Conspicuous monitoring and remote work

Nathaniel Jensen, Elizabeth Lyons, Eddy Chebelyon, Ronan Le Bras and Carla Gomes

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2020, vol. 176, issue C, 489-511

Abstract: Credible monitoring of remote workers presents unique challenges that may reduce the benefits of formal organization for their management. We consider whether increasing the salience of monitor productivity without changing incentive contracts or monitoring technology leads to changes in remote worker performance. Results from a field experiment run among multi-dimensional task workers in Kenya demonstrate that increasing the visibility of monitor activity improves performance on task dimensions not being directly paid for. Our evidence is consistent with the importance of conspicuous monitoring when managers and workers are not co-located.

Keywords: Moral hazard; Monitoring; Remote work; Field experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D83 J24 M54 O13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268120301542
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:176:y:2020:i:c:p:489-511

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2020.05.010

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization is currently edited by Houser, D. and Puzzello, D.

More articles in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().