IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cep/cepdps/dp1924.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Peer pressure and manager pressure in organisations

Author

Listed:
  • Diego Battiston
  • Jordi Blanes i Vidal
  • Tom Kirchmaier
  • Katalin Szemeredi

Abstract

We study the interaction between horizontal (peer) and vertical (manager) social factors in workers' motivation. In our setting, individuals work using open-plan desks. Using a natural experiment, we identify a sharp increase in workers' productivity following the occupation of adjacent desks. We link this peer pressure effect to two key aspects of the worker-manager relation. First, we find stronger peer pressure when managers monitor workers less. Second, we find stronger peer pressure among workers performance-evaluated by the same manager. In a set of counterfactual exercises, we illustrate how organisations could take advantage of these interdependencies to increase worker productivity.

Suggested Citation

  • Diego Battiston & Jordi Blanes i Vidal & Tom Kirchmaier & Katalin Szemeredi, 2023. "Peer pressure and manager pressure in organisations," CEP Discussion Papers dp1924, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    • Handle: RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1924
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/dp1924.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fabian Waldinger, 2012. "Peer Effects in Science: Evidence from the Dismissal of Scientists in Nazi Germany," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(2), pages 838-861.
    2. Nicholas Bloom & James Liang & John Roberts & Zhichun Jenny Ying, 2015. "Does Working from Home Work? Evidence from a Chinese Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(1), pages 165-218.
    3. Alberto Abadie & Susan Athey & Guido W Imbens & Jeffrey M Wooldridge, 2023. "When Should You Adjust Standard Errors for Clustering?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 138(1), pages 1-35.
    4. Guo Xu, 2018. "The Costs of Patronage: Evidence from the British Empire," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(11), pages 3170-3198, November.
    5. Impink, Stephen Michael & Prat, Andrea & Sadun, Raffaella, 2021. "Communication within firms: evidence from CEO turnovers," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 113873, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    6. Zenou, Yves & Lindquist, Matthew & Sauermann, Jan, 2015. "Network Effects on Worker Productivity," CEPR Discussion Papers 10928, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Oriana Bandiera & Iwan Barankay & Imran Rasul, 2009. "Social Connections and Incentives in the Workplace: Evidence From Personnel Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(4), pages 1047-1094, July.
    8. Kandel, Eugene & Lazear, Edward P, 1992. "Peer Pressure and Partnerships," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(4), pages 801-817, August.
    9. Mitchell Hoffman & Steven Tadelis, 2021. "People Management Skills, Employee Attrition, and Manager Rewards: An Empirical Analysis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 129(1), pages 243-285.
    10. Jordi Blanes i Vidal & Tom Kirchmaier, 2018. "The Effect of Police Response Time on Crime Clearance Rates," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(2), pages 855-891.
    11. Virginia Minni, 2023. "Making the invisible hand visible: Managers and the allocation of workers to jobs," STICERD - Economic Organisation and Public Policy Discussion Papers Series 72, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    12. David Silver, 2021. "Haste or Waste? Peer Pressure and Productivity in the Emergency Department [The Determinants of Productivity in Medical Testing: Intensity and Allocation of Care]," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 88(3), pages 1385-1417.
    13. Achyuta Adhvaryu & Namrata Kala & Anant Nyshadham, 2022. "Management and Shocks to Worker Productivity," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 130(1), pages 1-47.
    14. Christian Catalini, 2018. "Microgeography and the Direction of Inventive Activity," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(9), pages 4348-4364, September.
    15. Sangyoon Park, 2019. "Socializing at Work: Evidence from a Field Experiment with Manufacturing Workers," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 424-455, July.
    16. Jon Gant & Casey Ichniowski & Kathryn Shaw, 2002. "Social Capital and Organizational Change in High‐Involvement and Traditional Work Organizations," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(2), pages 289-328, June.
    17. Alessandra Fenizia, 2022. "Managers and Productivity in the Public Sector," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(3), pages 1063-1084, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Beugnot, Julie & Fortin, Bernard & Lacroix, Guy & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2019. "Gender and peer effects on performance in social networks," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 207-224.
    2. Philipp Barteska & Jay Euijung Lee, 2024. "Bureaucrats and the Korean export miracle," Discussion Papers 2024-11, Nottingham Interdisciplinary Centre for Economic and Political Research (NICEP).
    3. Thomas Cornelissen & Christian Dustmann & Uta Schönberg, 2017. "Peer Effects in the Workplace," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(2), pages 425-456, February.
    4. Beugnot, Julie & Fortin, Bernard & Lacroix, Guy & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2017. "Gender and Peer Effects in Social Networks," IZA Discussion Papers 10588, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Tat Y. Chan & Jia Li & Lamar Pierce, 2014. "Compensation and Peer Effects in Competing Sales Teams," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(8), pages 1965-1984, August.
    6. Beugnot, Julie & Fortin, Bernard & Lacroix, Guy & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2017. "Gender and Peer Effects in Social Networks," IZA Discussion Papers 10588, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Guido Friebel & Matthias Heinz & Miriam Krueger & Nikolay Zubanov, 2017. "Team Incentives and Performance: Evidence from a Retail Chain," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(8), pages 2168-2203, August.
    8. Edward P. Lazear, 1995. "Personnel Economics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262121883, April.
    9. Clément Bosquet & Pierre-Philippe Combes & Emeric Henry & Thierry Mayer, 2022. "Peer Effects in Academic Research: Senders and Receivers," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(648), pages 2644-2673.
    10. Zoë Cullen & Ricardo Perez-Truglia, 2023. "The Old Boys' Club: Schmoozing and the Gender Gap," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(7), pages 1703-1740, July.
    11. Caliendo, Marco & Cobb-Clark, Deborah A. & Pfeifer, Harald & Uhlendorff, Arne & Wehner, Caroline, 2024. "Managers’ risk preferences and firm training investments," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    12. Thomas Cornelissen, 2016. "Do social interactions in the workplace lead to productivity spillover among co-workers?," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 314-314, November.
    13. Lukas Kiessling & Jonas Radbruch & Sebastian Schaube, 2022. "Self-Selection of Peers and Performance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(11), pages 8184-8201, November.
    14. Edward P. Lazear & Paul Oyer, 2012. "Personnel Economics [The Handbook of Organizational Economics]," Introductory Chapters,, Princeton University Press.
    15. van der Wouden, Frank & Youn, Hyejin, 2023. "The impact of geographical distance on learning through collaboration," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(2).
    16. Zenou, Yves & Lindquist, Matthew & Sauermann, Jan, 2015. "Network Effects on Worker Productivity," CEPR Discussion Papers 10928, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. Simon Burgess & Carol Propper & Marisa Ratto & Emma Tominey, 2017. "Incentives in the Public Sector: Evidence from a Government Agency," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(605), pages 117-141, October.
    18. Benjamin Marx & Vincent Pons & Tavneet Suri, 2021. "Diversity and Team Performance in a Kenyan Organization," NBER Working Papers 28655, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Li, Sherry Xin & Wang, Shengzhe & Yang, Shuo, 2023. "What is in Local Dialects? A Field Experiment on Social Distance and Human Capital Development in Job Training," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    20. Georganas, Sotiris & Tonin, Mirco & Vlassopoulos, Michael, 2015. "Peer pressure and productivity: The role of observing and being observed," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 223-232.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    social incentives; teamwork; peer pressure; monitoring; managers; peer effects; organisations; productivity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D23 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights
    • M11 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Production Management

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1924. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://cep.lse.ac.uk/_new/publications/discussion-papers/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.