain incentives, such as money or the purpose of monitoring.

On the consequences of electronic performance monitoring in organizations: theory and evidence

PurposeThe potential applications of information and communication technologies in the workplace are wide-ranging and, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, have increasingly found their way into the field of electronic performance monitoring (EPM) of employees. This study aims to examine the influence of EPM on individual performance considering the aspects of privacy invasion, organizational trust and individual stress within an organization. Thus, important insights are generated for academia as well as business.Design/methodology/approachA theoretical framework was developed which conceptualizes perceived EPM as independent variable and individual performance as dependent variable. Moreover, the framework conceptualizes three mediator variables (privacy invasion, organizational trust and individual stress). Based on a large-scale survey (N = 1,119), nine hypotheses were tested that were derived from the developed framework.FindingsThe results indicate that perception of EPM significantly increases privacy invasion, reduces organizational trust, increases individual stress and ultimately reduces individual performance. Moreover, it was found that privacy invasion reduces organizational trust and that this lowered trust increases individual stress. Altogether, these findings suggest that the use of EPM by employers may be associated with significant negative consequences.Originality/valueThis research enriches the literature on digital transformation, as well as human–machine interaction, by adopting a multidimensional theoretical and empirical perspective regarding EPM in the workplace context, in which the influence of EPM perceptions on individual performance is examined under the influence of different aspects (privacy invasion, organizational trust and individual stress) not currently considered in this combination in the literature.

When and Why the Use of Electronic Performance Monitoring Leads to Supervisor Undermining?

When and Why the Use of Electronic Performance Monitoring Leads to Supervisor Undermining?

Efficacy of Electronic Monitoring

The use of electronic performance monitoring is becoming increasingly widespread in conjunction with the digitalization of today's supply chains, yet the efficacy of these systems to improve desired performance outcomes is still highly uncertain. This study examines the effect of a federal regulation mandating the adoption of electronic data logging devices for commercial truck drivers in late 2017 and the efficacy of this regulatory effort in improving safety through an analysis of motor vehicle fatalities pre- and post-mandate. Results of a difference in difference estimation show the ELD mandate failed to reduce motor vehicle fatalities, and, in fact, may have increased overall fatality rates. These findings suggest that the expected benefits of electronic monitoring are likely to be highly contingent on proper design and implementation and a failure to consider the broader effects may lead to negative outcomes.

Construction Tasks Electronic Process Monitoring: Laboratory Circuit-Based Simulation Deployment

The domain of data processing is essential to accelerate the delivery of information based on electronic performance monitoring (EPM). The classification of the activities conducted by craft workers can enhance the mechanisation and productivity of activities. However, research in this field is mainly based on simulations of binary activities (i.e., performing or not performing an action). To enhance EPM research in this field, a dynamic laboratory circuit-based simulation of ten common constructions activities was performed. A circuit feasibility case study of EPM using wearable devices was conducted, where two different data processing approaches were tested: machine learning and multivariate statistical analysis (MSA). Using the acceleration data of both wrists and the dominant leg, the machine-learning approach achieved an accuracy between 92 and 96%, while MSA achieved 47–76%. Additionally, the MSA approach achieved 32–76% accuracy by monitoring only the dominant wrist. Results highlighted that the processes conducted with manual tools (e.g., hammering and sawing) have prominent dominant-hand motion characteristics that are accurately detected with one wearable. However, free-hand performing (masonry), walking and not operating value (e.g., sitting) require more motion analysis data points, such as wrists and legs.

Supplemental Material for Socioeconomic and job status differences in the experience of perceived unacceptable electronic performance monitoring.

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.

Socioeconomic and job status differences in the experience of perceived unacceptable electronic performance monitoring.

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.

Effects of Electronic Performance Monitoring on Employee Work Engagement: A Multilevel Investigation

This study investigates the effects of electronic performance monitoring (EPM) on individual work engagement. It draws on a data set consisting of 277 employees from 11 higher education institutions in Pakistan. Multilevel analyses demonstrate that EPM is positively related to employee work engagement, not only directly, but also indirectly through a sequential mediating mechanism of perceived organizational justice and organizational identification. We argue that when employees' performance is monitored electronically, they will be more likely to perceive the performance monitoring process as fair and just. As a result, they will be more likely to identify themselves with their organizations, ultimately enhancing their work engagement. Our study extends the knowledge on EPM, perceived organizational justice, organizational identification, and work engagement.

Trouble with Big Brother: Counterproductive Consequences of Monitoring through Erosion of LMX

Changing workplace dynamics have led employers to increasingly adopt electronic monitoring technologies so supervisors can observe and ensure employee productivity—an outcome the monitoring literature has long supported. Yet, employee engagement and success depend on strong leader-member exchange (LMX), and the relational consequences of electronic monitoring for supervisor and employee are surprisingly unknown. To help resolve tension within the monitoring literature and add understanding regarding the effects of electronic performance monitoring on employee productivity, we use social exchange theory to examine the implications of electronic monitoring for the supervisor-employee relationship. We theorize that employee electronic monitoring facilitates (rather than inhibits) production deviance and inhibits (rather than facilitates) task performance by eroding the leader-member exchange relationship between supervisor and employee. Acknowledging the potential for electronic monitoring data to be useful to employees, we further argue that supervisors can buffer the negative relational consequences of electronic monitoring by using monitoring data for developmental purposes (i.e., developmental feedback). Across an experimental online study and a field study, we find converging support for our predictions and rule out alternative explanations. This research provides timely insights into how to effectively use electronic performance monitoring without promoting unintended consequences.