When the Tasks Line Up: How the Nature of Supplementary Tasks Affects Worker Productivity
研究印度茶园采摘工发现，在补充任务数量不变时，任务性质（是否促进核心任务）会影响核心任务的生产率，促进作用可能通过暂时提升“核心任务认同”实现。
Jobs consist of bundles of tasks, with most jobs involving one or a few core tasks as well as supplementary tasks. In this article, the author argues that, keeping constant the number of supplementary tasks performed, the nature of these tasks can affect workers’ productivity in their core task. The study uses quantitative and qualitative data to study tea pickers at a plantation in India. Using fine-grained personnel data on workers’ task assignments and their daily productivity, the author finds that workers’ productivity is affected by the extent to which their supplementary tasks are facilitative of their core task, when comparing workers performing the same number of supplementary tasks. Qualitative data suggest that one way in which performing a facilitative rather than a non-facilitative supplementary task could improve core task productivity is by temporarily boosting what the author calls “core task identification.” This article contributes to scholarship on the design of work.