ABSTRACT
In any business stakeholder relations are conducted at many levels, from the chief executive to the people who lead functional areas within a corporation. The control–autonomy duality, or so it may seem, becomes visible when looking at employees as stakeholders of the firm. Autonomy and self-governance are the conditions for responsibility; acting responsibly and being held responsible in the workplace are self-explanatory. Electronic privacy in the workplace has come to the forefront in many disputes within firms and in labor courts. No statutory or common law in the US guarantees a right to electronic privacy in the workplace unlike in Europe. In the US, one major focus of workers' rights is on equal treatment. Employee rights are far reaching in most EU countries, where legislation resulting from the Social Chapter of the Maastricht Treaty, apart from regulating individual workers' rights and protection, also asks for extensive worker representation.
