The health crisis due to the Covid-19 pandemic has upset the world's balance in all fields, from the working sphere to that of research, from personal and family relationships to economic and commercial ones. To protect the safety of their workers and continue the performance of their work activities, public and private organizations have applied the paradigm of work from home, which has greatly impacted the work dynamics of all. The objective of this study is to determine how the adoption of working from home affects the productivity of Italian academic workers. Gender differences significantly influence the experience of working from home, as well as the dynamics related to the family sphere and the workspace of the home: in fact, they constitute the main variables of our preliminary analysis. In this regard, in relation to these factors identified by the study of existing literature, this research aims to answer the following question: has the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic and the consequent spread of working from home increased or decreased the scientific productivity of an academic? Is this effect different between male and female academics? To answer the research question, we relied on responses from a survey addressed to Italian academics. Survey responses were provided to us by our supervisor and co-supervisors. Next, we created a Python code to extract relevant information about the scientific productivity of the Italian academics surveyed from Scopus Database and then performed an econometric analysis to understand whether the scientific productivity of male and female academics in Italy increased or decreased during Covid-19 and whether this effect is related to having worked from home. The analysis considered, in addition to the extent of working from home, characteristics such as differences in gender and disciplinary area. The results showed a relation between academic productivity and working from home. Specifically, the relation between productivity and working from home was negative, an indication that working from home has a negative effect on academic productivity. Moreover, an interesting result that emerged from our analysis is a relationship between gender and variation in academic productivity during Covid- 19 pandemic: in fact, women reported lower variation in productivity than men, in agreement with the hypothesis theorized based on the existing literature review. In addition, depending on the disciplinary area in which academics work, interesting results may be revealed. We confirmed that there is a strong relationship between disciplinary areas and academic productivity during Covid-19 pandemic, finding that medical, chemical, biological, agricultural and veterinary sciences stand out for the highest increases in productivity, followed by physical and earth sciences, industrial and information engineering and historical, philosophical, pedagogical and psychological sciences. The results of our work are relevant since they can provide a solid ground to create new policies among universities, research facilities but also in companies given the similarities between academics and other knowledge workers: in fact, we believe that the work from home paradigm is expected to continue to expand in the years to come and it will probably be even more studied. Moreover, our work allows a deeper understanding of such a recent topic, connected to the Covid-19 pandemic, which is still largely unexplored and untouched. Therefore, it is an important and significant step forward in the literature about it. The aim of our work could be further expanded and generalized in future research by collecting larger samples of the population, but also by extending the analysis to other countries or to other categories of workers.
La crisi sanitaria dovuta alla pandemia del Covid-19 ha sconvolto gli equilibri mondiali in tutti i campi, dalla sfera lavorativa a quella della ricerca, dalle relazioni personali e familiari a quelle economiche e commerciali. Per tutelare la sicurezza dei propri lavoratori e continuare lo svolgimento delle proprie attività lavorative, le organizzazioni pubbliche e private hanno applicato il paradigma del telelavoro, che ha impattato enormemente sulle dinamiche di lavoro di tutti. L’obiettivo di questo studio è quello di determinare in che modo l’adozione del telelavoro influenzi la produttività dei lavoratori accademici italiani. Le differenze di genere influenzano significativamente l'esperienza del lavoro da casa, così come le dinamiche legate alla sfera familiare e allo spazio lavorativo della casa: infatti costituiscono le principali variabili della nostra analisi preliminare. A questo proposito, in relazione a tali fattori identificati dallo studio della letteratura esistente, questa ricerca si pone l’obiettivo di rispondere alla seguente domanda: l’avvento della pandemia di Covid-19 e la conseguente diffusione del telelavoro ha aumentato o diminuito la produttività scientifica di un accademico? È diverso tale effetto tra accademici maschi e femmine? Per rispondere alle domande di ricerca, ci siamo basati sulle risposte derivanti da un sondaggio eseguito da un gruppo di accademici italiani. Tali risultati ci sono stati forniti dalla nostra relatrice e dai nostri correlatori. Successivamente, abbiamo creato un codice Python per estrarre le informazioni rilevanti relative agli accademici italiani intervistati e successivamente abbiamo effettuato un’analisi econometrica per capire se la produttività scientifica degli accademici uomini e donne in Italia è aumentata o diminuita durante il Covid-19 e se tale effetto dipende dall’aver lavorato da casa. L'analisi ha preso in considerazione, oltre al fattore del lavoro da casa, caratteristiche come le differenze di genere e area disciplinare. I risultati hanno mostrato una relazione tra la produttività accademica e il lavoro da casa solo dopo un'analisi robusta. In particolare, la relazione tra produttività e lavoro da casa è risultata negativa, segno che il lavorare da casa ha un effetto negativo sulla produttività accademica. Inoltre, un risultato interessante che è emerso dalla nostra analisi è una forte relazione tra il genere e la variazione della produttività accademica durante la pandemia di Covid-19: infatti, le donne hanno riportato una minore produttività rispetto agli uomini, in accordo con l'ipotesi teorizzata in base alla letteratura esistente che abbiamo esaminato. Inoltre, a seconda dell'area disciplinare in cui gli accademici lavorano, possono essere rivelati risultati interessanti. Abbiamo confermato che c'è una forte relazione tra le aree disciplinari e la produttività accademica riscontrata durante la pandemia di Covid-19, scoprendo che le scienze mediche, chimiche, biologiche, agricole e veterinarie si distinguono per i maggiori aumenti di produttività, seguite dalle scienze fisiche e della terra, dall'ingegneria industriale e dell'informazione e dalle scienze storiche, filosofiche, pedagogiche e psicologiche. I risultati del nostro lavoro sono rilevanti in quanto possono fornire una base solida per creare nuove policy tra le università, le strutture di ricerca ma anche nelle aziende date le analogie tra accademici e gli altri lavoratori della conoscenza: infatti crediamo che il paradigma del lavoro da casa è destinato a continuare a espandersi negli anni a venire e che sarà probabilmente ancora più studiato. Inoltre, il nostro lavoro permette una comprensione più profonda di un argomento così recente, legato alla pandemia di Covid-19, che è ancora largamente inesplorato e non toccato. Pertanto, è un importante e significativo passo avanti nella letteratura su di esso. L'ambito del nostro lavoro potrebbe essere ulteriormente ampliato e generalizzato in ricerche future, raccogliendo campioni più ampi della popolazione, ma anche estendendo l'analisi ad altri paesi.
How working from home during the Covid-19 pandemic affects knowledge workers' productivity : an econometric analysis on Italian male and female academics
Cagnetta, Michele;Pinoni, Luca
2021/2022
Abstract
The health crisis due to the Covid-19 pandemic has upset the world's balance in all fields, from the working sphere to that of research, from personal and family relationships to economic and commercial ones. To protect the safety of their workers and continue the performance of their work activities, public and private organizations have applied the paradigm of work from home, which has greatly impacted the work dynamics of all. The objective of this study is to determine how the adoption of working from home affects the productivity of Italian academic workers. Gender differences significantly influence the experience of working from home, as well as the dynamics related to the family sphere and the workspace of the home: in fact, they constitute the main variables of our preliminary analysis. In this regard, in relation to these factors identified by the study of existing literature, this research aims to answer the following question: has the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic and the consequent spread of working from home increased or decreased the scientific productivity of an academic? Is this effect different between male and female academics? To answer the research question, we relied on responses from a survey addressed to Italian academics. Survey responses were provided to us by our supervisor and co-supervisors. Next, we created a Python code to extract relevant information about the scientific productivity of the Italian academics surveyed from Scopus Database and then performed an econometric analysis to understand whether the scientific productivity of male and female academics in Italy increased or decreased during Covid-19 and whether this effect is related to having worked from home. The analysis considered, in addition to the extent of working from home, characteristics such as differences in gender and disciplinary area. The results showed a relation between academic productivity and working from home. Specifically, the relation between productivity and working from home was negative, an indication that working from home has a negative effect on academic productivity. Moreover, an interesting result that emerged from our analysis is a relationship between gender and variation in academic productivity during Covid- 19 pandemic: in fact, women reported lower variation in productivity than men, in agreement with the hypothesis theorized based on the existing literature review. In addition, depending on the disciplinary area in which academics work, interesting results may be revealed. We confirmed that there is a strong relationship between disciplinary areas and academic productivity during Covid-19 pandemic, finding that medical, chemical, biological, agricultural and veterinary sciences stand out for the highest increases in productivity, followed by physical and earth sciences, industrial and information engineering and historical, philosophical, pedagogical and psychological sciences. The results of our work are relevant since they can provide a solid ground to create new policies among universities, research facilities but also in companies given the similarities between academics and other knowledge workers: in fact, we believe that the work from home paradigm is expected to continue to expand in the years to come and it will probably be even more studied. Moreover, our work allows a deeper understanding of such a recent topic, connected to the Covid-19 pandemic, which is still largely unexplored and untouched. Therefore, it is an important and significant step forward in the literature about it. The aim of our work could be further expanded and generalized in future research by collecting larger samples of the population, but also by extending the analysis to other countries or to other categories of workers.| File | Dimensione | Formato | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
2022_04_CAGNETTA_PINONI.pdf
accessibile in internet solo dagli utenti autorizzati
Descrizione: TESTO DELLA TESI
Dimensione
6.16 MB
Formato
Adobe PDF
|
6.16 MB | Adobe PDF | Visualizza/Apri |
I documenti in POLITesi sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
https://hdl.handle.net/10589/187014