Does Team Telecommuting Affect Productivity? An Experiment

Dutcher, Glenn; Saral, Krista Jabs

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2153100

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…As a result, the link between WFH and income inequality is still ambigous and under debate. On the one hand, lower wage levels may be due to a lower productivity of employees performing their occupation from home (Dutcher and Saral 2012). A reduction of wage may also be due to a lower disutility of WFH as a consequence of attending child and elderly care, time flexibility, and lower commuting expenses (Bélanger 1999).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Working from home and income inequality: risks of a ‘new normal’ with COVID-19

2020

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In the current context of the COVID-19 pandemic, working from home (WFH) became of great importance for a large share of employees since it represents the only option to both continue working and minimise the risk of virus exposure. Uncertainty about the duration of the pandemic and future contagion waves even led companies to view WFH as a 'new normal' way of working. Based on influence function regression methods, this paper explores the potential consequences in the labour income distribution related to a long-lasting increase in WFH feasibility among Italian employees. Results show that a positive shift in WFH feasibility would be associated with an increase in average labour income, but this potential benefit would not be equally distributed among employees. Specifically, an increase in the opportunity to WFH would favour male, older, high-educated, and high-paid employees. However, this 'forced innovation' would benefit more employees living in provinces have been more affected by the novel coronavirus. WFH thus risks exacerbating pre-existing inequalities in the labour market, especially if it will not be adequately regulated. As a consequence, this study suggests that policies aimed at alleviating inequality, like income support measures (in the short run) and human capital interventions (in the long run), should play a more important compensating role in the future.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Working from home and income inequality: risks of a ‘new normal’ with COVID-19

2020

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“…A lower wage rate may be entailed by a lower disutility of telework with respect to traditional jobs, due to the possibility of attending child and elderly care, schedule flexibility, fewer distractions and lower commuting costs (Bélanger, 1999). Similarly, workplace characteristics and job-specific tasks can be such that teleworking gives a lower hourly productivity than on-site working (Dutcher and Saral, 2012; Giovanis, 2015). On the contrary, assigning employees to work at home can lead to a significant lower office costs for firms, which may translate into wage premia to incentivize teleworking (Hill et al , 1998).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teleworkers in Italy: who are they? Do they make more?

Pigini

Staffolani

2019

IJM

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of the probability of being a teleworker and the extent of earnings differentials between teleworkers and traditional employees. Design/methodology/approach The analysis is grounded on a theoretical framework depicting endogenous telework assignment and wage variations based on individual bargaining. The empirical strategy allows for non-random telework assignment, generating from individual- and job-specific observed as well as unobserved factors. Findings Results are based on the Italian labor force survey and uncover a key role of gender, higher education and family composition as determinants of the probability of teleworking. Furthermore, teleworkers enjoy a wage premium ranging between 2.7 and 8 percent. Originality/value Accounting for observed individual and job-specific effects, by both standard linear regression and propensity score matching, largely reduces the extent of wage premium emerging from unconditional descriptives; the results of an endogenous switching regression model however suggest that failing to properly care for unobserved factors leads to the underestimation of returns to telework.

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“…The study finds significant gains from working from home in terms of worker productivity and satisfaction. This may be partially a result of the firm's careful monitoring of telecommuting workers Dutcher and Jabs Saral (2012). highlight the difficulties that may arise if telecommuting workers are not properly monitored by showing experimental evidence that non-telecommuting workers perceive that their telecommuting counterparts are shirkers.…”

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confidence: 99%

Digitization and the Contract Labor Market: A Research Agenda

et al. 2013

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Online contract labor globalizes traditionally local labor markets, with platforms that enable employers, most of whom are in high-income countries, to more easily outsource tasks to contractors, primarily located in low-income countries. This market is growing rapidly; we provide descriptive statistics from one of the leading platforms where the number of hours worked increased 55% from 2011 to 2012, with the 2012 total wage bill just over $360 million. We outline three lines of inquiry in this market setting that are central to the broader digitization research agenda: 1) How will the digitization of this market influence the distribution of economic activity (geographic distribution of work, income distribution, distribution of work across firm boundaries)?; 2) What is the magnitude and nature of information frictions in these digital market settings as reflected by user responses to market design features (allocation of visibility, investments in human capital acquisition, machine-aided recommendations)?; 3) How will the digitization of this market affect social welfare (increased efficiency in matching, production?)? We draw upon economic theory as well as evidence from empirical research on online contract labor markets and other related settings to motivate and contextualize this research agenda.

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Does Team Telecommuting Affect Productivity? An Experiment

Cited by 7 publications

References 36 publications

Working from home and income inequality: risks of a ‘new normal’ with COVID-19

Working from home and income inequality: risks of a ‘new normal’ with COVID-19

Teleworkers in Italy: who are they? Do they make more?

Digitization and the Contract Labor Market: A Research Agenda

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