Social Comparison and the Value of Performance Trajectory Information: A Field Experiment in the Workplace (with Yucheng Liang and Shannon X. Liu), R&R at Strategic Management Journal
Runner-up, 2022 Industry Studies Association Giarratani Rising Star Award
Finalist, 2022 Strategic Management Society Strategic Human Capital Best Conference Paper Prize
Finalist, 2022 Strategic Management Society Annual Conference Research Methods Paper Prize
New workers often compare themselves to their high-achieving senior coworkers, but they often do so without knowing how senior workers performed in the early stages of their careers. This upward social comparison under incomplete information can have adverse effects on new workers’ well-being and employee turnover. We study whether providing performance trajectory information to new workers mitigates the negative consequences of performance comparison. In a large-scale randomized control trial at a leading multinational spa chain in China, we sent workers twice-weekly messages on the performance trajectories of their high-performing senior coworkers. This information treatment reduces the attrition rate of new workers by 12%, and the effect is most pronounced for the more productive workers. The lower attrition rate is mostly driven by an improvement in new workers’ stress levels and mental health due to the lowering of their beliefs about senior coworkers’ past performance. Overall, this study demonstrates that showing junior workers the “Curricula Vitae” of senior workers mitigates social comparison costs within firms.
The Trade-offs of Letting Local Managers Make Hiring Decisions (with Shannon X. Liu), Resubmitted to Management Science
Previously circulated as "The Value of Delegation in Hiring"
Co-Winner, 2020 Wharton People Analytics Research Paper Competition
Letting managers have more authority over hiring decisions is becoming an increasingly common management practice among business chains worldwide, yet both theoretical and empirical evidence on its effects remains limited. Local manager hiring (LMH) refers to decentralizing hiring decisions to local business unit managers, rather than relying on the headquarters' human resource department to make decisions. To assess the impacts of LMH on employee recruitment, productivity, and firm performance, we partnered with a large Chinese firm operating 111 retail stores through a twelve-month field experiment. Results show that LMH leads to an increase in both the mean and variance of individual productivity, yielding a boost in store-level sales of approximately 7–8%. Store-level performance gains were driven by both the direct effects of recruiting higher-performing workers and the indirect effects of positive spillovers from new hires to existing employees. In line with our theory, LMH achieved superior outcomes in stores with better-aligned managerial incentives, more repeat customers, and lower levels of busyness. However, the rise in variance indicates greater inconsistency in hiring outcomes, which led to worse outcomes in some stores. These findings highlight the central trade-off of decentralized hiring: While it can improve average performance by leveraging local knowledge, it also increases the risk of costly hiring mistakes.
Funding: Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation, Ronald McKinnon Memorial Fellowship, Stanford King Center on Development Graduate Student Research Funding, Stanford Center at Peking University
Managerial Attention, Employee Attrition, and Productivity: Evidence from a Field Experiment (with Shannon X. Liu and Huayu Xu), Resubmitted to Management Science
Winner, 2021 Strategic Management Society Strategic Human Capital Best Conference Paper Prize
Media Coverage: Rotman Insights Hub, Forbes
This study investigates the impact of managerial attention on employee attrition, productivity, and well-being through a randomized controlled trial in a large Chinese spa chain. Each week, managers at treatment stores received a list of designated employees with whom they were required to conduct standardized, private conversations. Using firm administrative data, we find that increased managerial attention significantly reduced employee turnover by 1.7 percentage points, a 13% reduction from the baseline. Additionally, we compare two strategies for allocating managerial attention: random assignment, which is independent of employee characteristics, and directed attention, targeting employees with negative moods and higher attrition risks. Surprisingly, random assignment proved more effective, leading to a greater reduction in turnover, as well as improvements in store revenue and employees’ evaluations of managers. Further analysis suggests that focusing on frustrated employees may have generated negative sentiments among workers, who perceived managerial interactions as driven by self-interest, thereby diminishing its positive impacts. In contrast, employees in the random allocation group were more likely to view managers as genuinely caring about their well-being. These findings underscore the importance of thoughtfully allocating managerial attention to enhance organizational performance.
Corporate Social Responsibility Initiatives and Employee Performance: Evidence from a Field Experiment (with Huayu Xu and Seth Carnahan), R&R at Strategic Management Journal
This research investigates the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives on employee performance. Through a randomized control trial within a multi-national spa chain operating 145 stores in China, we systematically varied employees’ exposure to the company’s CSR efforts. Our findings indicate that increased awareness of CSR activities significantly boosted employee retention and attendance. Notably, the effects of CSR initiatives were mainly driven by those targeting external stakeholders. Further analysis showed that the positive effects of internal CSR initiatives---those directly benefiting employee well-being---were significant only for employees working under competent managers. These findings highlight the potential of external CSR strategies in enhancing employee performance and suggest that the effectiveness of internal CSR activities in broadly improving employee outcomes depends on an alignment between the company's CSR communication and the employees’ actual experiences.
The Impact of #MeToo Movement on Customer-Facing Employees: A Randomized Controlled Trial (with Huayu Xu and Adina Sterling)
The Value of Managing Up: A Field Experiment in the Workplace (with Achyuta Adhvaryu, Anant Nyshadham, and Huayu Xu)
The Impact of Generative AI on Employee Performance: A Field Experiment in a Multinational Education Technology Company (with Huayu Xu, Xiaoxuan Jin, and Industry Partner)
The Value of Competitor Demand Information: A Field Experiment in the Hotel Industry (with Robin Han, Jasmine Jiamei Xu, and Industry Partner)
The Impact of Peer-to-Peer Management Training on Collaboration and Workplace Outcomes: A Randomized Control Trial (with Achyuta Adhvaryu, Anant Nyshadham, and Huayu Xu)