Work and wellbeing: measurement, intervention, and performance

我打算在今后三年里，依次研究以下几个阶段。研究1：幸福感与工作场所的特征是如何相互关联的？幸运的是，现在有比以往任何时候都更多的关于幸福的数据（Powdthavee，2015）。已经使用欧洲社会调查等大规模数据集建立了描述性相关性（Ward & De Neve，2017）。然而，通过新方法和其他数据集，这里还有更多的潜力。例如，盖洛普每日数据中的回归不连续性设计承诺访问因果线索。此外，社交媒体分析和机器学习算法（如自然语言处理）也是本研究中可能使用的技术。这将增加发现新的因果效应的机会。例如，很有可能使用非传统的社交网络数据，如宾夕法尼亚大学的Johannes Eichstaedt所使用的数据（克恩等人，2016）。他的免费代码可以用于我的目的，并且鉴于我在数据科学（包括机器学习和编程）方面的背景，我对他很熟悉。总而言之，第一阶段的主要目的是为后面的阶段制定假设，更详细地观察值得注意的观察关系。研究2：基于研究1的结果和文献的一般结果，本研究的第一步将是实验室研究。纳菲尔德实验社会科学中心在牛津大学脱颖而出，为这项研究提供资金和设施。该领域已经看到了许多实验室研究，例如Oswald等人（2015）：在他们的研究中，作者通过向参与者展示有趣的视频，提高了参与者在类似RCT干预中的幸福水平。然后，他们表明，实验组的工人在任务上的表现相对优于控制组。在哈斯商学院的朱莉安娜·施罗德（组织管理组）实验室工作期间，我已经能够获得实验室研究的经验。作为暑期研究助理，我参与了几个实验室，现场和在线实验的设计和执行。研究2中实验室实验的独特优势在于它允许定制情况。例如，边界条件实验可用于建立关于关系的更多信息。在研究3之前进行测试的另一种相对便宜和简单的方法可能是以下研究设计，我在哈斯商学院了解到：在亚马逊土耳其机器人等众包网站的帮助下，人们可以相对快速地让大量的人进行实验（布鲁克斯等人，2016).研究3：最后一个阶段是研究1和研究2。它将包括进行一次有望大规模的实地实验。因此，研究1和2中观察到的最有意义的关系将进入待测试的领域。另一个需要铭记的标准是所执行措施的成本效益。这种现场实验对于使用完整反馈周期的公司特别有效，例如呼叫中心或其他高度自动化和数字化的企业。它也可以触及其他感兴趣的话题，例如前面提到的幸福与公司成功之间的联系。一个实施良好的现场实验的例子，观察员工认可和绩效之间的关系，用大约300名执行数据任务的学生的样本来执行（Bradler等人，2016).总而言之，这项研究将允许详细剖析各种影响，例如，究竟什么类型的工作场所特征以何种方式影响幸福感。

I intend to successively study the following stages in the next three years.Study 1: How are wellbeing and workplace characteristics interlinked? Fortunately, there are now more data available on wellbeing than ever before (Powdthavee, 2015). Descriptive correlations have already been established using large-scale datasets like the European Social Survey (Ward & De Neve, 2017). However, there is some more potential here with new approaches and other datasets. For example, regression discontinuity designs in Gallup Daily data promise access to causal cues. In addition, social media analyses and machine learning algorithms such as natural language processing are potential techniques to be used in this research. This would increase the chances of uncovering new causal effects. For example, there is a good chance of using non-traditional social network data like the one used by Johannes Eichstaedt at the University of Pennsylvania (Kern et al., 2016). His freely available code can be used for my purposes and is familiar to me given my background in data science including machine learning and programming. All in all, the main purpose of stage 1 is the formulation of hypotheses for the later stages that look at the noteworthy observed relationships in more detail.Study 2: Based on the results in Study 1 and general results from the literature, the initial step in this research would be a lab study. The Nuffield Centre for Experimental Social Sciences stands out as a place in Oxford with the funding and the facilities for this research. The field has seen numerous lab studies, for example by Oswald et al. (2015): in their study, the authors increased the happiness levels of participants in an RCT-like intervention, by showing them entertaining videos. They then showed that workers in the experimental group performed relatively better on tasks than those in the control group. I have already been able to gain experience in lab studies during my time at the Haas School of Business in the lab of Juliana Schroeder (Management of Organizations group). In my role as Summer Research Assistant I took part in the design and execution of several lab, field, and online experiments. The unique advantage of the lab experiment in Study 2 is that it allows for custom situations. For example, boundary condition experiments can be used to establish more information about a relationship. Another comparatively cheap and easy way of doing testing before Study 3 would potentially be the following study design, which I got to know at the Haas School of Business: with the help of crowdsourcing sites such as Amazon Mechanical Turk one can get a large number of people to work on an experiment relatively quickly (Brooks et al., 2016).Study 3: The last stage follows from Studies 1 and 2. It would consist of conducting a field experiment on a hopefully large scale. The observed most meaningful relationships in Studies 1 and 2 would thus go into the field to be tested. Another criterion to keep in mind is the cost-effectiveness of the implemented measures. This field experiment can be particularly effective with companies using a complete feedback cycle, such as call centres or other highly automated and digitalised businesses. It can also touch on other topics of interest, such as the aforementioned link between wellbeing and firm success. An example of a well-implemented field experiment looking at the relationship between employee recognition and performance was executed with a sample of some 300 students executing data tasks (Bradler et al., 2016).All in all, this study would allow for a detailed dissection of various effects, e.g. exactly what types of workplace characteristics influence wellbeing in which ways.