ABSTRACT

Being watched and watching others is a universal feature of all human societies. How does the phenomenon of surveillance affect, interact with, and change the world of business? This concise book unveils a key idea in the history and future of management.

For centuries managers have claimed the right to monitor employees, but in the digital era, this management activity has become enhanced beyond recognition. Drawing on extensive research into organizational surveillance, the author distils and analyses existing thinking on the concept with his own empirical work.

Drawing together perspectives from philosophy, cutting-edge social theory, and empirical research on workplace surveillance, Surveillance is the definitive introduction to an intriguing topic that will interest readers across the social sciences and beyond.

chapter 1|11 pages

Surveillance at work

An unnatural history

chapter 2|28 pages

We’ve always been working away at surveillance

20 … 200 … 2,000 years of surveillance at work

chapter 3|17 pages

The prison and the factory

Surveillance and the custodial origins of modern workplace discipline

chapter 4|24 pages

Someone to watch over me

Surveillance at work and the labour process

chapter 5|17 pages

The surveillant assemblage at work

Thinking about surveillance with Deleuze and Guattari

chapter 6|20 pages

The gaze at work

From Aristotle to Miller and beyond

chapter 7|24 pages

Heterotopias of surveillance at work

chapter 8|14 pages

Modern surveillance is rubbish

Or why surveillance at work isn’t as good at its job as we think it is and what we can do about it