Samson Company is an engineering firm. Many of the employees are engineers who are working individually on different projects. Most of the design work takes place on computers. The computers are connected by a network and employees can also "surf" the internet through their desk top computers.
The president is concerned about productivity among his engineers. He has acquired software that allows him to monitor each engineer's computer work. Anytime during the day, the president can observe on her screen exactly what the different engineers are working on. The engineers are quite unhappy with this monitoring process. They feel it is unethical for the president to be able to access what they are working on without their knowledge.
Describe the pros and cons of monitoring through observing the computer work of the engineers.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The Answer is The primary reason for observing what the engineers are doing on their computers is control. The president's observations become part of the engineers' performance measure. Even the threat of unobtrusive monitoring is enough to motivate managers not to surf the internet. From the perspective of monitoring, engineers should be pleased with the oversight because they can no longer be blamed for wasting time when they take longer on a project than expected. The president will always know when they are on task.
One problem with this type of monitoring is the cost in time spent by the president. Also, there is the possibility of stifling potentially creative behavior on the part of engineers. The engineers may actually benefit from surfing the internet for some projects.

Samson Company Is an Engineering Firm