Seminar – Face-to-Face Communication in Organisations

Dr Jordi Blanes i Vidal, London School of Economics

Jordi will present his study of how communicating in person (in addition to electronically) affects team productivity in organisations. Understanding this relation empirically has proven elusive due to measurement and endogeneity issues. The study exploits a unique natural experiment in an organisation where workers must transmit complex electronic information to their teammates. For exogenous reasons, workers can sometimes also communicate face-to-face. The results show that productivity is higher when face-to-face communication is possible, and that this effect is stronger for urgent and complex tasks, for homogeneous teams, and during high pressure conditions. Jordi highlights the opportunity costs of face-to-face communication and their dependence on organisational slack.

Speaker bio

Dr Jordi Blanes i Vidal is an Associate Professor at the Department of Management in the London School of Economics. His main research interest is the Economics of Organisations. His research interests also include the economics of crime, political economy, and law and economics.