Team Production in International Labor Markets: Experimental Evidence from the Field

Coworkers are increasingly diverse in their nationality and skill sets. This paper studies the effect of diversity on how workers are organized using data from a field experiment conducted in an environment where diversity is pervasive. Findings show that team organization improves outcomes when wor...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:American economic journal. Applied economics 2017-07, Vol.9 (3), p.70-104
Main Author: Lyons, Elizabeth
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Labor market
Skills
Teams
Workers
Workplace diversity
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Summary:Coworkers are increasingly diverse in their nationality and skill sets. This paper studies the effect of diversity on how workers are organized using data from a field experiment conducted in an environment where diversity is pervasive. Findings show that team organization improves outcomes when workers are from the same country. The opposite is true when workers are nationally diverse. These results are more pronounced for teams of workers with specialized skills. Further investigation of the data suggests that nationally diverse teams have difficulty communicating.
ISSN:1945-7782
1945-7790
DOI:10.1257/app.20160179