Strategy
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- Article
Multitasking While Driving: A Time Use Study of Commuting Knowledge Workers to Assess Current and Future Uses
By: Thomaz Teodorovicz, Andrew L. Kun, Raffaella Sadun and Orit ShaerCommuting has enormous impact on individuals, families, organizations, and society. Advances in vehicle automation may help workers employ the time spent commuting in productive work-tasks or wellbeing activities. To achieve this goal, however, we need to develop a deeper understanding of which work and personal activities are of value for commuting workers. In this paper we present results from an online time-use study of 400 knowledge workers who commute-by-driving. The data allow us to study multitasking-while-driving behavior of commuting knowledge workers, identify which non-driving tasks knowledge workers currently engage in while driving, and the non-driving tasks individuals would like to engage in when using a safe highly automated vehicle in the future. We discuss the implications of our findings for the design of technology that supports work and wellbeing activities in automated cars.
- Article
Multitasking While Driving: A Time Use Study of Commuting Knowledge Workers to Assess Current and Future Uses
By: Thomaz Teodorovicz, Andrew L. Kun, Raffaella Sadun and Orit ShaerCommuting has enormous impact on individuals, families, organizations, and society. Advances in vehicle automation may help workers employ the time spent commuting in productive work-tasks or wellbeing activities. To achieve this goal, however, we need to develop a deeper understanding of which work and personal activities are of value for...
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- 2022
- Working Paper
Laboratory Safety and Research Productivity
By: Alberto Galasso, Hong Luo and Brooklynn ZhuAre laboratory safety practices a tax on scientific productivity? We examine this question by exploiting the substantial increase in safety regulations at the University of California following the shocking accidental death of a research assistant in 2008. Difference-in-differences analyses show that relative to 'dry lab' scientists who use theoretical and computational methods, the publication rates of 'wet lab' scientists who conduct experiments on chemical and biological substances did not change signifcantly after the shock. At the same time, we find that the shock induced the wet laboratories that more frequently used dangerous substances to reduce their reliance on flammable materials and unfamiliar hazardous compounds. Our findings suggest that laboratory safety may shape the production of science, but they do not support the claim that safety practices impose a signifcant tax on research productivity.
- 2022
- Working Paper
Laboratory Safety and Research Productivity
By: Alberto Galasso, Hong Luo and Brooklynn ZhuAre laboratory safety practices a tax on scientific productivity? We examine this question by exploiting the substantial increase in safety regulations at the University of California following the shocking accidental death of a research assistant in 2008. Difference-in-differences analyses show that relative to 'dry lab' scientists who use...
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- 2022
- Working Paper
An Anatomy of Performance Monitoring
By: Achyuta Adhvaryu, Anant Nyshadham and Jorge TamayoPerformance monitoring is a mainstay management tool in most organizations. Yet we still know little about whether—and why—better monitoring yields better performance in practice. To shed light on these questions, we study the introduction of a performance monitoring technology that enabled managers to track the progress of drive-thru orders in real time in a large quick-service restaurant chain in Puerto Rico. Sales increased by nearly 5%, but this rise was on average short-lived: impacts diminished to roughly half their initial magnitude within two months. Investment in and depreciation of worker skills play an important role in explaining this pattern. Managers responded to the availability of real-time data on bottlenecks by providing greater training inputs to workers at key workstations, particularly in the kitchen. But only a subset of managers provided “refresher” training to counteract skill depreciation over time. Conditional on baseline store productivity-by-time interactions to account for dynamic effects of general managerial quality, stores in which managers utilized refresher training intensively prior to the technology implementation had more persistent gains in sales, suggesting that managers’ attention and responses to worker skill dynamics matter for productivity. These results provide a look inside the “black box” of the management-productivity relationship, and highlight the critical role of on-the-job human capital investment in realizing and sustaining productivity gains from better performance monitoring.
- 2022
- Working Paper
An Anatomy of Performance Monitoring
By: Achyuta Adhvaryu, Anant Nyshadham and Jorge TamayoPerformance monitoring is a mainstay management tool in most organizations. Yet we still know little about whether—and why—better monitoring yields better performance in practice. To shed light on these questions, we study the introduction of a performance monitoring technology that enabled managers to track the progress of drive-thru orders in...
About the Unit
The Strategy unit studies firms as competitors in an economic landscape. Key issues include: the development and effectiveness of firm strategy at both a business and corporate level; the analysis of the competitive environment; and the sustainability of strategy over time.
Our research, course development, and teaching draws on multiple disciplines, including economics, sociology, and political science, and focuses on both domestic and global competition. The objective of the work is to generate findings and develop concepts that will help managers improve their strategic decisions while advancing the state of knowledge in the academic study of strategy and related disciplines.
Recent Publications
Multitasking While Driving: A Time Use Study of Commuting Knowledge Workers to Assess Current and Future Uses
- Article |
- International Journal of Human-Computer Studies
Laboratory Safety and Research Productivity
- 2022 |
- Working Paper |
- Faculty Research
When Does Product Liability Risk Chill Innovation? Evidence from Medical Implants
- May 2022 |
- Article |
- American Economic Journal: Economic Policy
An Anatomy of Performance Monitoring
- 2022 |
- Working Paper |
- Faculty Research
Connecting Students in Chattanooga (B)
- April 2022 |
- Supplement |
- Faculty Research
Connecting Students in Chattanooga (A)
- April 2022 |
- Case |
- Faculty Research
Is Hybrid Work the Best of Both Worlds? Evidence from a Field Experiment
- 2022 |
- Working Paper |
- Faculty Research
Emeritus: Achieving Impact, Providing Access (A)
- March 2022 |
- Case |
- Faculty Research
Harvard Business Publishing
Seminars & Conferences
There are no upcoming events.