Adrianto

Robots and Work

with Avner Ben-Ner and Ainhoa Urtasun

This paper examines the effects of robot adoption on employment and skills in US manufacturing plants (2010-2022). Using a difference-in-differences method, we find a 150% increase in job postings and a 15% increase in employment in plants that adopt robots compared to non-adopters matched by industry and labor market. Increased competitiveness due to robots raises output with positive employment spillover effects in non-robotized stages of adopting plants and in upstream and downstream non-robotic plants within adopting firms. Skill composition remains largely unchanged, with more design, production, maintenance, repair, and programming skills required in robotized areas. Productivity and robot-human complementarity effects dominate displacement, with job losses limited to outcompeted non-adopters. Our multilevel approach reveals underestimation of robotization effects in prior firm-level studies. Industry-level employment effects are negligible due to counterbalancing gains and losses. Findings suggest the need for policies facilitating robot adoption while supporting displaced workers.

Sharing is Caring: Employee Stock Ownership Plans and Employee Satisfaction in U.S. Manufacturing

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

Do employees fare better in firms they partly own? By examining workers' reviews of their employers on the website Glassdoor, we offer the first expansive comparison of employee satisfaction between firms in which workers own company shares through an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) and conventional firms in which they do not. Focusing on production workers and managers in an industry-labor market matched sample within U.S. manufacturing, we find that employees report greater satisfaction in employee-owned firms overall and within specific aspects of jobs such as their firms' culture. Such differences in job quality cannot be rationalized by differences in skill demand and are greater when the ESOP is the product of collective bargaining. This work highlights how match quality can differ by ownership arrangement.

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.

The Introduction of Various Forms of Automation in the U.S. ESOP and Conventional Firms

with Avner Ben-Ner

Technological change has driven increased automation in all stages of the value chain, from logistics, to design, material processing, assembly, quality control, delivery, customer service, and everything in between. The forms of automation vary: (a) fixed hard automation (e.g., assembly lines), (b) programmable automation (CNC machines), (c) industrial robots, (d) flexible soft automation (e.g., modern manufacturing cells, smart assembly systems), (e) software automation (e.g., robotic process automation, automated testing), and (f) cognitive automation (e.g., natural language processing, integrated document processing). All forms of automation affect the demand for workers with different skillsets. Some forms of automation substitute for work done typically by low-skilled workers but require complementary work of high-skill workers, whereas other forms may reduce the demand for high-skill workers, and so on. What do ESOP firms, where employees influence company decisions and benefit from them more than their conventional counterparts, choose regarding different types of automation?

By granting ownership to workers, ESOP allows the potential to gain a slice of future profits and aligns the interests of both parties (employee-owners and other shareholders). Employees are also provided a representation of their voice through an ESOP trustee and committee. Thus, the adoption of technologies that advance worker well-being, such as employment stability, workplace safety, job satisfaction, and financial results, will likely be chosen. Therefore, the adoption of technologies by such firms is likely to be different than other firms.

The paper compares the adoption of these forms of automation by ESOP and conventional firms in the following industries: (1) professional services, (2) manufacturing, (3) construction, (4) finance, insurance and real estate, and wholesale and retail trade. There are approximately 6,000 ESOPs in these industries. These industries employ about half of the US civilian workforce and produce nearly half of the GDP.

Using job postings in the US economy 2010-2022, we examine the adoption of six forms of automation in all identified ESOPs and a sample of conventional firms matched by 3-digit NAICS industry and commuting zones. The analysis is at the firm and establishment levels. We compare the adoption levels in two periods, 2010-2012 and 2020-2022.

Employee Ownership and Employee Well-being: A Systematic Review

with Dadang R. Sunandar

Most theories and empirical studies of employee ownership explain the relationship with performance as an outcome, and employee well-being positioned as a mediator (Goldstein, 1978; Klein, 1987; Aitken and Wood, 1989; Pierce et al., 1991; Connelly et al., 2010). Those that treat employee well-being as a focal construct focus on a particular form of ownership, well-being measure, industry, or country, or view it from diverging theoretical lenses. Surprisingly, no studies have synthesized them into a coherent story despite employee-owners being the focal actor and around 25 million employees being covered in any form of employee ownership program (e.g., ESOP or worker cooperative) in the U.S. alone. In this study, we aim to integrate theories and empirical findings from multiple fields on the effect of employee ownership on broad measures of subjective and objective well-being, from satisfaction, compensation, work-life balance, mental and physical health, job security, career opportunity, workplace safety, to turnover.

• Best paper in the 84th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management: "The Effects of Robots on the Workplace" (2024)
• PhD Student Teaching Award, Carlson School of Management (2023)
• Best Participant in the Organization Development training, Oranye Development (2017)
• Highest Distinction, Master of Science in Public Policy and Management, Carnegie Mellon University (2014)

• Summer Fellowship, Carlson School of Management (2024)
• The Employee Ownership Foundation/Louis O. Kelso Fellowship (2023-2024)
• Ph.D. Student Conference Travel Fellowship, Carlson School of Management (2022, 2023, 2024)
• WAIM Conference Travel Grant, the Work in the Age of Intelligent Machine Research Coordination Network (2022)
• Financial Education and Training Agency (FETA) Scholarship (2020-2024)
• Scholarship Program for Strengthening the Reforming Institution (2012-2014)

• Ad-hoc reviewer, Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics (2025)
• Ad-hoc reviewer, the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management (2024-2025)
• Ad-hoc reviewer, Organization Science (2024)
• Discussant in the Kelso Workshop, New Brunswick, NJ (2024)