Being Different Yet Feeling Similar: The Influence of Demographic Composition and Organizational Culture on Work Processes and Outcomes

J.  Chatman; J.  Polzer; S.  Barsade; M.  Neale

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Article | Administrative Science Quarterly | December 1998

Being Different Yet Feeling Similar: The Influence of Demographic Composition and Organizational Culture on Work Processes and Outcomes

by J. Chatman, J. Polzer, S. Barsade and M. Neale

Keywords: Demographics; Organizational Culture; Outcome or Result;

Format: Print

32 pages

Find at Harvard Read Now

Citation:

Chatman, J., J. Polzer, S. Barsade, and M. Neale. "Being Different Yet Feeling Similar: The Influence of Demographic Composition and Organizational Culture on Work Processes and Outcomes." Administrative Science Quarterly 43, no. 4 (December 1998): 749–780.

About the Author

Jeffrey T. Polzer

UPS Foundation Professor of Human Resource Management

Organizational Behavior

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Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | August 2020

People Analytics at McKinsey

Jeffrey T. Polzer and Olivia Hull

Teaching note to accompany People Analytics at McKinsey, HBS No. 418-023.

Keywords: people analytics; analytics; human resource management; business analytics;

Citation:
Polzer, Jeffrey T., and Olivia Hull. "People Analytics at McKinsey." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 421-022, August 2020. View Details

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Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2020

Collaborating During Coronavirus: The Impact of COVID-19 on the Nature of Work

Evan DeFilippis, Stephen Michael Impink, Madison Singell, Jeffrey T. Polzer and Raffaella Sadun

We explore the impact of COVID-19 on employee's digital communication patterns through an event study of lockdowns in 16 large metropolitan areas in North America, Europe and the Middle East. Using de-identified, aggregated meeting and email meta-data from 3,143,270 users, we find, compared to pre-pandemic levels, increases in the number of meetings per person (+12.9 percent) and the number of attendees per meeting (+13.5 percent), but decreases in the average length of meetings (-20.1 percent). Collectively, the net effect is that people spent less time in meetings per day (-11.5 percent) in the post-lockdown period. We also find significant and durable increases in length of the average workday (+8.2 percent, or +48.5 minutes), along with short-term increases in email activity. These findings provide insight from a novel dataset into how the nature of work has changed for a large sample of knowledge workers. We discuss these changes in light of the ongoing challenges faced by organizations and workers struggling to adapt and perform in the face of a global pandemic.

Keywords: nature of work; collaboration; COVID-19; Organizations; Communication; Health Pandemics; North and Central America; Europe; Middle East;

Citation:
DeFilippis, Evan, Stephen Michael Impink, Madison Singell, Jeffrey T. Polzer, and Raffaella Sadun. "Collaborating During Coronavirus: The Impact of COVID-19 on the Nature of Work." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 21-006, July 2020. View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | April 2020

Ment.io: Knowledge Analytics for Team Decision Making

Yael Grushka-Cockayne, Jeffrey T. Polzer, Susie L. Ma and Shlomi Pasternak

Ment.io was a software platform that used proprietary data analytics technology to help organizations make informed and transparent decisions based on team input. Ment was born out of founder Joab Rosenberg’s frustration that, while organizations collected ever increasing amounts of data, the information gathering process did not capture human insights, which he viewed as critical to the use of the data. In early 2020, Rosenberg felt that the company he had started five years ago was taking off, but he wondered how to manage the team’s limited engineering resources to help Ment stand out in a crowded software market. Should the company improve Ment’s user interface, develop new features, or focus on its innovative algorithm?

Keywords: Decision Making; Technology; Knowledge; Knowledge Acquisition; Knowledge Management; Operations; Information Management; Product; Product Development; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Communications Industry; Information Industry; Information Technology Industry; Web Services Industry; Middle East; Israel;

Citation:
Grushka-Cockayne, Yael, Jeffrey T. Polzer, Susie L. Ma, and Shlomi Pasternak. "Ment.io: Knowledge Analytics for Team Decision Making." Harvard Business School Case 420-078, April 2020. View Details

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Being Different Yet Feeling Similar: The Influence of Demographic Composition and Organizational Culture on Work Processes and Outcomes

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