Overview

Organizations’ quest for employee productivity is fueling a gospel of transparency in the management of organizations. Managers seek to boost productivity with a novel array of transparency-enhancing tools, like open offices, visual factories, big data, people analytics, and technologies that track everything from work activity (through wearables and mobile devices) to communication (through email, browser history, and other digital breadcrumbs) and even mood (through facial recognition). Meanwhile, the employees being observed have questions ranging from “How can I get them to leave me alone so I can do this job right?” to “How much do they know about me?” At the intersection of these perspectives lies a puzzle for researchers and theorists: how might a 21st-century behavioral theory of transparency in the workplace be crafted to take stock of these dueling concerns of manager and employee? That is the theory that Professor Bernstein seeks to build through his research, course development, teaching, and collaboration with practitioners.