Tag: behavior



New research from Olin Prof. Lamar Pierce, Associate Professor of Strategy, has been attracting national media coverage in the past week. Prof. Pierce is featured in a report on NPR’s All Tech Considered that looks at the software surveillance options available to employers who want to protect sensitive data from their own employees. On Sunday, June 22, a front page article in The New York Times, “Unblinking Eyes Track Employees” by Steve Lohr, examines the pros and cons of workplace surveillance as it becomes increasingly ubiquitous and cites Pierce’s research extensively.

The research is published in a paper, “Cleaning House: The Impact of Information Technology Monitoring on Employee Theft and Productivity,” by Pierce and co-authors Daniel Snow (BYU), and Andrew McAfee (MIT). The paper received the Olin Award for research that impacts business earlier this year.

The paper details analysis of data generated by a software surveillance program used to detect employee theft in hundreds of restaurants across the U.S. The researchers found that when employees knew they were being monitored, they not only stopped stealing from the till, but they actually changed their work behavior to increase productivity, tips, and profits for the restaurants.

Watch video of Lamar Pierce discussing his Olin Award-winning research on IT monitoring and its effects on employee theft and productivity below.

Listen to Lamar Pierce on NPR here.