Managing Skills in Organizations - Evidence from a Field Experiment

Leonhard Grabe () and Dirk Sliwka ()
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Leonhard Grabe: University of Cologne
Dirk Sliwka: University of Cologne

No 17727, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We study the value of skill management in organizations. In a natural field experiment with 2,582 service technicians, we vary managers' ability to monitor and manage employee skills. We find that removing managers' access to hard information on employee skills reduced training intensity, work performance, and job satisfaction. Combining detailed personnel records and survey data, we show that the intervention lowered employee efforts to identify training needs and managerial attention to employee development. In particular, high-skill employees received less training to broaden their skill set and, in turn, performance losses are driven by higher completion times for complex work assignments.

Keywords: skill management; training; performance; field experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 J28 M12 M53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 61 pages
Date: 2025-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-hrm, nep-knm and nep-lma
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