Yahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer said a policy change barring employees from working at home has been well received internally and helped the company step up its introduction of new applications.
"I didn't mean for it to become an industry narrative," Mayer said at a conference sponsored by Wired magazine this week. "We were just saying, it's not right for us right now.
"Everyone at Yahoo works in teams. I heard from a lot of people all around the company that the fact that our team is distributed causes drag."
As Mayer nears her first anniversary as chief executive, Yahoo has boosted its output of new web services and apps for mobile devices.
The introduction in recent months of programs for e-mail, weather and news was made possible by what she calls the "Reese's peanut butter effect" of helping people from different disciplines collaborate to create cool new things.
Made by Hershey, Reese's Peanut Butter Cup is a popular chocolate-coated sweet.