Discretionary Task Ordering: Queue Management in Radiological Services

Maria R. Ibanez (), Jonathan R. Clark (), Robert Huckman and Bradley R. Staats ()
Additional contact information
Maria R. Ibanez: Harvard Business School
Jonathan R. Clark: University of Texas at San Antonio
Bradley R. Staats: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

No 16-051, Harvard Business School Working Papers from Harvard Business School

Abstract: Work scheduling research typically prescribes task sequences implemented by managers. Yet employees often have discretion to deviate from their prescribed sequence. Using data from 2.4 million radiological diagnoses, we find that doctors prioritize similar tasks (batching) and those tasks they expect to complete faster (shortest expected processing time). Moreover, they exercise more discretion as they accumulate experience. Exploiting random assignment of tasks to doctors' queues, instrumental variable models reveal that these deviations erode productivity. This productivity decline lessens as doctors learn from experience. Prioritizing the shortest tasks is particularly detrimental to productivity. Actively grouping similar tasks also reduces productivity, in stark contrast to productivity gains from exogenous grouping, indicating deviation costs outweigh benefits from repetition. By analyzing task completion times, our work highlights the tradeoffs between the time required to exercise discretion and the potential gains from doing so, which has implications for how discretion over scheduling should be delegated.

Keywords: discretion; scheduling; queue; healthcare; learning; experience; decentralization; delegation; behavioral operations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D2 I1 J0 M0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2015-10, Revised 2017-04
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/pages/download.aspx?name=16-051.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Discretionary Task Ordering: Queue Management in Radiological Services (2018)
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:hbs:wpaper:16-051

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Harvard Business School Working Papers from Harvard Business School Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by HBS ().