Adrianto

How things are made matters: The effects of technology on the organization of work

with Avner Ben-Ner and Ainhoa Urtasun

Given a particular product to produce, firms have several alternative production technologies from which to choose. This paper examines the effect of production technologies, directly and indirectly through complexity and task interdependence, on outcomes essential to the organization of work. Our study uses online job vacancy postings in the U.S. manufacturing sector during 2017-2021 to analyze technical occupations (i.e., engineers, technicians, and operators) in plants that implement one of six primary technologies: subtraction, forming, molding, additive manufacturing, chemical, and assembly. Controlling for different forms of automation, location, and other factors, we find that the differences in the division of labor, specialization, and span of control among technologies are driven by differences in complexity. Additive manufacturing, chemical, and assembly are technologically more complex than forming, molding, and subtraction, and, as a result, they need more jobs to be designed, more tasks and skills to be bundled into a job, and fewer employees to be overseen by a manager. Moreover, each technology exhibits a distinct pattern of two forms of task interdependence—reciprocal and sequential, and therefore the effects on the three outcomes are more nuanced.

Are Workers Better Off Owning The Firm?

with Avner Ben-Ner, Jason Sockin, and Ainhoa Urtasun

Do employees fare better in firms in which they partly own? As owners, employees have input in firm decisions, which they may use to improve factors that affect their well-being. We offer the first expansive comparison of worker outcomes between firms in which workers own shares through an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) and conventional firms in which they do not. To ensure comparability, we concentrate on manufacturing plants matched by industry and commuting zone. Pulling on employers' job postings, workers' descriptions of their jobs, and employers' workplace injury history, we consider both monetary and non-monetary outcomes between firms. We find that publicly traded  firms with employee ownership offer their employees higher wages, safer working conditions, and better job quality than comparable publicly traded conventional firms. However, we find no difference in employee well-being between privately held firms with and without employee ownership. Our work highlights how labor market experiences can differ by ownership arrangement.

How Robotics Affects Employment and Skills of Low and High-Skill Workers? Evidence From US Manufacturing Plants 2010-2022

with Avner Ben-Ner and Ainhoa Urtasun

Robots in manufacturing replicate human actions and fulfill various physical roles in the production process. As such, they substitute for some manual and cognitive tasks carried out by lower-skill workers (operators) and eliminate some of their jobs. On the other hand, robots require maintenance, oversight, and ongoing quality control, tasks that operators and technicians carry out. Furthermore, implementation of robotics in an establishment necessitates conception, design, testing, and analysis, tasks that require greater skills typically held by engineers and technicians. The integration between higher and lower-skill workers demands that the latter acquire some of the skills of the former.

In this paper, we use comprehensive information from US manufacturing job postings for the period 2010-2022 to test our hypotheses. We estimate the effect of introducing robotics in an establishment on the employment and skill requirements of technical occupations. We compare the effects in establishments that introduced robotics with a control sample of establishments that did not introduce robotics, matched by detailed industry level and labor market (commuting zone). In order to capture a more realistic gradual, rather than an instantaneous, effect of robotics on employment, our analysis also incorporates post-adoption time effects.

You have been muted: Communication, trust, and knowledge sharing in virtual work environments

with Christopher Winchester

Knowledge is a vital issue for virtual teams, as limitations in mediated communication can pose a substantial obstacle to its creation and distribution. In an experimental study, we found evidence of indirect effects of relational- and task-based communication on knowledge sharing through their effects on affect- and cognition-based trust, but only in communication conducted through high-cue media. In contrast, the effects were insignificant in communication through highly virtual, low-cue media. This implies that virtual teams that interact mainly through low-cue media, such as e-mails or voice calls, but rarely in-person, can have a negative impact on knowledge creation as more frequent communication may not readily translate into higher trust, which is instrumental in promoting knowledge sharing among coworkers. In a highly virtual world brought about by the pandemic, this finding should be taken as a precaution when designing virtual work arrangements.

• PhD Student Teaching Award, Carlson School of Management (2023)
• The Employee Ownership Foundation/Louis O. Kelso Fellowship (2023-2024)
• PhD Student Conference Travel Fellowship, Carlson School of Management (2022 & 2023)
• Highest Distinction, Master of Science in Public Policy and Management, Carnegie Mellon University (2014)
• Financial Education and Training Agency (FETA) Scholarship (2020-2024)
• Scholarship Program for Strengthening the Reforming Institution (2012-2014)