About

Duanyi Yang is an Assistant Professor at the ILR School’s Department of Global Labor and Work, having joined the faculty after completing her Ph.D. at MIT Sloan School of Management. Her primary research agendas focus on employee and employer perspectives, specifically examining worker voice, workplace disputes, and grievance systems, as well as how organizational work-family policies influence workers’ well-being, career trajectories, and gender inequality. Her research integrates theory and research from labor relations, sociology, and human resources management, and she conducts studies across three national regimes: the United States, China, and Germany. Her work has contributed to understanding the social determinants of grievance behaviors among Chinese migrant workers and the impact of remote work on worker well-being, productivity, and work-life boundaries.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Political Science
• Economics
• Computer Science
• Knowledge management
• Demographic economics
• Process management
• Social psychology
• Business
• Management

Selected publications

• Organizational Field Interventions in Well-Being: Challenges and Impact

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2025-07-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Employee well-being is essential not only for individual health and satisfaction but also for organizational effectiveness and sustainability. Employees with higher levels of well-being are more engaged, productive, and committed, while those with poor well-being often experience burnout, reduced performance, and increased absenteeism, negatively affecting organizational outcomes (Schabram & Heng, 2022; Spreitzer et al., 2005). Managerial strategies play a pivotal role in shaping the workplace environment and improving well-being (Grant et al., 2007; Guest, 2017). This symposium features four field experiments conducted in real-world settings—such as warehouses, veterinary clinics, banks, and private companies across several countries—offer valuable insights into how managerial interventions can address workplace challenges. By testing strategies like participatory voice mechanisms, corporate social responsibility program, work-life balance support, and four-day work week, these studies provide robust, causal evidence of what works and why. Specifically, Kowalski et al. demonstrate the value of worker voice in reducing turnover in e-commerce fulfillment centers. Portocarrero and Rodell highlight the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) interventions in enhancing employee engagement, showing that workplace empathy, cultivated through CSR activities, motivates employees to volunteer more. Bond, Yang, and Sah investigate whether combining organizational culture interventions with personalized well-being and job crafting strategies for managers more effectively reduces burnout among veterinary staff compared to organizational culture interventions alone. Lastly, Fan et al. assess the transformative impact of a four-day workweek on employee well-being, linking reduced hours to enhanced mental and physical health through better work-life balance and reduced fatigue. Together, these studies underscore the importance of innovative, evidence-based interventions in fostering healthier, more sustainable workplaces. Can Involving Employees Reduce Turnover? A Field Experiment on Employee Voice and Exit Author: Alex Kowalski; Cornell University Author: Erin Kelly; Massachusetts Institute of Technology Author: Hazhir Rahmandad; Massachusetts Institute of Technology Author: Kirsten Siebach; Johns Hopkins University The Effects of Employee Exposure to Community Impact Activities on Emotions and Engagement Author: Florencio F. Portocarrero; London School of Economics and Political Science Author: Jessica Beth Rodell; University of Georgia Organizational Interventions to Alleviate Burnout and Promote Well-Being Author: Brittany Bond; Cornell University Author: Duanyi Yang; Cornell University Author: Sunita Sah; Cornell University Does Work Time Reduction Improve Worker Well-being? Evidence from Global Four-Day Workweek Trial Author: Wen Fan; Boston College Author: Juliet Schor; Boston College Author: Orla Kelly; University College Dublin Author: Guolin Gu; Boston College

  PublisherDOI

• Flexible working arrangements during the Covid-19 pandemic

  Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · 2025-10-23

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Voice without Representation: Worker Voice in China’s Networked Public Sphere

  Industrial and Labor Relations Review · 2025-06-13 · 4 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Does worker voice on social media empower individuals to advocate for better working conditions when traditional voice mechanisms are absent? This study examined Chinese tech workers’ use of social media to resist overwork culture. The analysis of social media data, interviews, and news published by state-affiliated outlets shows worker voice on social media raised public awareness of overtime issues and increased state-run media coverage of overtime issues, culminating in a landmark ruling in China’s Supreme People’s Court against exploitative practices. However, online debates on the legitimacy of these overtime practices failed to build a lasting consensus in support of workers. Inconsistent enforcement of labor laws and administrative directives further weakened the protection of tech workers. Ultimately, while social media amplified worker voice, it failed to drive meaningful workplace improvements in a context in which workers lacked associational and institutional power.

  PublisherDOI

• Does Voice Gap Influence Workers’ Job Attitudes and Well‐Being? Measuring Voice as a Dimension of Job Quality

  British Journal of Industrial Relations · 2024-12-18 · 6 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  ABSTRACT This article investigates worker voice as a dimension of job quality and examines its link with job‐related outcomes. We refine and test a multi‐measure concept of the ‘voice gap’ to capture how much influence workers expect to have compared to what they actually have on a set of work‐related issues. Analysing a survey of 1307 American workers, we find that workers distinguish between a voice gap on issues related to their own interests (‘worker‐issues voice gap’) and those related to their employing organization's interests (‘organizational‐strategy voice gap’). Even after controlling for other dimensions of job quality, a larger voice gap is statistically associated with lower job satisfaction and well‐being, as well as higher levels of burnout and turnover intention. Additionally, we find that worker‐issues voice gap has a stronger and more significant effect than an organizational‐strategy voice gap. Based on these results, we recommend incorporating the voice gap measure in future worker voice research and as a practical tool for evaluating voice as a dimension of job quality.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Self-Regulation for Reputation-Sensitive Buyers: SA8000 in China

  Management Science · 2024-11-25 · 1 citations

  articleSenior author

  Industries and firms have diverse motives for adopting self-regulatory institutions. This research develops and tests propositions about one motive—exploiting opportunities to do business with reputation-sensitive buyers—as distinct from self-regulation to defend against regulatory or activist threats. To study the adoption and effects of self-regulation for reputation-sensitive buyers, we study the SA8000 socially responsible employment certification among large firms in China in the early 2000s. Using official longitudinal industrial microdata, we test hypotheses generated by this assumed motive for self-regulation and find that (a) despite concerns about the corruptibility of certification bodies, SA8000 adopters in China exhibited higher precertification worker wages than comparable nonadopters, (b) self-regulation led to increased employment and sales to foreign markets, where reputation-sensitive buyers are concentrated, (c) the positive effect on exports was greater than the (insignificant, negatively signed) effect on domestic sales, and (d) there is no evidence that self-regulation increased worker wages beyond the initial high start. Contrasting these findings with prior research on industry self-regulation for other motives, this study highlights how both adoption patterns and downstream effects differ according to the audience for self-regulation. This paper was accepted by Olav Sorenson, organizations. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2020.01306 .

  PublisherDOI

• Working from Home and Worker Well-being: New Evidence from Germany

  ILR Review · 2023 · 60 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Psychology
  • Social psychology
  • Demographic economics

  The COVID-19 pandemic piqued interest in remote work, but research yields mixed findings on the impact of working from home on workers’ well-being and job attitudes. The authors develop a conceptual distinction between working from home that occurs during regular work hours (replacement work-from-home) and working from home that occurs outside of those hours (extension work-from-home). Using linked establishment-employee survey data from Germany, the authors find that extension work-from-home is associated with lower psychological well-being, higher turnover intentions, and higher work-to-family and family-to-work conflicts. By contrast, replacement work-from-home is associated with better well-being and higher job satisfaction, but higher work-to-family conflict. Extension work-from-home has more negative effects for women’s well-being and work-to-family conflict. This distinction clarifies the conditions under which remote work can have positive consequences for workers and for organizations.

  PublisherDOI

• Centering Workers in Voice Research: Emerging Frontiers in Worker Voice

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2023-07-24

  article

  Since Hirschman’s Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (1970), worker voice was largely seen as an extension of Hirschman’s conceptualization as a mean to “change, rather than escape from an objectionable state of affairs.” Many organizational scholars conceptualize voice as “the communication of ideas, suggestions, concerns, problems, or opinions about work-related issues, with the intent to bring about improvement or change” (Morrison, 2023). In the management literature, voice is usually framed as a prosocial behavior (Organ, Podsakoff, & MacKenzie, 2006) intended to benefit the organizations (Detert & Burris, 2007; Morrison & Milliken, 2000; Van Dyne, Ang, & Botero 2003). Much of the management research is preoccupied with macro, meso, and micro-level antecedents of voice as well as the consequences of voice for individuals, teams, and the organization. Voice is of interest to scholars and practitioners alike because cultivating worker voice may lead to improvements in efficiency (Kim, MacDuffie, & Pil 2010), quality (Litwin & Eaton 2018), turnover (Batt, Colvin & Keefe, 2002), and safety (Li, Liao, Tangirala, & Firth, 2017). Although management scholars have developed rich theories on worker voice, a sizable voice gap exists in American workplaces today. Many workers today just don’t have much clout when it comes to the things that matter most to them on the job. A survey of American workers found that a majority of American workers report having less influence at work than they believe they should have on benefits, compensation, promotion, job security, respect shown to employees, protection from abuses, and new technologies (Kochan, Yang, Kimball, & Kelly, 2019). To close the voice gap, it requires us to develop and evaluate multi-option systems of worker voice in contrast to both labor law and prevailing managerial practices. In this symposium, we challenge the traditional conceptualization of worker voice and explore how different group of workers exercise voice in their everyday lives and how their voice can shape their job quality and working conditions. In keeping with the theme of the annual meeting—putting the worker front and center—our symposium raises the question of how and when workers voice in service of their specific needs. We explore this question by centering the problems that workers raise about organizations, be they material, emotional, and/or moral issues. Recent work has documented worker participation can aid in organizational problem-solving (Satterstrom, Kerrissey, & DiBenigno, 2021), but scholars know less about how and why specific problems get identified, socialized, and addressed by workers themselves. Set against a pervasive norm not to complain or talk about issues, it is crucial for contemporary research to amplify the organizational issues that workers experience and to explain how and why such problems are ignored or solved. The missing worker voice in job quality: Developing a conceptual framework and survey instrument Author: Yaminette Diaz-Linhart; Massachusetts Institute of Technology Author: Arrow Minster; Massachusetts Institute of Technology Author: Dongwoo Park; ILR at Cornell Author: Duanyi Yang; Massachusetts Institute of Technology Author: Thomas A. Kochan; Massachusetts Institute of Technology Partners on the frontline: When and how frontline managers aid in solving workers' problems Author: Arrow Minster; Massachusetts Institute of Technology When and how technology developers can facilitate worker voice Author: Jenna E. Myers; U. Of Toronto-Ind Rel Lbr Voice without Representation: Worker Voice in China’s Networked Public Sphere Author: Duanyi Yang; Massachusetts Institute of Technology Author: Tingting Zhang; U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

  PublisherDOI

• How Time Management, Autonomy, and Flexibility Can Shape the Employee Experience

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2023 · 2 citations

  • Computer Science
  • Political Science
  • Business

  For many employees, the Covid-19 pandemic and the period following it has become a moment to redefine where and how to work. Following the pandemic, employees across industries in the United States are placing an increased importance on time flexibility and autonomy and leaders are looking for ways to implement flexible work strategies that create equitable opportunities for all employees. This renewed focus on flexibility leads us to question whether policies that existed before the pandemic are still effective today (e.g. flexible work policies) and whether policies that were deemed to be harmful in the past are effective now (e.g., telecommuting). To address these critical questions, this symposium looks at how time and autonomy-related rewards, policies, and norms shape the employee experience. Specifically, across five talks, we explore the psychological factors that influence whether telecommuting has positive or negative consequences for the employee experience, the downstream benefits and costs of time-based rewards like vacation and flexible work, how to offer choice to employees in a way that encourages them to express their true feelings (i.e. consent), and how to manage increased interruptions that arise from hybrid work. By studying the informal (team collaboration norms and consent) and formal (telecommuting and flexible work) policies and rewards (paid vacation) that impact the experiences of workers in today’s economy, the papers in this symposium provide novel and timely insights into when and how certain time and autonomy-related practices are beneficial (or harmful) to employees' organizational identification, commitment, career outcomes, and well-being, with potential implications for how leaders should promote these policies and practices. Legitimizing “Deep-Work”: When Collaboration Norms Promote Employee Wellbeing Author: Ashley Whillans; Harvard Business School Author: Justine Murray; Harvard Business School Giving People the Words to Say No Makes Them Feel Freer to Say Yes Author: Rachel Schlund; Cornell U. Author: Roseanna Sommers; U. of Chicago Law School Author: Vanessa Bohns; Cornell U. Staying in Love from Far Away: How Moral Legitimacy of Telecommuting Sustains Commitment Author: Julia D. Hur; New York U. Author: Rachel Lise Ruttan; U. of Toronto Author: Jun Lin; Stanford Graduate School of Business The Career Consequences of Flexible Work Policies: Considering Gender and Rank Author: Vanessa Conzon; Boston College Author: Duanyi Yang; Massachusetts Institute of Technology Author: Dongwoo Park; ILR at Cornell Author: Erin Kelly; Massachusetts Institute of Technology Vacation (vs. Monetary) Rewards Decrease Objectification and Increase Employee Well-Being Author: Alice Jihyun Lee-Yoon; UCLA Anderson School of Management Author: Sanford Ely DeVoe; UCLA

  PublisherDOI

• Certifiably Responsible? Self-Regulation and Market Response in China

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2020-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Why Don’t They Complain? The Social Determinants of Chinese Migrant Workers’ Grievance Behaviors

  Industrial and Labor Relations Review · 2019-09-05 · 19 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Using survey data from China, the author examines how migrant workers respond to violations of labor law in their workplaces. The central puzzle is why, given apparent widespread violations, some workers choose not to pursue remedies. Findings show that only 25% of surveyed workers who experience labor law violations interpret their experiences as labor rights violations. The author argues that the social nature of the employment relationship explains some of this gap: Although workers who share local identities with their employers are more likely to work without employment contracts, they are significantly less likely to interpret these conditions as a violation of their labor rights and interests. This article extends the research on grievance behavior by drawing on research from the sociology of law and immigration to understand how these subjective interpretative processes and social identities outside of the workplace influence grievance behaviors.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Erin L. Kelly

  IIT@MIT

  7 shared

• Thomas A. Kochan

  6 shared

• Yaminette Díaz‐Linhart

  Boston College

  4 shared

• D H Park

  4 shared

• Ariel C. Avgar

  4 shared

• Arrow Minster

  San Francisco State University

  4 shared

• Laura D. Kubzansky

  Harvard University

  4 shared

• Dongwoo Park

  4 shared