Remote work - Publications - Faculty & Research

Article

GitLab: Work Where You Want, When You Want

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Kevin Crowston, Linus Dahlander, Marco S. Minervini and Sumita Raghuram

GitLab is a software company that works “all remote” at the scale of more than 1,000 employees located in more than 60 countries. GitLab has no physical office and its employees can work from anywhere they choose. Any step of the organizational life of a GitLab... View Details

Keywords: New Forms Of Organizing; Remote Work; All Remote; Virtual Organizations; COVID-19; Organizational Design; Employees; Geographic Location; Health Pandemics

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2023
Other Unpublished Work

Unprecedented: Remote Work and the Strange Economy of 2023

By: Randolph B. Cohen

The low unemployment rate which suggests a strong economy and the low productivity and GDP growth that seems more consistent with less robust conditions sit uneasily together. It's a mystery! But it may be that societal changes like remote work can reconcile the... View Details

Keywords: Economy; Economic Growth; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Employment; Working Conditions

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2022
Working Paper

Is Hybrid Work the Best of Both Worlds? Evidence from a Field Experiment

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Tarun Khanna, Christos A. Makridis and Kyle Schirmann

Hybrid work is emerging as a novel form of organizing work globally. This paper reports causal evidence on how the extent of hybrid work—the number of days worked from home relative to days worked from the office—affects work outcomes. Collaborating with an... View Details

Keywords: Hybrid Work; Remote Work; Work-from-home; Field Experiment; Employees; Geographic Location; Performance; Work-Life Balance

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29 Jul 2019
Research & Ideas

How Companies Benefit When Employees Work Remotely

costs, and live closer to family and friends. Isolating the benefits of remote work To study the productivity effects of work-from-anywhere policies, Choudhury looked for a setting that would allow the... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

27 Apr 2020
Research & Ideas

How Remote Work Changes What We Think About Onboarding

service providers—that are hiring to fill new demand. Also, remote work will quickly become more the norm than the exception on the other side of the pandemic, so organizations should start learning now how... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg

19 Sep 2024
Research & Ideas

Global Talent, Local Obstacles: Why Time Zones Matter in Remote Work

Remote work is giving companies new opportunities to tap additional markets and talent pools. However, a global workforce also brings a challenge: As some employees are getting up in the morning, others are... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

01 Mar 2021
What Do You Think?

What Does Remote Work Mean for Middle Managers?

through our computers and phones. Remote work has given top leaders incentives to use these communication technologies to not only communicate with every individual in the organization but even meet their... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

September 2016 (Revised September 2017)
Case

Collage.com: Scaling a Distributed Organization

By: Christopher Stanton and Shikhar Ghosh

Kevin Borders and Joe Golden, co-founders and co-CEOs of Collage.com, must decide how to grow their custom photo-products startup in the face of fierce competition. From 2011 through 2016, the business evolved from a hobby to a startup with $22 million in revenue and... View Details

Keywords: Remote Work; Internet and the Web; Organizational Structure; Competitive Strategy; Employees; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; Consumer Products Industry; Service Industry

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24 Aug 2020
Research & Ideas

How Much Will Remote Work Continue After the Pandemic?

A new study of pandemic-induced remote workers and their employers suggests that at least 16 percent will remain at-home workers long after the COVID-19 crisis has receded. The survey of 1,800 people in both small and larger businesses... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

09 May 2023
Research & Ideas

Where to Find Remote Work Now: 250 Million Job Postings Paint a Complex Picture

Remote work is here to stay—but not everywhere, and not in all companies. As the business world emerges from the pandemic, some companies are demanding a full return to the office. Others are embracing View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

September 28, 2021
Article

12 Questions About Hybrid Work, Answered

By: Tsedal Neeley

As we move into the next phase of the pandemic, companies are grappling with whether and how to bring their employees back into the office after working from home extensively. According to multiple surveys, most people want a mix of in-person and remote work, and some... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Remote Work; Transition; Employees; Job Design and Levels; Organizational Structure

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April 27, 2020
Article

How Remote Work Changes What We Think About Onboarding

By: Boris Groysberg

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Column

The Changing Geography of Work: Priorities for Policy Makers

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury

The COVID-19 pandemic thrust the issue of how and where we work into the spotlight. The adoption of remote and hybrid work increased exponentially as lockdowns necessitated social distancing. But now, as we enter a new phase of the pandemic, the Geography of Work—where... View Details

Keywords: Remote Work; Hybrid Work Model; Work-from-anywhere; Employees; Geographic Location; Policy

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November–December 2020
Article

Our Work-from-Anywhere Future

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury

The pandemic has hastened a rise in remote working for knowledge-based organizations. This has notable benefits: Companies can save on real estate costs, hire and utilize talent globally, mitigate immigration issues, and experience productivity gains, while workers can... View Details

Keywords: Remote Work; Best Practices; Employment; Health Pandemics; Geographic Location; Opportunities; Problems and Challenges

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January 2021 (Revised March 2022)
Teaching Note

Ureed.com: The Marketplace for Language

By: Ashley V. Whillans

This case explores the growth of Ureed, an online marketplace for translation services that is powered by a workforce consisting of remote freelancers who are based in the United Arab Emirates. Nour Al Hassan, the founder and CEO faced the challenge of how best to... View Details

Keywords: Language Translation; Freelancers; Remote Work; Entrepreneurship; Human Resources; Management; Motivation and Incentives; Job Design and Levels

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6 Oct 2021
Talk

How to Transition In and Out of Work

By: Jon M. Jachimowicz

How to keep home and work separate while working remotely. Some remote employees miss their commute, with several even creating a fake commute to turn off work at the end of a long workday. Expert Jon Jachimowicz explains how to maximize the positive lifestyle benefits... View Details

Keywords: Work From Home (WFH); Positivity; Lifestyle; Passion; Work-Life Balance

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May 5, 2020
Article

Why the Crisis Is Putting Companies at Risk of Losing Female Talent

By: Colleen Ammerman and Boris Groysberg

There has been a massive shift in how work gets done inside many companies and the global pivot to working remotely will likely change how many think about face time and rigid work schedules. Might these changes benefit women? The authors argue that will depend on how... View Details

Keywords: Coronavirus Pandemic; Remote Work; Flexible Work Arrangements; Health Pandemics; Employees; Working Conditions; Gender

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Forthcoming
Article

Dynamic Silos: Increased Modularity and Decreased Stability in Intra-organizational Communication Networks During the COVID-19 Pandemic

By: Tiona Zuzul, Emily Cox Pahnke, Jonathan Larson, Christopher White, Patrick Bourke, Nicholas Caurvina, Neha Parikh Shah, Fereshteh Amini, Youngser Park, Joshua Vogelstein, Jeffrey Weston and Carey E. Priebe

Workplace communications around the world were drastically altered by COVID-19, related work-from-home orders, and the rise of remote work. To understand these shifts, we analyzed aggregated, anonymized metadata from over 360 billion emails within 4,361 organizations... View Details

Keywords: Remote Work; COVID-19; Communication Technology; Organizational Change and Adaptation

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