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Electronic monitoring of employee s job performance would almost certainly not be protected by the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. There is no guarantee of a right to privacy provided within the U.S. Constitution. In 1986 the Electronic Communications Privacy Act was passed to prohibit the interception of telephone or other oral, wire, or electronic communication, though there are exceptions both to prior consent and business use . In 1994 a proposed federal bill, The Privacy for Consumers and Workers Act, cleared the House Education and labor subcommittee, though restrictions found in the bill would have made it difficult for telemarketing organizations to maintain quality control so this act failed passage.

So how do we motivate our employees if the argument is that use of electronic monitoring creates an atmosphere of distrust (Vaught, 2000)? We first need to clarify the relationship between computerized performance monitoring (CPM) and ethics. According to Stephen Hawk, there is an ethical theory that provides the basis for evaluating the morality of a given CPM. The first is the Utilitarianism approach which suggests that the morality of acts can be judged ethical to the extent that it results in the greatest good for all concerned parties (Hawk, 1994). This way everyone would benefit from CPM. Employees could potentially benefit if such profitability resulted in increased wages and stability; customers could benefit if monitoring brought about improvements in service/product quality, or lower prices; and society could benefit from increased efficiency and effectiveness of the workforce (Hawk, 1994). Utilitarianism suggests that decisions need to evaluate both the benefits and harms and choose the option that results in the greatest net good (Hawk, 1994). The second is the Kantian approach, which suggests that the inherent features of an action make it right or wrong (Hawk, 1994). Furthermore, this perspective places importance on the intrinsic worth of individuals, emphasizing the obligation of business to respect the right of privacy, the dignity and the autonomy of their employees (Hawk, 1994). Monitoring systems would be unethical to the extent that implementing them violated these obligations. The purpose in pursuing this issue was to shed some light on the ethical implications of the CPM system and provide our intent to inform management of the ethical considerations of using an electronic monitoring system and how their motivation can be inhibited.

Aside from the ethical implications of privacy, critics of EM maintain that many of the more obtrusive systems can lead to increased levels of stress, decreased job satisfaction and quality of work life, decreased levels of customer service and poor quality (Vaught, 2000). Also, by imposing excess control over employee behavior, EM can lead to worker alienation and the perception that they are working in a modern sweatshop (Vaught, 2000). Current applications of electronic performance monitoring (EPM) are based on job design theories that do not consider worker stress; hence we need an approach to EPM that considers job design and worker stress theories that will conclusively define the critical job elements of stress in an electronic monitoring context. According to Pascale Carayon, a conceptual model is proposed which states that electronic performance monitoring has direct and indirect effects on worker stress. She states that job demands, job control, and social supports are major risk factors of work stress and health effects which we will now examine.

Two categories of job design are examined when we research job demands: the amount of work to be done during a specific period and the amount of work pressure exhibited. According to Carayon, EPM has the potential to increase job demands if it is used to increase workload and work pressure (1993). EPM systems can put additional demands on workers and such a system can induce workers to work longer and harder to prove something to their supervisor. Sometimes EPM systems are equipped with standards to follow and if these standards are excessive they will produce stress by increasing workload and work pressure (Carayon, 1993).

Incentive pay systems can be stressful also. Computer based incentive systems led to an increase in self-ratings of hurry and tension, an increase in blood pressure, and a decrease in heart rate variability (Carayon, 1993). It forces workers to push themselves to work harder and faster. Inevitably, electronically monitored workers indicated that quantity was overemphasized at the expense of quality (Carayon, 1993). Conclusively the nature of the EPM system sets up a competitive lifestyle among employees and can be an additional source of stress, especially if the poor performers can be directly identified.

EPM systems that provide direct feedback to the employee may reduce work pressure because the employee is able to recognize his or her workload accordingly and this may lead to decreased workload in terms of the time it takes to perform each task.

Job control examines how people strive for control over their environment, and decreased control can result in individual and organizational adverse effects (Carayon, 1993). According to Carayon, there are three levels of control: instrumental, conceptual, and

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