When are employers interested in electronic performance monitoring? Results from a factorial survey experiment

This paper examines supervisors' considerations about (not) using monitoring technologies to keep track of subordinates and their work performance. We conduct a factorial survey experiment. The hypothetical descriptions of workplace situations - so-called vignettes - create a situation where the surveyed supervisor is faced with a new team of subordinates and a given technology that can be used to track employees at work. Several components of the situation are randomly varied across vignettes and respondents. We find that supervisors are less interested in using monitoring technologies if the monitoring technology targets people rather than tasks and if the time effort for the supervisor is high. Supervisors' monitoring interest increases if their subordinates interact with sensitive firm data and the data evaluation is AI supported. Thus, our results confirm that supervisors take the costs and benefits of electronic performance monitoring into consideration regarding their attitude towards monitoring technologies at work.