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Selected Publications

Shing-Yi WangJing Cai

(2020). “Firms & Trade Improving management through worker feedback: Auto-manufacturing in China.” VoxDev

 

 

 

Letting workers provide feedback on their managers leads to significant reductions in worker turnover and increases in team productivity

There are large differences in firm productivity between developing and developed countries (Bloom and Reenen 2007), and prior research has demonstrated that management practices may be key to explaining these differences (Bloom et al. 2013). This may be driven by the fact that firms differ widely in the relationships between low-level managers and upper-level management.

On one hand, economic theory suggests that financial incentives for low-level managers may be key to aligning the interests of these managers with upper-level management (Grossman and Hart 1983, Holmstrom and Milgrom 1987). However, recent randomised controlled studies have shown that financial incentives are not the only thing that is important: providing managers with training, feedback, or consulting may be effective in improving managerial performance (Bruhn et al. 2018, Schoar 2013, Kelly et al. 2014, Bloom et al. 2013).

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