Publications

May 2022
Article

The Impact of COVID-19 on Digital Communication Patterns

By: Evan DeFilippis, Stephen Michael Impink, Madison Singell, Jeff Polzer and Raffaella Sadun

We explore the impact of COVID-19 on employees’ digital communication patterns through an event study of lockdowns in 16 large metropolitan areas in North America, Europe, and the Middle East. Using de-identified, aggregated meeting and email meta-data from 3,143,270... View Details

Keywords: Meetings; Email; COVID-19 Pandemic; Communication Technology; Health Pandemics; Time Management

August 12, 2021
Article

The Endless Digital Workday

By: Arjun Narayan, Rohan Narayana Murty, Rajath B. Das and Scott Duke Kominers

The shift to remote work ended the traditional 9–5 workday: employees work in bursts, at night, between caregiving tasks, and whenever they can find time between the endless distractions of messages, calls, and emails. New research, however, shows that for many teams,... View Details

Keywords: Remote Work; Workday; Team Overlap; Groups and Teams; Employees; Performance Productivity; Management

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January–February 2021
Article

Between Home and Work: Commuting as an Opportunity for Role Transitions

By: Jon M. Jachimowicz, Julia Lee Cunningham, Bradley Staats, Francesca Gino and Jochen I. Menges

Across the globe, every workday people commute an average of 38 minutes each way, yet surprisingly little research has examined the implications of this daily routine for work-related outcomes. Integrating theories of boundary work, self-control, and work-family... View Details

Keywords: Commuting; Boundary Work; Self-control; Work-family Conflict; Prospection; Transition

2021
Working Paper

The Effects of Temporal Distance on Intra-Firm Communication: Evidence from Daylight Savings Time

By: Jasmina Chauvin, Prithwiraj Choudhury and Tommy Pan Fang

Cross-border communication costs have plummeted and enabled the global distribution of work, but frictions attributable to distance persist. We estimate the causal effects of temporal distance, i.e., time zone separation between employees, on intra-firm communication,... View Details

Keywords: Communication Patterns; Time Zones; Geographic Frictions; Knowledge Workers; Multinational Companies; Communication; Multinational Firms and Management; Geographic Location

SSRN

August 24, 2020
Editorial

How to (Actually) Save Time When You're Working Remotely

By: Lauren C. Howe, A.V. Whillans and Jochen I. Menges

The pandemic has given many of us the opportunity to ditch the commute and work from home long-term, offering huge potential time savings. But to truly reap the benefits of remote work during the current crisis and beyond, we need to think proactively about how we... View Details

Keywords: Time; Remote Work; COVID-19 Pandemic; Work-Life Balance; Time Management; Well-being

August 2019
Case

Humanistic Capitalism at Brunello Cucinelli

By: Francesca Gino and Gary Pisano

This case explores one company’s attempt to experiment with a different underlying model for a capitalist enterprise. Brunello Cucinelli, S.p.A. is a leading manufacturer of luxury fashion apparel. Despite being a publicly traded enterprise with annual revenues... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Culture; Human Resource Practices; Growth; Growth Strategy; Motivation; Values; Fashion; Capitalism; Organizational Culture; Values and Beliefs; Human Resources; Management; Business Model; Policy; Behavior; Growth and Development Strategy; Luxury; Italy

Educators

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May–June 2018
Article

The Surprising Power of Questions

By: Alison Wood Brooks and Leslie K. John

Much of an executive’s workday is spent asking others for information—requesting status updates from a team leader, for example, or questioning a counterpart in a tense negotiation. Yet unlike professionals such as litigators, journalists, and doctors, who are taught... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Communication Strategy; Information; Knowledge Sharing; Performance Effectiveness

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2013
Article

The Impact of Electronic Health Record Use on Physician Productivity

By: Julia Adler-Milstein and Robert S. Huckman

To examine the impact of the degree of electronic health record (EHR) use and delegation of EHR tasks on clinician productivity in ambulatory settings.
Study Design: We examined EHR use in primary care practices that implemented a web-based EHR from athenahealth... View Details

Keywords: Electronic Health Records; Health Care; Productivity; Healthcare IT; Information Technology; Performance Productivity; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry

2011
Book

The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work

By: Teresa M. Amabile and Steve J. Kramer

The most effective managers have the ability to build a cadre of employees who have great inner work lives-consistently positive emotions; strong motivation; and favorable perceptions of the organization, their work, and their colleagues. The worst managers undermine... View Details

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May 2007
Article

Inner Work Life: Understanding the Subtext of Business Performance

By: Teresa M. Amabile and Steven J. Kramer

Anyone in management knows that employees have their good days and their bad days and that, for the most part, the reasons for their ups and downs are unknown. Most managers simply shrug their shoulders at this fact of work life. But does it matter, in terms of... View Details

Keywords: Employees; Performance; Motivation and Incentives; Perception; Practice