The Two Faces of Workplace Digital Surveillance: A Mixed-Method Study of Monitoring Technologies' Affordances and Employee Experiences

The rapid proliferation of employee electronic monitoring technologies presents organizations with complex challenges at the intersection of productivity, privacy, and workplace trust. While these technologies have become increasingly prevalent, with adoption rates surging 58% between 2020 and 2021, existing research has failed to systematically analyze both the technological capabilities and human experiences of workplace surveillance. This dissertation addresses this gap through two complementary studies examining workplace monitoring from technological and human perspectives. The first study uses qualitative analysis of vendor materials and product documentation for 10 monitoring tools. The study identifies three hierarchical levels of monitoring affordances: observational affordances focusing on surveillance and visibility enhancement, operational affordances enabling automated decision-making and enforcement, and strategic affordances supporting resource and compliance management. A framework for understanding workplace monitoring technologies through the lens of affordance theory is developed to advance our understanding of how monitoring technologies enable different forms of organizational control while highlighting potential areas for technological improvement and policy intervention. The second study employs advanced topic modeling techniques to analyze 4,188 Reddit posts and 120,381 comments discussing workplace monitoring. Using Latent Dirichlet Allocation and BERTopic algorithms, the analysis reveals 16 distinct topics of employee concern, with topic coherence scores exceeding 0.7. Key themes include privacy concerns with personal device monitoring, debates about remote work surveillance, and sophisticated employee response strategies. The second study's findings demonstrate the complex interplay between technological surveillance and workplace trust, particularly highlighting employees' concerns about the blurred boundaries between personal and professional digital spaces. Together, these studies reveal fundamental tensions between the expanding technical capabilities of monitoring systems and employee acceptance of monitoring practices. The dissertation makes three primary contributions: (1) developing a structured framework for analyzing monitoring technologies through affordance theory, (2) providing empirical evidence of employee perspectives and response strategies, and (3) offering practical guidance for balancing organizational control needs with employee privacy concerns. These insights are particularly relevant as organizations navigate the challenges of remote work and the increasing digitalization of work.