How to Compete: The Impact of Workplace Practices and Information Technology on Productivity / Sandra E. Black, Lisa M. Lynch.

By:

Black, Sandra E

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Material type: Text

TextSeries: Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) ; no. w6120.Publication details: Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1997.Description: 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white)Subject(s):

D24 - Production • Cost • Capital • Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity • Capacity
J24 - Human Capital • Skills • Occupational Choice • Labor Productivity

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Abstract: Using data from a unique nationally representative sample of businesses, the Educational Quality of the Workforce National Employers Survey (EQW-NES), matched with the Bureau of the Census' Longitudinal Research Database (LRD), we examine the impact of workplace practices, information technology and human capital investments on productivity. We estimate an augmented Cobb Douglas production function with both cross section and panel data covering the period of 1987-1993 using both within and GMM estimators. We find that what is associated with higher productivity is not so much whether or not an employer adopts a particular work practice but rather how that work practice is actually implemented within the establishment. We also find that those unionized establishments that have adopted what have been called new or transformed' industrial relations practices that promote joint decision making coupled with incentive based compensation have higher productivity than other similar non-union plants maintain more traditional labor management relations have lower productivity. We also find that the higher the average educational level of production workers or the greater the proportion of non-managerial workers who use computers, the higher is plant productivity.

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Item type	Home library	Collection	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Working Paper	Biblioteca Digital	Colección NBER	nber w6120 (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Not For Loan

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Previous	nber w6117 Misconceptions and Political Outcomes /	nber w6118 Why are Worker Cooperatives So Rare? /	nber w6119 Quantifying the Current U.S. Fiscal Imbalance /	nber w6120 How to Compete: The Impact of Workplace Practices and Information Technology on Productivity /	nber w6121 Estimation of Cross-Country Differences in Industry /	nber w6122 Strategies for Controlling Inflation /	nber w6123 Controlled Openness and Foreign Direct Investment /	Next

August 1997.

Using data from a unique nationally representative sample of businesses, the Educational Quality of the Workforce National Employers Survey (EQW-NES), matched with the Bureau of the Census' Longitudinal Research Database (LRD), we examine the impact of workplace practices, information technology and human capital investments on productivity. We estimate an augmented Cobb Douglas production function with both cross section and panel data covering the period of 1987-1993 using both within and GMM estimators. We find that what is associated with higher productivity is not so much whether or not an employer adopts a particular work practice but rather how that work practice is actually implemented within the establishment. We also find that those unionized establishments that have adopted what have been called new or transformed' industrial relations practices that promote joint decision making coupled with incentive based compensation have higher productivity than other similar non-union plants maintain more traditional labor management relations have lower productivity. We also find that the higher the average educational level of production workers or the greater the proportion of non-managerial workers who use computers, the higher is plant productivity.