Out of control? Tracking system technologies and performance measurement

Abstract

This article explores how sophisticated and intrusive socio-technological surveillance advances, particularly tracking systems, have become normalized in the North American baseball industry. To make sense of the extensive archival and interview data, we draw on a Deleuzo-Guattarian framework. To this end, we argue that baseball has evolved into a society of control, facilitated and maintained by a rhizomatic surveillance network. We find that the introduction of new technologies has disrupted and changed performance measurement and management control practices in three key ways: (i) establishing the prospect of an ‘objective’ information utopia; (ii) transforming performance measurement into something independent of context; and (iii) measuring processes, not outcomes. Next, in the spirit of Deleuze and Guattari, we consider how the surveillance is being resisted. To this end, we find that instead of formal resistance, players voluntarily co-construct the system. We offer explanations for this, but we also turn our gaze on the consequences of the ever-expanding network of surveillance. Specifically, we consider the identity construction challenges for the target; which we refer to as the dark side of surveillance. We discuss the wider implications of our findings and challenge managers, regardless of workplace, to consider the consequences of introducing ever-more sophisticated monitoring and measurement systems, especially for those whom the systems target.