“Am I being monitored?” A critical study of communication visibility on social collaboration tools in the modern workplace
(2024) SKOM12 20241Department of Strategic Communication
- Abstract
- Social collaboration tools, such as Slack and Microsoft Teams, are highly appreciated in the modern workplace due to their enabling of efficient communication and collaboration. Research highlight that the tools are making communication more visible, which is said to increase collaboration, productivity, and knowledge-sharing between organizational members. This thesis problematizes the lack of previous research taking power dimensions into consideration when a large amount of communication in the workplace through these tools is highly visible, traceable, searchable, and has the potential of being monitored. In this qualitative critical study 12 Swedish employees in various sectors were interviewed through semi-structured interviews, to... (More)
- Social collaboration tools, such as Slack and Microsoft Teams, are highly appreciated in the modern workplace due to their enabling of efficient communication and collaboration. Research highlight that the tools are making communication more visible, which is said to increase collaboration, productivity, and knowledge-sharing between organizational members. This thesis problematizes the lack of previous research taking power dimensions into consideration when a large amount of communication in the workplace through these tools is highly visible, traceable, searchable, and has the potential of being monitored. In this qualitative critical study 12 Swedish employees in various sectors were interviewed through semi-structured interviews, to reach nuanced insights and perspectives on how they are making sense of communication visibility in relation to power dynamics, and how they are making sense of their communicative behavior and self-governance on the tools. By using concepts of power articulated by Michael Foucault combined with Actor Network Theory the findings from this study showed that the participants value communication visibility, but that the benefits do not come without concerns. The tools enable new ways of power and the potential risk of being monitored was present to several of the participants. The thesis contributes to strategic communication by understanding how transparency about gathered data on social collaboration tools can mitigate risks of employees making their own assumptions about how communication and data is being gathered and analyzed. Future research is encouraged to research if and when employers might be tempted to monitor their employees on social collaboration tools, and whether employees find
such monitoring ethically justified in those situations. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9160370
- author
- Tjellander, Sara LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- SKOM12 20241
- year
- 2024
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Social collaboration tools, communication visibility, internal communication, digi tal monitoring, power relations, Foucault, Actor Network Theory.
- language
- English
- id
- 9160370
- date added to LUP
- 2024-06-14 16:09:26
- date last changed
- 2024-06-14 16:09:26
@misc{9160370,
abstract = {{Social collaboration tools, such as Slack and Microsoft Teams, are highly appreciated in the modern workplace due to their enabling of efficient communication and collaboration. Research highlight that the tools are making communication more visible, which is said to increase collaboration, productivity, and knowledge-sharing between organizational members. This thesis problematizes the lack of previous research taking power dimensions into consideration when a large amount of communication in the workplace through these tools is highly visible, traceable, searchable, and has the potential of being monitored. In this qualitative critical study 12 Swedish employees in various sectors were interviewed through semi-structured interviews, to reach nuanced insights and perspectives on how they are making sense of communication visibility in relation to power dynamics, and how they are making sense of their communicative behavior and self-governance on the tools. By using concepts of power articulated by Michael Foucault combined with Actor Network Theory the findings from this study showed that the participants value communication visibility, but that the benefits do not come without concerns. The tools enable new ways of power and the potential risk of being monitored was present to several of the participants. The thesis contributes to strategic communication by understanding how transparency about gathered data on social collaboration tools can mitigate risks of employees making their own assumptions about how communication and data is being gathered and analyzed. Future research is encouraged to research if and when employers might be tempted to monitor their employees on social collaboration tools, and whether employees find
such monitoring ethically justified in those situations.}},
author = {{Tjellander, Sara}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{“Am I being monitored?” A critical study of communication visibility on social collaboration tools in the modern workplace}},
year = {{2024}},
}