Social Attachment to Place and Psychic Costs of Geographic Mobility: How Distance from Hometown and Vacation Flexibility Affect Job Performance

Prithwiraj  Choudhury; Ohchan  Kwon

Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2020

Social Attachment to Place and Psychic Costs of Geographic Mobility: How Distance from Hometown and Vacation Flexibility Affect Job Performance

Abstract

Using a natural experiment and field interviews, this paper studies how social attachment to place imposes psychic costs on workers who experience geographic mobility. This is especially salient when workers are assigned to locations far from their hometown, which may subject them to increased psychic costs related to social attachment to their hometown. Based on semi-structured field interviews conducted with early career workers at an Indian technology firm, we propose that a key mechanism, “vacation flexibility”—that is, the flexibility to take vacation and travel back home when it matters the most—is relevant to the relation between distance from hometown and worker performance. By exploiting the Indian technology firm’s policy of randomly assigning entry-level employees to eight widely scattered locations, we are able to address selection concerns and validate that distance from hometown is negatively related to worker performance under conditions of lesser vacation flexibility compared to when the worker has more vacation flexibility. To offer evidence around the key mechanism of interest, we use subsample analyses and micro-data on leave taken by workers during the major Indian festival of Diwali. Our findings inform literatures on geographic mobility and geography of work, social attachment to place, workplace flexibility, hiring, migration, and early career experiences.

Keywords: distance from hometown; social attachment to place; psychic costs; worker performance; natural experiment; Geographic Location; Familiarity; Employees; Performance; India;

Language: English

Format: Print

61 pages

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Citation:

Choudhury, Prithwiraj, and Ohchan Kwon. "Social Attachment to Place and Psychic Costs of Geographic Mobility: How Distance from Hometown and Vacation Flexibility Affect Job Performance." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 19-010, August 2018. (Revised January 2020.)

Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2020

(When) Does Appearance Matter? Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial

Prithwiraj Choudhury, Tarun Khanna, Christos A. Makridis and Subhradip Sarker

While there is evidence about labor market discrimination based on race, religion, and gender, we know little about whether physical appearance leads to discrimination in labor market outcomes. We deploy a randomized experiment on 1,000 respondents in India between April and May 2020 to investigate how “looks” affect labor market outcomes. Using machine learning and computer face rendering techniques, we simulate North, South, and Northeastern Indian faces and randomize two waves of treatments where we attach faces with otherwise identical CVs. However, the second wave also contains a vignette where we provide respondents with information about the incidence of discrimination. We focus on Northeastern Indian faces that resemble those in China to focus on the potential for discrimination that has historically been present in anecdotal accounts. While we do not find evidence of discrimination against Northeastern faces in the first wave, we do so in the second among those who do not see the vignette. We provide suggestive evidence that these results are consistent with the presence of homophily under limited attention.

Keywords: Behavioral economics; coronavirus; discrimination; homophily; labor market mobility; limited attention; resumes; Personal Characteristics; Prejudice and Bias;

Citation:

Choudhury, Prithwiraj, Tarun Khanna, Christos A. Makridis, and Subhradip Sarker. "(When) Does Appearance Matter? Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 21-038, September 2020. View Details

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Social Attachment to Place and Psychic Costs of Geographic Mobility: How Distance from Hometown and Vacation Flexibility Affect Job Performance

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