On the Impact of Information Provided to Employees on their Intention to Disclose Data Collected by Smart Watches to their Employers

Companies are increasingly equipping employees with smart watches to improve employees\u27 performance, health, or safety. Thus employers can collect sensitive employees\u27 data using smart watches, including, e.g., employees\u27 health and emotions. This paper investigates the effects of employers\u27 provided information on the employees\u27 intention to share information like activity, health, and location when equipped with a smart watch, considering the privacy calculus. To this end, we have conducted a scenario-based online survey with 1,214 participants in which they have to imagine being equipped with a smart watch by their employer. The scenario was changed in a post-test by increasing employers\u27 provided information to measure the impact of this change on the participants\u27 decisions. Our results indicate that the more information employers provide, the less the participants are willing to disclose data. Therefore, employees who obtain transparent information tend to weigh risks significantly higher in the associated cost-benefit analysis