Econ Papers Daily / 期刊论文
争议中的透明度：数字监控技术与工人话语权
Contested Transparency: Digital Monitoring Technologies and Worker Voice
摘要
Advances in artificial intelligence and data analytics have notably expanded employers’ monitoring and surveillance capabilities. While new digital monitoring (DM) technologies facilitate the accurate observability of work effort, their productivity and broader welfare implications remain subject to debate. In this context, many countries confer information, consultation and co-determination rights to employee representation (ER) bodies on matters related to workplace organization and the introduction of new technologies, which could potentially discourage employers from making DM investments. Using a cross-sectional sample of more than 21,000 European establishments, we find instead that establishments with ER are more likely to utilize DM technologies than establishments without ER. We also document a positive effect of ER on DM utilization in the context of a local-randomization regression discontinuity analysis that exploits size-contingent policy rules governing the operation of ER bodies in Europe. We rationalize this unexpected finding through the lens of a theoretical model in which shared governance via ER creates organizational safeguards that mitigate workers’ control-averse responses to monitoring.
中文摘要
人工智能与数据分析技术的进步显著扩展了雇主的监控与监督能力。尽管新型数字监控（DM）技术有助于精确观测工作投入，但其生产率及更广泛的福利影响仍存争议。在此背景下，许多国家赋予员工代表（ER）机构在工作场所组织及新技术引入相关事务上的知情权、协商权与共同决策权，这可能抑制雇主进行DM投资。基于对超过21,000家欧洲企业的横截面样本，我们发现，与无ER机构的企业相比，设有ER机构的企业更倾向于采用DM技术。我们还利用欧洲ER机构运作中基于规模的政策规则，通过局部随机化回归断点分析，记录了ER对DM利用的积极影响。我们通过一个理论模型来解释这一意外发现，该模型认为，经由ER实现的共同治理创造了组织保障机制，从而缓解了员工对监控的抵触反应。