Discussion Paper No. 486
December 20, 2023
Self-control and Performance while Working from Home
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Abstract:
This study explores the role of trait self-control in individuals’ changes in performance and well-being when working from home (WFH). In a three-wave longitudinal study with UK workers in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, we find that low self-control workers experienced a significant positive adjustment to WFH over time: The number of reported work distractions decreased, and self-assessed performance increased over the period of four months. In contrast, high self-control individuals did not show a similar upward trajectory. Despite the positive adjustment of low self-control individuals over time, on average, self-control was still positively associated with performance and negatively associated with work distractions. However, trait self-control was not consistently associated with changes in well-being. These findings provide a more nuanced view on trait self-control, suggesting that low self-control individuals can improve initial performance over time when working from home.
Keywords:
self-control; working from home; productivity;
JEL-Classification:
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Discussion Paper No. 485
Use of Digital Technologies for HR Management in Germany: Survey Evidence
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Using a survey with 57 German firms, we evaluate the level of digitalization of the human resource management (HRM) function and document perceived benefits and barriers of technology adoption from organizational and individual users’ perspectives. The results give reason for optimism. Most of the companies report that the core HR processes are digitized. We do not observe adverse effects of the digital HRM tools on users’ job satisfaction and work stress. Still, more than half of companies do not yet use digital tools for strategic HRM decisions. Respondents appreciate the increased speed and cost-efficiency of digital HR processes and associate them with a competitive advantage in talent acquisition. The most prominent barriers to adoption are lack of qualified professionals, high costs, and uncertainty regarding the legal framework. Additionally, we test whether small and medium-sized enterprises differ systematically from larger organizations in how they use digital HRM tools.
Keywords:
digital HRM tools; human resource management; digitalization; Germany;
JEL-Classification:
M12; M15; M50; O33; O52;
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Discussion Paper No. 481
December 15, 2023
Mapping the Dynamics of Management Styles— Evidence from German Survey Data
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We study how firms adjust the bundles of management practices they adopt over time, using repeated survey data collected in Germany from 2012 to 2018. By employing unsupervised machine learning, we leverage high-dimensional data on human resource policies to describe clusters of management practices (management styles). Our results suggest that two management styles exist, one of which employs many and highly structured practices, while the other lacks these practices but retains training measures. We document sizeable differences in styles across German firms, which can (only) partially be explained by firm characteristics. Further, we show that management is highly persistent over time, in part because newly adopted practices are discontinued after a short time. We suggest miscalculations of cots-benefit trade-offs and non-fitting corporate culture as potential hindrances of adopting structured management. In light of previous findings that structured management increases firm performance, our findings have important policy implications since they show that firms which are managed in an unstructured way fail to catch up and will continue to underperform.
Keywords:
management practices; personnel management; panel data analysis; machine learning;
JEL-Classification:
M12; D22; C38;
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Discussion Paper No. 480
When Protection Becomes Exploitation: The Impact of Firing Costs on Present-Biased Employees
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Employment protection harms early-career employees without benefitting them in later career stages (Leonardi and Pica, 2013). We demonstrate that this pattern can result from employers exploiting na¨ıve present-biased employees. Employers offer a dynamic contract with low early-career wages, an unattractive intermediate qualification stage, and high end-of-career wages. Upon reaching the qualification stage, present-biased employees exchange future wages for immediate rewards on an alternative career path – a choice unanticipated by their previous, na¨ıve, self. Thus, employers never pay high future wages. Firing costs help employers indicate that they will not oust employees instead of making promised payments, enabling early-career wage cuts.
Keywords:
employment protection laws; present bias; dynamic contracting;
JEL-Classification:
D21; D90; J33; K31; M52;
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Discussion Paper No. 474
December 13, 2023
Breaking the Silence: Group Discussions, and the Adoption of Welfare-Improving Technologies
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Social pressure and stigma can hinder the adoption of available technologies, especially in the context of sensitive health issues. We run a field experiment on the take-up of menstrual products in Bangladesh and test a discussion-based intervention in a work setting. We vary participation in group discussions designed to break the silence around menstruation, where colleagues share their personal experiences. We find positive effects on the willingness to pay for a known menstrual product (sanitary pads) and on the adoption of a new technology (anti-bacterial menstrual underwear). Our results show changes in restrictive social norms around purchasing the products and lower perceived stigma around menstruation in general.
Keywords:
social norms; social pressure; stigma; technology adoption; group discussions; menstrual health management; menstrual hygiene; adverse health behavior;
JEL-Classification:
D91; I12; I15; O12;
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Discussion Paper No. 473
Gendered Access to Finance: The Role of Team Formation, Idea Quality, and Implementation Constraints in Business Evaluations
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We analyze gender discrimination in entrepreneurship finance. Access to finance is crucial for entrepreneurial success, yet constraints for women are particularly pronounced. We structurally unpack whether loan officers evaluate business ideas and implementation constraints differently for male and female entrepreneurs, both as individual entrepreneurs or in entrepreneurial teams. In a lab-in-the-field experiment with Ugandan loan officers, we document gender discrimination of individual female entrepreneurs, but no gender bias in the evaluation of entrepreneurial teams. Our results suggest that the observed bias is not driven by animus against female entrepreneurs but rather by differential beliefs about women’s entrepreneurial ability or implementation constraints in running a business. Policies aimed at team creation for start-up enterprises may have an additional benefit of equalizing access to finance and ultimately stimulating growth.
Keywords:
access to finance; gender bias; entrepreneurship; lab-in-the-field;
JEL-Classification:
C930; G210; J160; L250; L260; O160;
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Discussion Paper No. 472
December 9, 2023
Are Women Less Effective Leaders than Men? Evidence from Experiments Using Coordination Games
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We study whether one reason behind female underrepresentation in leadership is that female leaders are less effective at coordinating followers’ actions. Two experiments using coordination games investigate whether female leaders are less successful than males in persuading followers to coordinate on efficient equilibria. In these settings, successful coordination hinges on higher-order beliefs about the leader’s capacity to convince followers to pursue desired actions, making beliefs that women are less effective leaders potentially self-confirming. We find no evidence that such bias impacts actual leadership performance, precisely estimating the absence of a gender leadership gap. We further show that this result is surprising given experts’ priors.
Keywords:
gender; coordination games; leadership; experiment;
JEL-Classification:
D23; C72; C92; J1;
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Discussion Paper No. 446
November 9, 2023
Round-Number Effects in Real Estate Prices: Evidence from Germany
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Round numbers affect behavior in various domains, e.g., as prominent thresholds or focal points in bargaining. In line with earlier findings, residential real estate transactions in Germany cluster at round-number prices, but there are also interesting (presumably cultural) differences. We extend our analysis to the commercial real estate market, where stakes are even higher and market participants arguably more experienced. For the same type of object, professionals cluster significantly less on round-number prices compared to non-professionals. We employ machine learning and show that transactions of family homes and condominiums at round-number prices are 2–7% above their hedonic values.
Keywords:
round-number effects; focal points; residential real estate; commercial real estate; housing prices; machine learning;
JEL-Classification:
D01; D91; C78; R31;
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Discussion Paper No. 445
The Efficacy of Tournaments for Non-Routine Team Tasks
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Tournaments are often used to improve performance in innovation contexts. Tournaments provide monetary incentives but also render teams' identity and image concerns salient. We study the effects of tournaments on team performance in a non-routine task and identify the importance of these behavioral aspects. In a field experiment (n>1,700 participants), we vary the salience of team identity, social image concerns, and whether teams face monetary incentives. Increased salience of team identity does not improve performance. Social image motivates the top performers. Additional monetary incentives improve all teams' outcomes without crowding out teams' willingness to explore or perform similar tasks again.
Keywords:
team work; tournaments; rankings; incentives; identity; image concerns; innovation; exploration; natural field experiment;
JEL-Classification:
C93; D90; J24; J33; M52;
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Discussion Paper No. 416
August 10, 2023
Complementing Business Training with Access to Finance: Evidence from SMEs in Kenya
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In this paper, we study the complementarity between business training and access to financial capital for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Kenya. All participants in a business training program are offered training. One-third of participants are offered loans immediately after training (Concurrent Loan group), one-third are offered loans six weeks after training (Delayed Loan group), and the remaining third are offered loans after another four weeks (Control group). While a long delay between training and loans may reduce knowledge retention and application by SMEs in the presence of complementarity, concurrent access to loans and associated business spending may crowd out the entrepreneurs' attention from improving business practices. We find evidence for the latter in both intention-to-treat and treatment-on-the-treated estimates. While SMEs in both Control and Delayed Loan groups improve their business practices, SMEs in the Concurrent Loan group who take loans do not improve their practices at all. Moreover, entrepreneurs who take loans spend less time on their businesses and their business revenue falls. Our evidence is consistent with the entrepreneurs in our study using loans to substitute for their income.
Keywords:
business training; access to finance;
JEL-Classification:
O12; L26; M53;