Assistant Professor Baek In Gyun (Department of Accounting) is making a name for himself as one of the School’s bright young researchers.
In Gyun won the American Accounting Association’s Management Accounting Section Outstanding Dissertation Award for his dissertation Essays on the Relation between Telecommuting Policies and Employee Performance.
The young professor’s winning dissertation consists of two chapters – The Effect of Telecommuting on Information Acquisition: Evidence from the U.S. Patent Office and Subordinates’ Task Performance when the Supervisor Works from Home. In the first chapter, he finds that telecommuting, also known as working from home, benefits employees’ acquisition of new information. In Gyun explains that information acquisition includes lawyers searching for information to build their current case and researchers looking for data to produce research. “This is consistent with the notion that most people need time alone when they concentrate on difficult work,” he said.
In the second chapter, In Gyun finds that subordinates’ task performance decreases when working with telecommuting supervisors. “These opposite results suggest we need to consider various contingencies when evaluating the effects of telecommuting,” he added.
In Gyun completed his Bachelor in Business Administration and Masters of Science in Accounting at Seoul National University and his PhD in Accounting at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. BIZBeat speaks with In Gyun about his award win and his approach to research and life at NUS.
Q: Please tell us more about your winning dissertation.
Telecommuting has become a new way of working, especially after the pandemic. But critics worry that telecommuting may hamper communication and information transfer among co-workers. For example, when Yahoo discontinued its telecommuting policy in 2013, its former CEO Marissa Mayer stated, “communication and collaboration will be important, so we need to be working side-by-side.”
However, telecommuting can help employees acquire relevant information by reducing time pressure (not having to commute) and increasing attentional resources (via quieter and uninterrupted working environments). In The Effect of Telecommuting on Information Acquisition: Evidence from the U.S. Patent Office, I tested the effect of telecommuting on information acquisition and find telecommuting increases employees’ acquisition of new information.
I also find that this beneficial effect is stronger for employees under greater time pressure and for employees experiencing greater distractions at the workplace before telecommuting. Finally, I find that work quality also improves following telecommuting. Therefore, my findings suggest that telecommuting benefits employees performing knowledge-intensive tasks by facilitating employees’ information acquisition.
In Subordinates’ Task Performance when the Supervisor Works from Home, I find task performance of subordinates who work at the office is lower when the supervisor works from home, relative to when the supervisor works at the office.
My dissertation finds the countervailing effects of telecommuting: telecommuting enhances information acquisition of employees who work on tasks, but it also deteriorates the performance of office-working subordinates when their supervisors work from home. My dissertation may contribute to both sides of telecommuting, as telecommuting is still a subject of huge debate.
Q: What is it about the topic of telecommuting that interests you?
Even before the pandemic hit, I observed that telecommuting would be a new way of working, as evidenced by an increase in telecommuting. The pandemic just accelerated the use of telecommuting. People may be debating fiercely whether telecommuting truly benefits organisations and their employees, but academic research on telecommuting is just in its infancy. Further, technology will play a bigger role in future workplaces, especially given the widespread use of telecommuting. These technologies can take various forms at workplaces, such as collaboration tools and monitoring devices.
While the media and critics say that new technologies shape future workplaces, there is scant academic evidence of the new technologies’ effects on employee performance and other work-related outcomes, especially in telecommuting arrangements. I want to study how these new technologies and work practices fit into managerial incentives, decision rights, performance evaluation, and rewards to workers (e.g., compensation and promotion).
Q: Can you tell us more about your overall research focus?
My research interests lie in two streams of literature. First, I am interested in studying the effects of various control systems on work-related outcomes, such as employee performance, employee turnover, the design of incentive systems, and misreporting. For example, in my ongoing research, The Effect of Computer Monitoring on Employees’ Productivity in Telecommuting Arrangements, our team finds that adding input-based control, computer monitoring, to an output-based control increases telecommuters’ productivity by 7 per cent. In another paper, Unintended Consequences of a Creative Corporate Culture: An Empirical Investigation, my co-authors and I find that firms with a creative corporate culture are more likely to engage in opportunistic financial misreporting.
Second, I am also interested in studying the effects of technology and innovation. For example, in a recent working paper Do Technological Informational Concerns Shape Firm Boundaries? Evidence from Patent Prosecution, my co-author and I find the unwinding of technological informational concerns leads to greater levels of outsourcing and expands firm boundaries.
Q: Is your research quite different from the usual accounting topics?
My research lies broadly in managerial accounting. In managerial accounting, many researchers study organisations’ use of management control systems, which are “systems that managers use to ensure that the behaviours and decisions of their employees are consistent with the organisation’s objectives and strategies”. Because my research examines the role of organisations’ use of technologies and control systems, such as telecommuting, I would say that my research fits into the “usual” accounting topics.
Q: Here’s another interesting fact about you. You previously co-founded a mobile app company. How did you go from a business founder to a business professor?
Since I was very young, I have always wanted to work in a field where I can be “entrepreneurial”. While they may seem very different, being a co-founder of a start-up and a professor have something in common: you can decide what to work on and how. In addition, they have different roles in society: a business professor educates students to be future business leaders.
Q: Please tell us more about your teaching at NUS. What’s your approach to teaching, and how do you engage your students?
Students at NUS are incredibly motivated to learn and have global mindsets. They learn from textbooks and their “soft” conversations with classmates and professors. While accounting courses can be dry, I try hard to encourage student conversations and discussions of recent real-world examples as much as possible.
Q: It’s been more than a year since you joined NUS. How has it been for you personally and professionally?
I was amazed at the tremendous support systems in the Accounting department and NUS Business School. I have not been to Singapore previously, and while it has been quite a switch from the United States to Singapore, I was able to get used to the new systems and embrace the culture and values of Singapore’s unique education system, all thanks to the countless help I have received. I’m very much looking forward to more to come.
Q: What would you say to young researchers looking to join NUS?
Be prepared to learn from others and embrace Singapore’s culture. While Singapore may look small, the opportunities it can offer are limitless.