Diversity and Team Performance in a Kenyan Organization

Benjamin Marx, Vincent Pons and Tavneet Suri

No 28655, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We present the results from a field experiment on team diversity. Individuals working as door-to-door canvassers for a non-profit organization were randomly assigned a teammate, a supervisor, and a list of individuals to canvass. This created random variation within teams in the degree of horizontal diversity (between teammates), vertical diversity (between teammates and their supervisor) and external diversity (between teams and the individuals they canvassed). We observe team-level measures of performance and find that horizontal ethnic diversity decreases performance, while vertical diversity often improves performance, and external diversity has no effect. The data on time use suggests that horizontally homogeneous teams organized tasks in a more efficient way, while vertically homogeneous teams exerted lower effort.

JEL-codes: D22 J24 L22 M54 O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-hrm, nep-lma and nep-ore
Note: DEV LS POL
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

Published as Benjamin Marx & Vincent Pons & Tavneet Suri, 2021. "Diversity and team performance in a Kenyan organization☆," Journal of Public Economics, vol 197.

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Working Paper: Diversity and Team Performance in a Kenyan Organization (2021)
Working Paper: Diversity and Team Performance in a Kenyan Organization (2021)
Working Paper: Diversity and Team Performance in a Kenyan Organization (2021)
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