Workplace Design: The Good, the Bad, and the Productive

Michael Housman () and Dylan Minor ()
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Michael Housman: HiQ Labs
Dylan Minor: Harvard Business School, Strategy Unit

No 16-147, Harvard Business School Working Papers from Harvard Business School

Abstract: We study the effects of performance spillover in the workplace?both positive and negative?on several dimensions, and find that it is pervasive and decreasing in the physical distance between workers. We also find that workers have different strengths, and that while spillover is minimal for a worker when it occurs in an area of strength, the same worker can be greatly affected if the spillover occurs in her area of weakness. We find this feature allows for a symbiotic pairing of workers in physical space that can improve performance by some 15%. Overall, workplace space appears to be a resource that firms can use to design more effective organizations.

Keywords: strategic human resource management; peer e¤ects; productivity; spillovers; toxic worker (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 2016-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eff and nep-hrm
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