Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
3-2026
Abstract
Do digital technologies reinforce managerial hierarchies or, instead, make them less relevant? We propose that the answer to this question depends on the nature of the technology: specifically, its relative impact on managers' capacity to supervise and on subordinates' need for supervision. Applying this framework to collaborative work management (CWM) technologies that facilitate real-time collaboration, communication, and task coordination, we predict that the adoption of such technologies should reduce managerial intensity and increase decentralization in organizations. To test this prediction, we use a difference-in-differences design on a novel data set built from over 26 million job listings (Lightcast) and over 20 million social profiles (Revelio) matched to 3,017 U.S. public firms in Compustat, which we track over the period from 2010 to 2019. We find that over the observation window, CWM technology adopters show a 3% reduction in managerial intensity and a 5%-7% increase in nonmanagerial skills linked to decentralization in their job postings in the years following adoption. The pattern of results is robust to a battery of validations, alternative measures, and specifications, and it strongly supports the idea that these technologies enable collaboration and make organizations less hierarchical along the dimensions that we studied.
Keywords
decentralization, hierarchy, managerial intensity, technology adoption, collaborative work management (CWM) technologies
Discipline
Organizational Behavior and Theory | Strategic Management Policy | Technology and Innovation
Research Areas
Strategy and Organisation
Publication
Management Science
First Page
1
Last Page
25
ISSN
0025-1909
Identifier
10.1287/mnsc.2023.04127
Publisher
Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences
Embargo Period
4-7-2026
Citation
GULATI, Piyush; MARCHETTI, Arianna; and PURANAM, Phanish.
Collaborative work management technologies and managerial intensity in U.S. corporations: An examination. (2026). Management Science. 1-25.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/7888
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.04127
Included in
Organizational Behavior and Theory Commons, Strategic Management Policy Commons, Technology and Innovation Commons