Today, enterprise systems can provide near real-time labor visibility at a more granular level than ever before. For example, production workers must follow detailed instructions and report their individual activities to an ERP system that closely monitors execution parameters. Large screens on production floors can display detailed analyses of processes based on timestamps of thousands of work steps.
In many organizations, operational leaders are responsible for creating transparency and guiding the generation of data for the good of the organization. In doing so, they face a significant conflict: between the organization's desire for greater transparency and the potential concerns of employees.
In a recently defended dissertation, Dr. Tobias Nisius presented his research on this topic area.
Together with Prof. Dr. Hartmut Höhle (Chair of Enterprise Systems, University of Mannheim), Prof. Dr. Rajiv Sabherwal (Chair of Information Systems, Walton College of Business, University of Arkansas) , Dr. Kai Spohrer (Mannheim Alumni & Associate Professor of Information Systems, Frankfurt School of Finance & Management), and Dr. Florian Pethig ((Assistant Professor at the Chair of Enterprise Systems, University of Mannheim), a two-year study with 80 interviews at 14 production sites in Europe revealed possible solutions:
- Personnel transparency enables process transparency
- Process transparency creates benefits at the organizational and individual level
- Personnel transparency creates advantages at the organizational and individual level
- Personnel transparency creates concerns at the individual level
- Pressure, upward appeal, and consultation tactics seem ineffective
- Rational persuasion addresses privacy concerns, thus enabling the adoption of systems that increase the transparency of both processes and people