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Digital Resilience: How Work-From-Home Feasibility Affects Firm Performance

Author

Listed:
  • John (Jianqiu) Bai
  • Erik Brynjolfsson
  • Wang Jin
  • Sebastian Steffen
  • Chi Wan
Abstract
Digital technologies may make some tasks, jobs and firms more resilient to unanticipated shocks. We extract data from over 200 million U.S. job postings to construct an index for firms' resilience to the Covid-19 pandemic by assessing the work-from-home (WFH) feasibility of their labor demand. Using a difference-in-differences framework, we find that public firms with high pre-pandemic WFH index values had significantly higher sales, net incomes, and stock returns than their peers during the pandemic. Our results indicate that firms with higher digital resilience, as measured through our pre-pandemic WFH index, performed significantly better in general, and in non-essential industries in particular, where WFH feasibility was necessary to continue operation. The ability to use digital technologies to work remotely also mattered more in non-high-tech industries than in high-tech ones. Lastly, we find evidence that firms with lower pre-pandemic WFH feasibility attempted to catch up to their more resilient competitors via greater software investment. This is consistent with a complementarity between digital technologies and WFH practices. Our study's results are robust to a variety of empirical specifications and provide a first look at how WFH practices improved resilience to a major, unanticipated social and economic shock.

Suggested Citation

  • John (Jianqiu) Bai & Erik Brynjolfsson & Wang Jin & Sebastian Steffen & Chi Wan, 2021. "Digital Resilience: How Work-From-Home Feasibility Affects Firm Performance," NBER Working Papers 28588, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28588
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Tomiura, Eiichi & Kumanomido, Hiroshi, 2023. "Impacts of inter-firm relations on the adoption of remote work: Evidence from a survey in Japan during the COVID-19 pandemic," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    2. Cevat Giray Aksoy & Jose Maria Barrero & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis & Mathias Dolls & Pablo Zarate, 2022. "Working from Home Around the World," EconPol Forum, CESifo, vol. 23(06), pages 38-41, November.
    3. Wadim Strielkowski & Irina Firsova & Svetlana Azarova & Irina Shatskaya, 2022. "Novel Insights in the Leadership in Business and Economics: A Post-Coronavirus Update," Economies, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-20, February.
    4. Bloom, Nicholas & Davis, Steven J. & Hansen, Stephen & Lambert, Peter John & Sadun, Raffaella & Taska, Bledi, 2023. "Remote work across jobs, companies and space," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 121302, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Joël Cariolle & Florian Léon, 2022. "How internet helped firms to cope with COVID-19," Working Papers hal-03592617, HAL.
    6. Meghana Ayyagari & Yuxi Cheng & Ariel Weinberger, 2022. "Surviving Pandemics: The Role of Spillovers," CESifo Working Paper Series 9891, CESifo.
    7. Oikonomou, Myrto & Pierri, Nicola & Timmer, Yannick, 2023. "IT shields: Technology adoption and economic resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    8. Silva, Thiago Christiano & Wilhelm, Paulo Victor Berri & Tabak, Benjamin Miranda, 2022. "The role of non-critical business and telework propensity in international stock markets during the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    9. Pagano, Marco & Wagner, Christian & Zechner, Josef, 2023. "Disaster resilience and asset prices," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(2).
    10. Daiji Kawaguchi & Sagiri Kitao & Manabu Nose, 2022. "The impact of COVID-19 on Japanese firms: mobility and resilience via remote work," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 29(6), pages 1419-1449, December.
    11. James C. Davis & Holden A. Diethorn & Gerald R. Marschke & Andrew J. Wang, 2021. "STEM Employment Resiliency During Recessions: Evidence from the COVID-19 Pandemic," NBER Working Papers 29568, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Yakov P. Silin, 2022. "Response of the Russian business to the COVID-19 pandemic (the case of six industries)," Upravlenets, Ural State University of Economics, vol. 13(1), pages 100-107, March.
    13. Doerr, S. & Erdem, M. & Franco, G. & Gambacorta, L. & Illes, A., 2021. "Technological capacity and firms’ recovery from Covid-19," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    14. Erdsiek, Daniel & Rost, Vincent, 2023. "How do managers form their expectations about working from home? Survey experiments on the perception of productivity," ZEW Discussion Papers 23-018, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    15. Giovanni Gallipoli & Christos A. Makridis, 2022. "Sectoral digital intensity and GDP growth after a large employment shock: A simple extrapolation exercise," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(S1), pages 446-479, February.
    16. Julia Darby & Stuart McIntyre & Graeme Roy, 2022. "What can analysis of 47 million job advertisements tell us about how opportunities for homeworking are evolving in the United Kingdom?," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(4), pages 281-302, July.
    17. Ho, Tuan & Kim, Kirak & Li, Yang & Xu, Fangming, 2023. "Does real flexibility help firms navigate the COVID-19 pandemic?," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(4).
    18. Hoang, Khanh & Arif, Muhammad & Nguyen, Cuong, 2022. "Corporate investment and government policy during the COVID-19 crisis," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 677-696.
    19. Diekhof, Josefine & Krieger, Bastian & Licht, Georg & Rammer, Christian & Schmitt, Johannes & Stenke, Gero, 2021. "The impact of the Covid-19 crisis on innovation: First in-sights from the German business sector," ZEW Expert Briefs 21-06, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    20. Liang, Chen & Zhu, Minghao & Lee, Peter K.C. & Cheng, T.C.E. & Yeung, Andy C.L., 2024. "Combating extreme weather through operations management: Evidence from a natural experiment in China," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 267(C).
    21. Trunschke, Markus & Peters, Bettina & Czarnitzki, Dirk & Rammer, Christian, 2024. "Pandemic effects: Do innovation activities of firms suffer from Long COVID?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(7).
    22. Chen, Yutong & Debnath, Sisir & Sekhri, Sheetal & Sekhri, Vishal, 2023. "The impact of Covid-19 containment lockdowns on MSMEs in India and resilience of exporting firms," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 210(C), pages 320-341.
    23. Ben Yahmed, Sarra & Berlingieri, Francesco & Brüll, Eduard, 2022. "Adjustments of local labour markets to the COVID-19 crisis: The role of digitalisation and working-from-home," ZEW Discussion Papers 22-031, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    24. Syed Abdul Rehman Khan & Danish Iqbal Godil & Munaza Bibi & Zhang Yu & Syed Muhammad Ahsan Rizvi, 2021. "The Economic and Social Impact of Teleworking in Romania: Present Practices and Post Pandemic Developments," The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC journal, Academy of Economic Studies - Bucharest, Romania, vol. 23(58), pages 787-787, August.
    25. Amat Adarov & David Klenert & Robert Marschinski & Robert Stehrer, 2022. "Productivity drivers: empirical evidence on the role of digital and intangible capital, FDI and integration," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(48), pages 5515-5531, October.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D23 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • L0 - Industrial Organization - - General
    • L25 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Performance
    • O0 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - General
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

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