Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • 2021
  • Working Paper
  • HBS Working Paper Series

The Effects of Temporal Distance on Intra-Firm Communication: Evidence from Daylight Savings Time

By: Jasmina Chauvin, Prithwiraj Choudhury and Tommy Pan Fang
  • Format:Print
  • | Language:English
  • | Pages:58
ShareBar

Abstract

Cross-border communication costs have plummeted and enabled the global distribution of work, but frictions attributable to distance persist. We estimate the causal effects of temporal distance, i.e., time zone separation between employees, on intra-firm communication, a critical means of coordination and knowledge transfer. We argue that temporal distance creates frictions for synchronous communication, which could be especially harmful for collaboration among employees engaged in non-routine tasks. Exploiting Daylight Saving Time (DST) as a natural experiment and detailed data from a large multinational firm, we show that among collaborators who experience an increase in temporal distance, total communication volumes drop by 9.4 percent on average, an effect fully driven by reductions in richer, synchronous communication. Further, we show that these declines are concentrated among employees in routine tasks. Employees in non-routine tasks, meanwhile, react to increased temporal distance by shifting synchronous communication across the boundary of their workday into leisure time. Additional tests show that workers’ propensity to employ this adjustment mechanism is only partly explained by differences in their ability to work from home. Overall, our findings provide evidence that employees collaborating on non-routine tasks place a high premium on synchronous communication even at the cost of personal leisure. We present additional evidence and draw implications for how temporal distance relates to strategic considerations such as worker mobility, co-production of patents, and temporal boundaries of the firm.

Keywords

Communication Patterns; Time Zones; Geographic Frictions; Knowledge Workers; Multinational Companies; Communication; Multinational Firms and Management; Geographic Location

Citation

Chauvin, Jasmina, Prithwiraj Choudhury, and Tommy Pan Fang. "The Effects of Temporal Distance on Intra-Firm Communication: Evidence from Daylight Savings Time." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 21-052, September 2020. (Revised November 2021.)
  • SSRN
  • Read Now

About The Author

Prithwiraj Choudhury

Technology and Operations Management
→More Publications

More from the Authors

    • 2025
    • Faculty Research

    The World Is Your Office: How Work from Anywhere Boosts Talent, Productivity, and Innovation

    By: Prithwiraj Choudhury
    • January–February 2025
    • Organization Science

    Location-Specificity and Relocation Incentive Programs for Remote Workers

    By: Thomaz Teodorovicz, Prithwiraj Choudhury and Evan Starr
    • December 2024
    • Faculty Research

    Enerjisa Üretim: The Digital Era of Electricity Generation

    By: Prithwiraj Choudhury and Sadika El Hariri
More from the Authors
  • The World Is Your Office: How Work from Anywhere Boosts Talent, Productivity, and Innovation By: Prithwiraj Choudhury
  • Location-Specificity and Relocation Incentive Programs for Remote Workers By: Thomaz Teodorovicz, Prithwiraj Choudhury and Evan Starr
  • Enerjisa Üretim: The Digital Era of Electricity Generation By: Prithwiraj Choudhury and Sadika El Hariri
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Accessibility
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College.