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The Impact of Brokerage in a Communication Network on Productivity: Evidence from Sensor Data

Kentaro Nakajima
Kentaro Nakajima
, 
Tsuyoshi Tsuru
Tsuyoshi Tsuru
 and 
Katsuhito Uehara
Katsuhito Uehara
   | May 29, 2024
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Article Category: Article
Published Online: May 29, 2024
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.21307/connections-2019.030
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© 2024 Kentaro Nakajima et al., published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Figure 1.

Shape of the communication network
Shape of the communication network

Figure 2.

Distribution of Jit
Distribution of Jit

Figure 3:

Weekly changes in the value of each employee’s betweenness centrality
Weekly changes in the value of each employee’s betweenness centrality

Figure 4:

Weekly changes in the ranking of each employee’s betweenness centrality
Weekly changes in the ranking of each employee’s betweenness centrality

Ranking of betweenness centrality for the five employees with the highest betweenness centrality in week 1.

(a) Office 1
employee ID rank (week 1) rank (week 2) rank (week 3)
1 1 3 11
2 2 5 3
3 3 9 5
4 4 6 6
5 5 23 19
(b) Office 2
employee ID rank (week 1) rank (week 2) rank (week 3)
1 1 11 4
2 2 17 6
3 3 20 17
4 4 30 35
5 5 3 5

Estimation results on hypothesis 2.

(1) (2)
Solving inquiry within the office Solving inquiry within the office
Coef. SE p Coef. SE p
Degree centrality (t−1) 0.00906 0.0184 0.626
Betweenness centrality (t−1) −0.0105 0.0155 0.503
Office/week/employment status FE yes yes
Individual FE yes yes
Adjusted R2 0.284 0.287
No. of observations 92 134

Desctriptive statistics.

Office 1 Office 2 Total
No. of observations: 101 No. of observations: 113 No. of observations: 214
mean SD mean SD mean SD
Total time of communication 89.65 106.31 179.15 162.12 136.91 145.37
Degree centrality 2.69 2.33 7.56 4.82 5.26 4.55
Betweenness centrality 30.64 51.03 24.95 45.58 27.63 48.20
First response within a specified period 0.97 0.05 0.97 0.07 0.97 0.06
Solving inquiry within a specific period 0.73 0.18 0.76 0.22 0.74 0.20
Solving inquiry within the office 0.99 0.04 0.95 0.10 0.97 0.08

Correlations between variables.

1 2 3 4 5
1 Total time of communication -
2 Degree centrality 0.700* -
3 Betweenness centrality 0.302* 0.536* -
4 First response within a specified period −0.133 −0.097 −0.017 -
5 Solving inquiry within a specified period −0.021 0.068 0.111 −0.005 -
6 Solving inquiry within the office −0.003 0.112 −0.025 −0.08 0.055

Estimation results on hypothesis 1.

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
First response within a specified period First response within a specified period Solving inquiry within a specified period Solving inquiry within a specified period Solving inquiry within the office Solving inquiry within the office
Coef. SE p Coef. SE p Coef. SE p Coef. SE p Coef. SE p Coef. SE p
Degree centrality 0.00722 0.0083 0.390 −0.00690 0.0365 0.852 −0.00548 0.0148 0.713
Betweenness centrality 0.00518 0.0055 0.354 −0.0149 0.0233 0.528 0.0323 0.0152 0.038
Office/week/employment status FE yes yes yes yes yes yes
Individual FE yes yes yes yes yes yes
Adjusted R2 0.100 0.100 0.106 0.107 0.136 0.197
No. of observations 210 210 139 139 211 211

Estimation results for Hypothesis 1 (Different threshold minutes).

(1) (2)
Solving inquiry within the office Solving inquiry within the office
Coef. SE p Coef. SE p
Betweenness centrality 0.0245 0.0092 0.009 0.0279 0.0155 0.076
Office/week/employment status FE yes yes
Individual FE yes yes
Adjusted R2 0.164 0.176
No. of observations 211 211
Threshold minutes 3 minutes 7 minutes

Testing Hypothesis 1 using effective size as the measure of brokerage.

(1) (2) (3)
First response within a specified period Solving inquiry within a specified period Solving inquiry within the office
Coef. SE p Coef. SE p Coef. SE p
Effective size 0.00919 0.008 0.259 −0.001 0.0401 0.970 0.0218 0.0137 0.117
Office/week/employment status FE yes yes yes
Individual FE yes yes yes
Adjusted R2 0.118 0.092 0.186
No. of observations 210 139 211

Rank correlation of the ranking of betweenness centrality between weeks.

Week 1 and 2 Week 2 and 3
Office 1 0.58 0.54
Office 2 0.65 0.68

Estimation results for Hypothesis 1 (Different time windows).

(1) (2) (3)
Solving inquiry within the office Solving inquiry within the office Solving inquiry within the office
Coef. SE p Coef. SE p Coef. SE p
Betweenness centrality 0.0248 0.013 0.057 0.0122 0.021 0.558 −0.0232 0.027 0.405
Office/week/employment status FE yes yes yes
Individual FE yes yes yes
Adjusted R2 0.164 0.005 −0.109
No. of observations 196 192 171
Time window 4-days 3-days 2-days
eISSN:
0226-1766
Language:
English
Publication timeframe:
Volume Open
Journal Subjects:
Social Sciences, other
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