Privacy in a Digitized Workplace: Towards an Understanding of Employee Privacy Concerns

Abstract

When employees are required to work remotely, the digitization of the workplace becomes imperative to organizations. The introduction of digital workplaces leads to challenges and potentially negative consequences for employee privacy. Research did not yet shed light on the issue of employee privacy concerns. Therefore, the goal of this study is to evaluate the concept of privacy concerns in the context of the digitized workplace. Within the scope of this study, we conducted 33 semi-structured interviews with employees in order to gain insights into their Workplace Privacy Concerns (WPCs). Based on an iterative thematic analysis approach, we identified eight dimensions of WPCs: Six of these dimensions are adapted from the consumer context, two further dimensions represent concerns exclusive to the workplace context. This study serves as a starting point towards an understanding of WPCs and future research on the digitized workplace.