Work Environment and Worker Performance: A View from the Goal Crease

Work environments commonly entail multi-worker production, a regulatory setting, and an overarching managerial structure. Guided by an economic model of individual production, I examine how such elements influence worker performance in the empirical setting of NHL goaltenders, observed over multiple seasons. Results reveal new evidence of positive workplace peer effects but reduced goalie performance in relation to heightened regulation of capital equipment use and turnover in goalies specialized managers, their team goaltending coaches. New goalie coaches do appear to help goaltenders mitigate unfavorable effects of workplace regulation, part of larger evidence illustrating the role of managerial quality in work environments.