Monitoring, surveillance and technostress - An enterprise application case

Abstract

There has been an increasing reliance of organizations on workflow systems to maintain quality and to manage people. The use of enterprise workflow applications like ERP, CRM or customized workflow applications provides ample opportunities for computer-mediated control and monitoring. The employees are subjected to constant surveillance that often starts negatively affecting their health and mental wellbeing. The knowledge of constantly being watched puts tremendous pressure on people. This Technostress experienced by employees is caused due to lack of social interactions with peers and supervisors, change in their job description and information overload. They often face role conflict and are constrained by the system. The system drives the business instead of the other way around. The managers have increased workload as now they spend time and energy in micromanaging their teams. This paper examines the impact of monitoring and surveillance due to Enterprise Workflow applications on employee stress. © 2018 Association for Information Systems. All rights reserved.