Topic: Workplace flexibility and job application decisions: A field experiment

Speaker:Weng Xi，Renmin University, Her interest: Labor Economics and Experiment Economics

Abstract: As an important form of non-monetary incentives, workplace flexibility may help facilitate work-life balance to improve work motivation and productivity, but on the other hand may reduce chance of promotion and require longer and irregular worktime. Using experimentally collected data combined with naturally occurring data from China’s online job market, the present study investigates the impacts of various flexible work practices on job seekers’ job entry decisions and valuation of workplace flexibility. We find that granting timing flexibility or place flexibility alone has no significant effect on job application decisions, whereas granting both timing and place flexibility significantly increases selection into the job compared to when granting timing flexibility only. Job seekers in general value workplace flexibility so that they are willing to accept lower monthly salary after our intervention with flexible conditions.

Date: November 1, Wednesday, 2017            

Time: 12:10-13:20 PM            

Location: Room 608, Academic Hall, CUFE