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• Article | Journal of Organization Design | 2020

  GitLab: Work Where You Want, When You Want

  Prithwiraj Choudhury, Kevin Crowston, Linus Dahlander, Marco S Minervini and Sumita Raghuram

  GitLab is a software company that works “all remote” at the scale of more than 1000 employees located in more than 60 countries. GitLab has no physical office and its employees can work from anywhere they choose. Any step of the organizational life of a GitLab employee (e.g., hiring, onboarding and firing) is performed remotely, except for a yearly companywide gathering. GitLab strongly relies on asynchronous coordination, allowing employees to work anytime they want. After highlighting some of the main practices implemented by GitLab to effectively work all remotely and asynchronously, I asked renowned organizational scientists their thoughts on this interesting case and to question the generalizability of the all remote asynchronous model. Understanding whether and under what conditions this model can succeed can be of guidance for organizational designers that are now considering different remote models in response of the COVID-19 shock and its aftermath.

  Citation:

  Choudhury, Prithwiraj, Kevin Crowston, Linus Dahlander, Marco S Minervini, and Sumita Raghuram. "GitLab: Work Where You Want, When You Want." Journal of Organization Design 9, no. 1 (2020): 23–23.  View Details

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• Article | Research Policy | November 2020

  Migrant Inventors and the Technological Advantage of Nations

  Dany Bahar, Prithwiraj Choudhury and Hillel Rapoport

  We investigate the relationship between the presence of migrant inventors and the dynamics of innovation in the migrants’ receiving countries. We find that countries are 25 to 60 percent more likely to gain advantage in patenting in certain technologies given a twofold increase in the number of foreign inventors from other nations that specialize in those same technologies. For the average country in our sample, this number corresponds to only 25 inventors and a standard deviation of 135. We deal with endogeneity concerns by using historical migration networks to instrument for stocks of migrant inventors. Our results generalize the evidence of previous studies that show how migrant inventors "import" knowledge from their home countries, which translates into higher patenting in the receiving countries. We interpret these results as tangible evidence of migrants facilitating the technology-specific diffusion of knowledge across nations.

  Keywords: innovation; migration; patent; knowledge; Innovation and Invention; Immigration; Patents; Technology; Knowledge Dissemination;

  Citation:

  Bahar, Dany, Prithwiraj Choudhury, and Hillel Rapoport. "Migrant Inventors and the Technological Advantage of Nations." Special Issue on STEM Migration, Research, and Innovation. Research Policy 49, no. 9 (November 2020).  View Details

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• Article | Harvard Business Review | November–December 2020

  Our Work-from-Anywhere Future

  Prithwiraj Choudhury

  The pandemic has hastened a rise in remote working for knowledge-based organizations. This has notable benefits: Companies can save on real estate costs, hire and utilize talent globally, mitigate immigration issues, and experience productivity gains, while workers can enjoy geographic flexibility. At the same time, concerns include how to communicate across time zones, share knowledge that isn’t yet codified, socialize virtually and prevent professional isolation, protect client data, and avoid slacking. Research into work-from-anywhere (WFA) organizations and groups that include the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Tata Consultancy Services, and GitLab (the world’s largest all-remote company) highlights best practices and can help leaders decide whether remote work is right for their organizations.

  Keywords: remote work; best practices; Employment; Health Pandemics; Geographic Location; Opportunities; Problems and Challenges;

  Citation:

  Choudhury, Prithwiraj. "Our Work-from-Anywhere Future." Harvard Business Review 98, no. 6 (November–December 2020).  View Details

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