|
By Ellen Pearlman
Strategic Thinkers: Sinan Aral, Erik Brynjolfsson, Marshall Van Alstyne
Credentials:
All three authors are professors: Aral is affiliated with NYU Stern School of Business and MIT Sloan School of Management; Brynjolfsson with MIT Sloan School of Management; and Van Alstyne with Boston University School of Management and MIT Sloan School of Management.
Big Idea: Increased use of IT by workers correlates with increased revenue, but not with completing projects more quickly.
Research Papers: Information, Technology and Information Worker Productivity: Task Level Evidence (Oct. 2006; received Best Paper award at the 2006 International Conference on Information Systems) and Productivity Effects of Information Diffusion in Networks (May 2007). Register and download papers for free at Social Science Research Network:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=942310
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=987499
It's easy to manage productivity when you are focusing on manual tasks that lead to a specific end product. It's a lot tougher when you're trying to measure the productivity of information workers. Three researchers tackled that task and came up with some findings that they believe hold promise for future management research on productivity. But since their research was limited to one company, in one industry, their findings cannot be assumed to apply to all workers in all industries. That said, their observations are worth considering when looking for ways to increase productivity in your organization.
The research was based on a study of a mid-sized executive recruiting firm whose primary work is filling clients' job openings. Accounting data provided information on project and individual-level revenues, numbers of projects completed, project duration and the number of simultaneous projects. In addition, e-mail usage was monitored for 10 months, with the company's and employees' cooperation.
advertisement
Their results demonstrate that information flows and IT use do predict significantly higher levels of economic productivity. Employees that use databases more often also conduct more work simultaneously and finish projects faster. And heavier database users generate more revenue for the firm per unit of time.
But their research also revealed some surprising results. They found that greater IT use was not correlated with speedier project completion. In fact, it led to projects taking longer to complete. Why, you might ask? The reason, simply stated, was multitasking. Greater use of IT, such as e-mail, led to workers handling more projects. So while increased use of IT increased revenue per employee, multitasking also slowed down employee's abilities to complete projects more quickly. The researchers concluded that there exists a trade-off between workload and efficiency. "Multitasking beyond a certain point reduces productivity," they said. "When employees juggle too many simultaneous projects, work gets backed up and productivity suffers," they said. As one CIO told them: "Everyone can only deal with so many balls in the air. When someone gets 'too far in,' they lose touch. They can't tell one project from another."
The researchers also applied social network analysis to their e-mail data and found that a person's position and the amount of information that flowed to him or here were critically important. "Among information workers, it pays to be a communications middleman," they said. Employees who were at the center of their companies e-mail flow tended to be more productive on average than their less well-connected colleagues. "Peripheral employees, outside the communication flow, work on fewer projects over time," they said. That has an implication for managers. The authors believe that "untangling social networks" through strategic job rotation could lead to more efficient multitasking.
advertisement
The researchers also studied the way information made its way through the recruiting company. In particular they looked at two types of information: event news (factual information triggered by an external event) and discussion topics (specific, complex, procedural information of interest to a limited group). News tended to flow rapidly throughout the organization and was not influenced by the strength of the ties between individuals. On the other hand, discussion topics, tended to move vertically up and down the organization, and across those with closer ties.
They found that access to information "strongly predicts employees' productivity." "Timely access to novel information predicts the number of projects completed by each individual and the amount of revenue each person generates," they said. They also found that people were more likely to share information with people they shared interests with; although news seemed to circulate regardless of personal ties. And interestingly, men were 55 percent more likely than women to receive information of all types and 50 percent more likely to see news. Moreover, employees at the top two levels of the organization saw information at a higher rate than those below them.
What's the significance of findings like this? Communication networks influence how information gets dispersed in companies. And access to new information in e-mail is a significant predictor of productivity. "Information workers who receive a greater volume of novel information or who receive it sooner complete projects faster and generate significantly more revenue for the firm," they concluded.
Also of interest:
- Blog: The Next Big Thing, "The Future of Knowledge Workspaces" posted by Tom Davenport on August 13, 2007, published by Harvard Business Online. Increasing productivity through workspace design.
CIOZone Question: How does information flow in your company influence productivity?
|
