Collaboration, Workplace Practice Adoption, and Performance: Evidence from a Field Experiment

• 成果类型: Article; Early Access
• 署名作者: Brahm, Francisco; Lafortune, Jeanne; Magelessen, Catherine; Tessada, Jose
• 署名单位: University of London; London Business School; Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile; Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile; University of South Carolina System; University of South Carolina Columbia; Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile; Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2024.08287
• 发表日期: 2026
• 关键词: Collaboration; adoption; workplace practices; field experiment; Workplace safety

摘要

Many performance-enhancing workplace practices require collaboration between managers and workers for successful adoption. However, managers and workers often have diverging incentives and misunderstandings regarding what needs to be done, impeding collaboration. We conduct a field experiment involving 12,761 small- and medium-sized firms, encouraging collaboration between owners/managers and workers on workplace safety. We find that the treatment increases safety training and reduces the rate and severity of accidents. Further, firms achieve these safety improvements without an increase in the number of workers. We explore heterogeneous treatment effects and find the following: At the managerial level, managers informed about safety yield stronger results; at the firm level, pre-existing intermediate levels of safety practices, low supervisory span of control, and low worker turnover enhance the effectiveness of the collaboration treatment; and at the environmental level, low market competition strengthens the treatment's impact. Overall, we provide evidence on the importance of manager-worker collaboration and its contingencies for practice adoption and performance.