How Ethical Is it to Monitor Every Employee S Activities

¶ … journal New Technology, Work, and Employment, discusses the ethical, legal, and cultural issues when it comes to a company using electronic surveillance (ES) in various ways in the workplace. The authors review some cases where companies used very intrusive ES into worker's emails; for example, Dow Chemical fired 60 employees and issued reprimands to "hundreds of others" because workers reportedly used "sexually explicit pictures and violent images"(Kidwell, 2009). The authors explain that using electronic monitoring -- from the standpoint of " ... productivity, efficiency, and liability," but the authors assert that using ES on a global level raises certain legal, ethical and regulatory issues (Kidwell, 195). The article goes on to present the many forms that ES takes, and describes ES as a "multilevel phenomenon" that has sociological and practical applications, but can also help an organization guard against "abuse of resources" and at the same time can incur "potential liability" when it monitors workers' behaviors, customer behaviors and spies on "other visitors to the workplace" (Kidwell, 196).

How does the article contribute to contemporary thinking about business ethics?

Clearly this article stimulates thought about business ethics. Readers learn that there are two ways of thinking about the widespread use of ES, and the article points out that management believes it is being ethical when it uses devices to protect itself and its employees from abuses by workers. It is unethical of course for an employee to sexually harass another employee, and so companies employing electronic monitoring believe they are avoiding the liability that may come when sexual harassment is revealed (Kidwell, 197). It appears that ES is far more predominant in Japan than it is in the United States. Japan depends on " ... sophisticated technologies to trace and track citizens," and the goal in Japan is to influence and control people, not just in the workplace, but elsewhere in society. But Japanese workers apparently don't mind being watched; the authors write that "individual privacy has traditionally been regarded as an alien concept" (Kidwell, 197).

Assess the ethical issues faced by the business leader or leaders in the article.

Business leaders in the U.S. should be aware that a recent survey showed that 55% of respondents (in the U.S.) were more concerned about "government threats to their person privacy" and 43% were more concerned about business threats to their personal privacy (Kidwell, 198). Business leaders with attorneys on staff know that privacy in the workplace is not "explicitly protected in the U.S. Constitution" although the Fourth Amendment prohibits the government's "unreasonable search and seizure"(Kidwell, 198). In the U.S. there is no right to privacy "unless there is first an expectation of privacy"; and business managers believe they are being ethical by telling workers they are under surveillance, rather than carrying on surveillance without notifying workers. In Sweden, unlike the U.S., privacy is a constitutional right: "It is strongly engrained in Swedish culture that privacy be honored and not invaded" (Kidwell, 199). With globalization, managers must be aware of the differences in privacy values, laws, and regulations in countries where they manufacture products; breaking laws or violating cultural practices by employing ES in foreign countries clearly shows a lack of ethical practices (Kidwell, 202).

How can you apply information in this article to your field? The world we live in has video cameras inside and outside buildings, and in myriad other locations. Hence, the workplace is just one place where video monitoring takes place. But as to businesses and their use of ES, I can apply this information by asserting that every new hire should know exactly how he or she is being monitored, and the precise purpose of the monitoring.