Belk College research reveals a hidden challenge in remote teams

A new study from UNC Charlotte economists Glenn Dutcher and Krista Saral finds that expectations about teammates’ locations can shape team effort, even when individual output remains comparable.

Across Charlotte, employers continue to reconsider where and how their teams work. Some have increased in-office requirements, while others continue to offer regular remote flexibility. New research from two UNC Charlotte economists suggests that the productivity conversation may depend on more than location.

Glenn Dutcher, associate professor of economics and director of the M.S. in Economics program, and Krista Saral, associate professor of economics, examined how perceptions of remote and office-based teammates influence individual effort. Their study, “Remote Work and Effort Provision in Teams,” was published online Aug. 17 in The Economic Journal as an accepted manuscript.

“We showed that beliefs about teammates’ productivity — and where those teammates are located — strongly shape individual effort towards the team, but we can’t yet say where those beliefs originate. We’d love to talk to practitioners about this.” – Glenn Dutcher

A changing workplace landscape

Recent policy changes show how actively Charlotte employers are navigating the issue. Truist moved employees with hybrid arrangements to five days on-site in January 2026. Bank of America continues to allow eligible employees two remote days each week but will require those days to be nonconsecutive beginning in mid-September. Belk brought corporate employees back three days a week in 2025, while Mecklenburg County ended routine telework in July 2024.

Other major employers, including Honeywell, Vanguard, TIAA and Red Ventures, continue to offer some form of regular remote flexibility. The range of approaches reflects the many considerations that shape workplace policy, including client service, collaboration, organizational culture, onboarding and the needs of different roles.

Dutcher and Saral’s study focuses on one part of that larger question: what happens when assumptions about a teammate’s work location affect a person’s own contribution to the team?

Testing the role of beliefs

Participants were randomly assigned to complete a controlled typing task either in a university computer lab or remotely from a location of their choosing. They first worked individually and then completed two team rounds, one with two remote teammates and another with two office-based teammates.

The design allowed participants to direct effort toward an individual account or a team account. By randomly assigning work locations and teammate locations, the researchers could isolate the effect of beliefs about remote colleagues from differences in participants’ underlying ability. They tested two team-payment structures and compared data collected before and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

The researchers found no significant difference in total tasks completed by remote and office-based participants. Remote participants also contributed more of their effort to the team account, on average. But office-based participants contributed less when paired with remote teammates because they expected those teammates to contribute less.

“We collected data before and after the COVID pandemic, expecting the shared experience of remote work to soften bias against it,” said Dutcher.

“The opposite happened: the effect strengthened post-pandemic, with participants believing remote teammates were less productive and reducing their own team contributions accordingly. A second surprise was that remote workers contributed more to the team in our design, which allowed effort to be attributed to an individual or a team task.”

What the findings mean for employers

The study does not prescribe one workplace policy for every organization. It used a controlled typing task rather than an operating company, and it did not test the many other factors that can affect workplace performance. Its contribution is more specific: it demonstrates that beliefs about where teammates work can influence team effort even when location does not produce a difference in individual output within the experiment.

“It’s important to put our study in context, as we focused on only one channel — beliefs. Other factors obviously affect productivity, and we’d love to chat about what everyone is experiencing.” – Glenn Dutcher

For leaders managing mixed-location teams, the findings raise a practical question: How do employees form accurate expectations about what their teammates are contributing? Clear goals, meaningful feedback and greater visibility into team progress may help employers address inaccurate assumptions without treating physical presence as the only signal of effort. Those possible approaches remain questions for future research rather than interventions tested in this study.

Research connected to Charlotte

The project reflects the applied, community-connected research taking place across UNC Charlotte’s Belk College of Business. Faculty in economics, finance, real estate, management, leadership science and other disciplines study questions that affect organizations and communities in the Charlotte region and beyond.

It also demonstrates how economics can illuminate everyday workplace decisions. Dutcher’s work draws on applied game theory and behavioral economics, while Saral’s research includes personnel economics and experimental methods. For current and prospective economics students, their study offers an example of how rigorous economic research can help leaders better understand human behavior inside organizations.

Dutcher sees an opportunity to continue that work with the Charlotte business community. “I think we could learn a lot from them, and hopefully work together on a project that would benefit them.”

Explore more Belk College faculty research or learn about the M.S. in Economics at UNC Charlotte.