The Impact of Absent co-workers on Productivity in Teams: replication archive

We study how workers in production teams are affected by the temporary absence and replacement of a co-worker using data on injuries in the National Hockey League. We distinguish between the absence of a substitute worker, who performs the same tasks as the focal workers, and the absence of a complementary co-workers, who performs complementary tasks to the focal workers. When either type of co-worker is absent, remaining workers produce less output per working time. In the case of a substitute absentee, they compensate for this by increasing their working time at the expense of the (less able) replacement worker. This renders the output loss per remaining substitute worker to be insignificant. For the absence of a complementary worker, the productivity loss leads to a loss of total output per worker, because remaining workers cannot take over the absent co-worker’s tasks.
Please read the Readme file which explains the empirical procedures and dataset. The dataset and R-files allow to replicate the results reported in the linked publication. The readme file exactly explains the correspondence between the results tables in the paper and the calculated results.

本研究旨在探讨生产团队中的员工在同事临时缺席及替换情况下的影响，我们利用国家曲棍球联赛中的受伤数据进行分析。本研究区分了两种类型的同事缺席情况：一是替代工人的缺席，其执行与焦点员工相同的任务；二是互补工人的缺席，其执行与焦点员工互补的任务。当任何一种类型的同事缺席时，剩余员工的工作时间内的产出量均有所减少。在替代工人缺席的情况下，他们通过增加自己的工作时间来弥补这一损失，从而使得每位剩余替代工人的产出损失变得微不足道。而在互补工人缺席的情况下，由于剩余员工无法接管缺席同事的任务，导致每位员工的总体产出量有所下降。请参阅附带的Readme文件，其中详细阐述了实证方法和数据集的说明。数据集和R文件允许用户复制相关出版物中报告的结果。Readme文件准确说明了论文中的结果表格与计算结果之间的对应关系。