Training, Communications Patterns, and Spillovers Inside Organizations / Miguel Espinosa, Christopher T. Stanton.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Espinosa, Miguel.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Stanton, Christopher T.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w30224.

NBER working paper series no. w30224

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2022.

Summary:

Most organizations utilize hierarchies to facilitate specialization, with managers assisting workers on tasks beyond their capabilities. As workers gain skills, they require less help, freeing up manager time. In this paper, we estimate direct productivity treatment effects for individual workers and spillovers to managers after a randomly assigned training program for frontline workers in a Colombian government agency. Trained workers improved their individual production, while help requests to managers declined, enabling managers to focus on higher-value work. Accounting for vertical spillovers to managers meaningfully changes the organization's implied return on investment from training.

Notes:

Print version record

July 2022.