Sample Systemic Literature Review: Privacy Implications of Workplace Technologies: Investigating Employee Perceptions in Five UK Technology Firms
1. Introduction
The increasing connectivity of the modern work environment is blurring the boundaries between personal and professional lives in terms of online presence and the digital footprint left by individuals (Parker et al., 2017; Roblek et al., 2016). While many company CEOs maintain their social media pages as official accounts, many regular employees do not want to demonstrate similar levels of openness. However, the use of real names and other personal information published on company websites may expose regular staff members to various risks, ranging from stalking to hacker attacks (Tranvik & Braten, 2017; van Zoonen & Rice, 2017). Stolen professional accounts and credentials are also widely used by criminals for phishing and social engineering schemes (Walden, 2016). These considerations inform the topic of this thesis, which seeks to investigate the privacy implications of different workplace technologies used in modern technology firms in the UK.
The purpose of this chapter is to perform a systematic literature review of secondary data related to the issues of privacy implications or workplace technologies and employee perceptions of privacy issues related to them (Beer & Mulder, 2020; Katsabian, 2019). This aim is achieved by identifying the key inclusion-exclusion criteria for academic publications, outlining a detailed search process including the methods used for selecting high-quality sources, and the description of the specific search techniques and instruments (Saunders et al., 2015). The overall process of the systematic literature search is presented in a PRISM flow chart template inserted at the end of the following section.
2. Search Strategy
The search strategy for selecting the literature on privacy implications of workplace technologies involved the phases of Identification, Screening, and Inclusion as outlined by the PRISM flow chart framework (Ayele et al., 2023). The first stage included the selection of the most appropriate databases and the formulation of appropriate keywords for the search. Preliminary analysis revealed three databases that contained the largest number of potentially suitable articles for the selected research focus (Dunleavy, 2017). They included SAGE (2024), ScienceDirect (2024), and Taylor & Francis (2024). The first one specialises in social sciences and humanities and provides a large number of peer-reviewed journals. The second database contains multiple articles on cybersecurity exploring the problem from a scientific point of view. Finally, Taylor & Francis contains hundreds of publications in such spheres as psychology and management that may contribute to the analysis of employee perceptions related to the studied topic. The search process included several stages, which are discussed in detail in the following sections.
2.1. Initial Keyword Identification
First, primary keywords such as “employee perceptions”, “privacy concerns”, and “surveillance” related to the researched topic were identified by the author based on the preliminary literature search conducted. The resulting list included both broad terms such as “social media in the workplace” and more specific phrases such as “stalking risks”. This ensured that the future systematic search for literature would generate rich outputs covering different areas of privacy implications of workplace technologies rather than a single specific problem or challenge (Paltridge & Starfield, 2007). Second, the author focused on secondary keywords such as “employee trust”, “digital privacy”, and “thematic analysis”. These elements were used to explore the studies that could discuss some aspects of the analysed problem indirectly while also outlining the preferred methodologies of the searched studies (Bryman, 2012). The final list of primary and secondary keywords is presented in the table below.
Table 1: List of Primary and Secondary Keywords
Primary Keywords | Secondary Keywords |
workplace technology | employee trust |
privacy concerns | cybersecurity risks |
employee perceptions | digital privacy |
data security | anonymity in the workplace |
surveillance | organisational policies |
social media in the workplace | quantitative survey |
security threats | thematic analysis |
personal data exposure | mixed-methods strategy |
stalking risks | explanatory sequential design |
2.2. Boolean Operators
To refine the search results, the author employed Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) in the following manner:
- AND was used to combine individual concepts (e.g. “privacy implications and peer-reviewed”).
- OR was used to include synonyms and related terms in search outputs (e.g. “systematic review OR meta-analysis”).
- NOT was used to exclude irrelevant elements (e.g. “workplace technologies NOT remote work”).
The use of Boolean operators was deemed necessary due to their usefulness for creating complex queries yielding more relevant and targeted results (Cassell et al., 2017). This allowed the author to combine individual keywords to narrow down search outputs or exclude certain terms, methodologies, and topics from search outputs.
2.3. Wildcards and Truncation
Wildcards and truncation were utilised to capture possible variations of the keywords from the table above. For example, the use of the asterisk symbol (*) ensured that the term “research*” also yielded results for “researching” or “researched”. Similarly, “employee*” ensured that both “employee” and “employees” were captured in article headings. The use of wildcards and truncation allowed the author to broaden search results by ensuring that all derivatives and variations of the keywords were included in search outputs (Bryman & Bell, 2015). This contributed to a more comprehensive understanding of the topic since a wider scope of relevant literature was captured for further extraction (Creswell & Guetterman, 2018).
2.4. Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria
As implied by the Screening element of PRISM, the outputs of initial search procedures must be further refined to exclude duplicate entries and explore the quality of the articles included in the literature review in terms of their methodologies, relevance to the topic, and other inclusion and exclusion criteria (Paltridge & Starfield, 2007). The use of such conditions ensures that studies with sub-optimal quality or wrong focus are not included in the final sample for retrieval. This saves time and reduces the risks of selecting inappropriate sources that do not contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the existing status quo in some areas of academic knowledge (Wisker, 2015). In light of the selected topic, this implies the need to sort out industry publications, publications in online journals, and articles published in popular non-academic journals that discuss the privacy implications of different workplace technologies. While these sources may contain some interesting ideas informing new research directions, the absence of peer review and external evaluation frequently reduces the quality of the source (Smith & Felix, 2019). More specifically, such works may reflect the personal opinions of authors instead of objective findings, while their conclusions do not undergo rigorous evaluation by independent experts in a certain sphere before publication.
Additionally, some of the studies found via selected keywords may not directly explore the selected areas of interest or may not be fully relevant to the selected research focus of the systematic literature review (Phillips & Johnson, 2022). In the case of workplace technologies, the author seeks to approach this problem from a human resource management (HRM) standpoint, while many publications in this field prioritise information security or organisational performance standpoints. This worldview makes some of the studies matching the earlier defined keywords sub-optimal for addressing the aims of this thesis. The table below presents key inclusion and exclusion criteria informed by these considerations.
Table 2: Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria
Inclusion Criteria | Exclusion Criteria |
Studies published in Q1 and Q2 peer-reviewed journals | Articles published in non-peer-reviewed journals as well as non-peer-reviewed articles (e.g. editorials and opinion pieces) |
Articles employing robust methodologies and thoroughly describing the research process | Articles with ambiguous descriptions of their research methodologies |
Studies published from 2000 onward with special attention to studies published during the last 5 years | Studies published before 2000 |
Articles specifically exploring the issues of privacy implications of workplace technologies | Articles diverged from the field of workplace technologies and employee perceptions of them or articles with an unfocused or unclear research topic |
Upon the retrieval of the relevant articles, the author used the citation chaining technique to identify additional publications that could be relevant to the selected topic. This process involved:
- A review of reference lists in all selected articles.
- The identification of newer articles citing these studies via citation indexes in the three earlier discussed databases.
This procedure ensured that all relevant sources were identified and documented (Smith & Felix, 2019). Additionally, citation chaining allows authors to explore the historical evolution of research in certain areas or identify key authors and works in the field. From a practical standpoint, this method reduces the time spent on literature retrieval. The focus on well-cited papers ensures direct access to multiple relevant studies while excluding less impactful publications that are frequently found in initial search results using keywords only (Cohen et al., 2018). Such efficiency is highly beneficial for PhD research and allows authors to develop robust bibliographies while also taking into account different perspectives within the studied field.
The PRISM flow chart below summarises the key procedures utilised for the literature search (Cassell et al., 2017). The first identification phase involved the retrieval of 68 articles from the three aforementioned databases, namely SAGE, ScienceDirect, and Taylor & Francis. This process included the use of the identified primary and secondary keywords combined via Boolean operators followed by the removal of duplicate records and the use of wildcards and the citation chaining technique (Creswell & Guetterman, 2018). The final number of entries before the screening phase amounted to 50 sources. The second stage involved the removal of articles that were not available for retrieval or did not match the defined research focus. This process left 42 sources that were assessed for eligibility in accordance with the earlier discussed inclusion-exclusion criteria. At this point, the author performed a screening review of each source to appraise its quality, relevance for the selected field, and publication date.
Figure 1: PRISM Flow Chart
These factors informed the exclusion of 17 sources that did not match these inclusion criteria. The resulting sample of 25 publications was used in the systematic literature review. The use of the earlier selected primary and secondary keywords proved effective for identifying the studies suitable for the selected topic. For example, “workplace technology” and “surveillance” elements led to the discovery of the studies by Bhave et al. (2020), Kayas (2023) and Mickeler et al. (2023). Similarly, “data security” and “personal data exposure” produced the search outputs including the projects by Glavin et al. (2024) and Griep et al. (2021), both of which contained relevant and up-to-date information about the studied topics. At the same time, the use of citation chaining in the most recent publications allowed the author to identify additional projects, such as Lopez (2024) and Ninaus et al. (2021). Both of these studies were not found in the original search outputs from the three selected databases, which confirmed that the selected search strategy involving multiple methods was effective in finding all relevant literature related to the selected topic.
With that being said, several studies excluded during the screening phase included Mao and DeAndrea (2019) and Paganin and Simbula (2021). These entries were excluded due to their different focus, namely employee voice and work-stress management instruments. While they contained some general information about workplace technologies, this information was not directly related to the privacy implications of workplace technologies. Similarly, the works of Mishra and Crampton (1998) and Rodriguez (1995) did not meet the criteria of relevance, since they were published before 2000. With the rapid advancement of information technologies, the author prioritised sources published in recent years. This was deemed necessary to ensure that the findings of these studies reflected the current problems of workplace technologies’ implementation in terms of their perceived risks from the standpoint of employees.
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