Electronic Monitoring Purposes and Their Impact on Applicant Behavior
Rudolf Siegel, Cornelius J. König, Leon Porsch · OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) · 2020
Applicants often take great care in deciding where to apply, and may refrain from applying or accepting a job offer if they hear about privacy-invading practices at a future workplace. Based on communication privacy management theory, the present work examines how applicants react to different purposes of electronic monitoring at a potential future workplace. In a scenario study, we found higher privacy concerns and lower organizational attractiveness in a situation with controlling monitoring procedures as compared to supportive monitoring procedures. Furthermore, competitive participants evaluated non-controlling monitoring procedures more positively. This demonstrates that organizational attractiveness is harmed by controlling monitoring procedures, and decision-makers should keep in mind how electronic monitoring is implemented, used, and may be perceived within and outside the organization.