Research

Abstract: Why do managers matter for firm performance? This paper provides evidence of the critical role of managers in matching workers to jobs within the firm using the universe of personnel records from a large multinational firm. The data covers 200,000 white-collar workers and 30,000 managers over 10 years in 100 countries. I identify good managers as the top 30% by their speed of promotion and leverage exogenous variation induced by the rotation of managers across teams. I find that good managers cause workers to reallocate within the firm through lateral and vertical transfers. This leads to large and persistent gains in workers’ career progression and productivity. Seven years after the manager transition, workers earn 30% more and perform better on objective performance measures. My results imply that the visible hands of managers match workers’ specific skills to specialized jobs, leading to an improvement in the productivity of existing workers that outlasts the managers’ time at the firm.

Abstract: Social movements are catalysts for crucial institutional changes. To succeed, they must coordinate members’ views (consensus building) and actions (mobilization). We study union leaders within Myanmar’s burgeoning labor movement. Union leaders are positively selected on both personality traits that enable them to influence others and ability but earn lower wages. In group discussions about workers' views on an upcoming national minimum wage negotiation, randomly embedded leaders build consensus around the union’s preferred policy. In an experiment that mimics individual decision-making in a collective action set-up, leaders increase mobilization through coordination. Leaders empower social movements by building consensus that encourages mobilization.

Abstract: We ask whether the gendered division of work affects firm productivity across the spectrum of economic development. Personnel records of over 100,000 individuals hired by a global firm that operates in 100 countries reveal that female employee performance is higher where women are underrepresented in the candidate pool. This implies productivity gains from hiring more women, but realizing them would require increasing women's pay relative to men. The findings highlight how unequal gender norms in local labor markets create an equity-efficiency trade-off inside the firm, particularly in low-income countries with conservative gender norms.

Abstract: Firms traditionally use incentives to align their goals with the workers’. In this paper, we evaluate a firm’s attempt to do the opposite by encouraging employees to reflect on what gives their life meaning and whether this can be achieved at work. We randomize the rollout of a "Discover Your Purpose" intervention among 3,000 white-collar employees and evaluate their outcomes over two years. The intervention is rooted in the psychiatrist principles of logotherapy and guides workers through a reflection process of pivotal life experiences, to promote a greater understanding of personal purpose by linking past memories and present work in a coherent narrative. We find that performance increases because the bottom performers either leave the firm, laterally move, or do better. Consistent with the intervention reducing the cost of effort of the workers who remain, we find that it flattens the trade-off between meaning and pay, as it is the highest paid among the low performers who either leave the firm or report higher meaning. The intervention is cost effective and the generated gains are shared between the firm and the employees in the form of higher pay.

Abstract: How are wages set within a multinational firm? Combining cross-country data on wages and labor regulations with personnel records of a large multinational firm, I find that wage setting depends on the rank of the employee in the firm hierarchy. For managers, wages are set by the headquarters regardless of local labor market conditions. For factory workers, wages are adjusted according to country-specific wages and labor regulations. These results suggest that the multinational's internal labor market shields managers against changes in external market conditions, while the firm adapts to local labor markets for factory workers.