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.

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.

It is now 35 years since the death of Professor Joan Woodward, one of the founding figures of organization studies. Professor Woodward died in 1971 at the age of 54 after a relatively brief but highly distinguished career as a management researcher and teacher, and just six years after the publication of her landmark book "Industrial Organization". At the time of her death, Professor Woodward was the Chair in Industrial Sociology at Imperial College London, having been elected as only the second women professor at the College in 1970. She joined the Production Engineering and Management Section of Imperial in 1958 and the majority of her most important work was published during this period. Prior to this she had spent a number of years at the South East Essex College of Technology where she conducted much of the empirical work that informed her significant contributions to the field.