Increasing Labor Productivity Research Articles

Utilizing Investment in Fixed Assets and R&D as a Catalyst for Boosting Productivity to Stimulate Economic Growth

Investments form the basis for high-quality economic growth by ensuring renewal of production capacities and improvement of technologies and processes, thereby increasing labor productivity. Investment research is key to understanding its impact on the country’s economic advancement and more effective government policymaking to stimulate investment activity. The purpose of this paper is to study the relationship between fixed capital and R&D investments and labor productivity growth, as well as to determine the optimal level of these investments in determining the greatest effect on labor productivity growth. We use a regression model and the least squares method to empirically analyze data for seven countries for the period between 1997 and 2022. We calculate estimated values using SPSS and Python. The results show a certain impact of fixed assets and R&D investments on labor productivity growth. However, the payoff varies across the countries under study. Furthermore, despite its relatively small volumes, investment in R&D brings a greater effect on productivity growth than investment in fixed capital. With other factors remaining constant, the calculated optimums for investments in fixed assets and R&D show maximum points of growth in labor productivity.

Функционирование умного сельского хозяйства в АПК городской агломерации

The article describes the possibilities and feasibility of using digital technologies in agriculture; population growth trends in the world and the need to use smart technologies to ensure increased labor productivity in the industry. The article identifies barriers to the implementation of digitalization in agriculture: lack of accessible infrastructure (broadband and incomplete Internet coverage in the re-gions); partial use of digital technology capabilities; lack of financial resources for the implementation of technologies; distrust of digital technologies; the presence of a large number of reporting forms in the industry; lack of information on digital technologies and the results of their use; low qualification of personnel in the field of digital technologies. The article reflects digital technologies for the formation of smart agriculture in the agro-industrial complex in modern conditions. The produc-tion and financial indicators of the Krasnodarskoye educational farm of the Kuban State Agrarian University over the past 5 years are analyzed as successfully demonstrating the experience of functioning of smart agriculture in the agro-industrial complex of the Krasnodar urban agglomeration.

In Good Times and in Bad, in Sickness and in Health: The Continuous Rise in Adoption of Labour-Saving Agricultural Technologies in Myanmar

Agriculture is rapidly transforming in many low- and middle-income countries – most often driven by the adoption of new agricultural technologies – but changes remain poorly understood in fragile and conflict-affected states. We look at the case of Myanmar, a prime example of such a state. After decades of isolationism and economic stagnation, it opened its economy in the beginning of the 2010s, leading to rapid economic growth. But the COVID-19 health crisis and a military coup in the beginning of 2021 – leading to heightened conflicts, forced displacements, and increased migration – dramatically reversed that outlook. Based on large-scale farm surveys, we find that adoption of labour-saving agricultural technologies – measured by the use of mechanization, herbicides, and direct seeding of rice – increased rapidly over the economic growth period and that the increase surprisingly persisted during the crisis years, but at a slower rate. This uptake was lower, however, for households in the most conflict-affected areas, partly due to differential agricultural input availability. Smallholders and more remote farmers also participated less. This finding suggests an increasing labour productivity gap for remote and conflict-affected smallholders, with important implications for their welfare.

Workforce Configuration in Charity Settings: A Forward-Looking Approach

Problem definition: Volunteers, the primary workforce for many charities, represent a complex labor pool; they are unreliable and exhibit substantial heterogeneity in both performance and affinity to the organization. Additionally, many volunteers engage not only to contribute but also to immerse themselves in a volunteering experience that, if rewarding, can inspire them to become future donors. However, practical approaches to volunteer management commonly neglect these traits and the consequential impact that tactical decision-making can have on nurturing potential future donations. Methodology/results: Building on a previous study, we propose a forward-looking volunteer scheduling model that accounts for the heterogeneity among volunteers, mitigates both understaffing and overstaffing costs, and explicitly correlates individual time contribution with their monetary donations. We provide analytical solutions when the charity can reliably estimate distributions (e.g., uniform distribution) from data and suggest a distribution-free method to offer actionable insights where data are limited or uncertain. Managerial implications: At the strategic level, by viewing volunteers as potential donors, the optimal staffing strategy balances meeting the charity’s labor needs and maximizing volunteers’ satisfaction, as this satisfaction influences their likelihood of becoming future donors. We show that charities could avert substantial losses by adopting an integrative approach, thereby challenging conventional organizational structures that compartmentalize volunteer and donor management. Our model suggests that building robust data infrastructures can significantly advance the charity’s core mission. Paradoxically, efforts to increase labor productivity may inadvertently undermine this objective. At the operational level, we provide an Excel-based decision support tool and a decision-tree framework to navigate optimal policies, determining when and how a charity can rely on episodic (less reliable) volunteers. Our results confirm that reducing uncertainty in volunteer turnout benefits charities. However, we also find that when labor value is low, episodic volunteers are preferred, whereas formal (reliable) volunteers are favored when labor value is high. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/msom.2022.0363 .

Sustainable paddy farming in rural Japan: Leveraging farmer integration and agricultural UAVs for synergistic solutions

For sustainable rice farming, IoT-based smart agricultural technologies are attracting worldwide attention. In particular, agricultural UAVs, which are expected to be utilized in various seasonal processes of rice farming, are a facility that is expected to spread in the future. In Japan, however, the smooth spread of UAVs has not progressed because of uncertainty about the effectiveness of their introduction. In this study, we clarify the effect of the introduction and its limitations by simulating the synergy effect between customary management improvement methods by farmers' integration and the efficiency improvement of agricultural work using UAVs, using a mountainous area in Japan as an example. The visualization of the expected increase in labor productivity provides a strong basis for future policies to promote smart agricultural technologies. The simulation model was built on the theoretical basis of the optimal route search based on the traveling salesman problem, in which the farmer's behavior of visiting farmland is considered a traveling salesman problem, and the effect of introducing UAVs was predicted using annual working hours as an evaluation index. The results showed that the introduction of UAVs could achieve a greater reduction in labor hours than the case where farmer integration alone was used to improve labor productivity without the introduction of UAVs. In other words, the combination of farmer integration and UAVs is expected to synergize. However, even when assuming reasonable UAVs performance, labor productivity improved by about 20%, and even when using high-performance UAVs assuming drastic technological innovation, labor productivity improved by only about 30%. Furthermore, as the number of farmlands to be managed increased, the effect of UAVs was expected to reach a ceiling. In other words, the results suggest an appropriate size of farmland to manage by introducing UAVs. This result is expected to be convincing material to promote the introduction of UAVs to farmers in the future and to make a practical contribution to their management plans.

THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT IN THE ASPECT OF RISK MANAGEMENT

The purpose of the article is to study the theoretical and methodological aspects of personnel management risks and the specifics of developing their management strategies in the context of modern dynamic business conditions. The work highlights the key aspects of personnel risks, methods of their analysis, methods of management and regulation, and gives practical recommendations for managers and managers. Method. To achieve the goal, the methods of analysis and synthesis, comparison, etc. are applied. The results. The theoretical aspects of risk management with human capital are studied. Analyzed and systematized methods aimed at reducing the impact of personnel risks on the productivity and stability of the enterprise. The result of the application of such strategies is an increase in the efficiency of personnel management, a reduction in the probability of problems, and the optimization of work processes. Scientific novelty. The article offers a comprehensive view of risk management in the context of personnel management. The use of modern methods of risk analysis and management allows in-depth solving of problems arising in personnel management and the development of effective strategies for their elimination, taking into account today's conditions. Practical significance. The results of the research can be useful for leaders and managers in the field of personnel management, contributing to the stability and efficiency of the organization. The considered strategies and methods can help to implement practical management solutions with the aim of reducing personnel risks and increasing labor productivity.

Intangible Capital as a Driver of Labor Productivity in Regions and Industries: Evidence of the Spanish Case

ABSTRACTIn the last decade, many studies discussed the impact of intangible investment on firms' performance. However, comparing the effect of different types of intangible investments at regional and sectoral level is not well explored. The paper aims to fill this gap by assessing the impact of several intangible capital on labor productivity using for the first‐time updated data for the period 2000–2019. Adopting panel data techniques and system GMM, the results show that regions with higher endowments of intangible capital get higher levels of labor productivity. The study results also highlight the importance of differentiating between different sectors and types of intangible capital as they have different impact on productivity labor. In the primary sector only investments in R&D result in additional productivity gains. In the manufacturing industry, investments in R&D and software result in additional productivity gains while the service sector also increases labor productivity through other intangibles assets with innovative property such as mineral exploration, entertainment, and artistic originals.

Technological employment: Evidence from worldwide robot adoption

Technological advances can automate many jobs, therby reducing the reliance on some workers, yet they can also create jobs. Determining the overall impact is not immediately evident and necessitaes empirical research. In this paper, we use data on worldwide robot adoption from 1993 to 2021 to explore whether robots increase labour productivity and employment in the 74 sampled economies. We find that robots lead to higher productivity and employment on a global scale. To gain more insights into the results, we also examine the effects both in the long run and the short run using labour market data from developed countries. Using error correction model, the findings show that robot adoption increases employment in the long run but has no effect on overall employment in the short run. This study argues that in spite of perpetual automation spanning many generations, there are still many occupational opportunities, a fact that is not likely to change with the increased robot use. In fact, robot adoption leads to more jobs in developed economies which by and large adopt robots to a greater degree, leading to ‘technological employment’. While economies of the developing countries which adopt robots to a lower degree, do not seem to experience a similar outcome.

The impact of industrial robots on low-carbon green performance: Evidence from the belt and road initiative countries

Global warming is intensifying, with Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries accounting for over two-thirds of global carbon dioxide emissions. As a pivotal technology in advanced manufacturing, industrial robots significantly impact the overall carbon footprint through their role in production processes. This study examines how the use of industrial robots influences the Low-Carbon Green Performance (LCGP) across BRI nations, utilizing a dataset spanning from 2004 to 2020. The findings reveal that the integration of industrial robots notably boosts the LCGP within these countries, a conclusion supported by extensive robustness evaluations. The novelty of this study lies in uncovering the underlying mechanism by which industrial robots improve LCGP through the promotion of technological innovation. Specifically, we find that industrial robots have a pronounced effect on technological progress (TC), an impact that is further amplified by increases in labor productivity and human capital levels. This discovery provides policy implications for BRI governments, suggesting that actively promoting the development of industrial robots can accelerate energy transformation and upgrading, thereby reducing carbon emissions. Our research fills a significant void concerning the environmental impact of industrial robots and offers new perspectives and strategies for BRI countries to achieve low-carbon development goals. These findings contribute significant theoretical and practical value to global environmental protection and sustainable development.

Directional nature of technological progress in the petrochemical industry prompting energy marginal substitution

Technological progress does not uniformly benefit all industries or factors' productivity levels. The energy productivity and labour employment situation in the Chinese petrochemical industry have not witnessed substantial improvements in the last decade. The literature has overlooked the importance of recognizing the directional nature of technological progress, which could enable a more strategic approach to economic development, resource allocation, and policy formulation. This study, guided by the core principles of endogenous economic growth theory, aims to uncover the influencing mechanisms and effects of technological progress bias on energy and employment by extending a theoretical model to account for energy, capital, and labour factors. The results reveal: (1) From 2000 to 2021, the relationship between labour, capital, and energy factors in the Chinese petrochemical industry has been predominantly complementary, with technological progress favouring labour-augmenting that is increasing labour productivity; (2) The gross complementarity of production factors leads to labour-augmenting technological progress, ultimately biased towards energy and capital factors; (3) Energy-capital-biased technological progress encourages producers to invest more energy and capital to substitute for labour factors, leading to a limited improvement in energy productivity and a consistent decline in labour employment since 2011. This study further corroborates that without government intervention, it would lead to improper factor allocation in the industry, resulting in market failure. Finally, corresponding policy recommendations are proposed.

Sparking leadership and perceived organizational support as predictors of cyberloafing

Alongside numerous benefits in business life (such as additional business opportunities, increased labour productivity), the Internet is responsible for adverse effects like cyberloafing in the workplace. Accessing the Internet for personal purposes during work hours is a prominent reason for counterproductive employee behaviour. The current theoretical background, however, is not sufficient to explain the causes of such behaviour. The article aims to identify the role of such factors as sparking leadership and perceived organizational support in preventing employees’ willingness to use their work time to engage in nonwork-related internet activities. To do so, five dimensions of cyberloafing are discussed: sharing, shopping, real-time updating, accessing online content, and gaming/gambling. Leadership theories, social exchange theory, and organizational support theory constitute the methodological basis of the research. The methods used are confirmatory factor analysis, and the PLS-SEM technique to reach a path model revealing the direct, indirect, and total relationships between the given dimensions. The data were collected from March to September 2023 through a face-to-face survey with 95 respondents from over 40 SMEs operating in Türkiye. The results revealed that perceived organizational support mediates the relationship between sparking leadership and sharing, shopping, and real-time updating dimensions of cyberloafing. The results point to the need for reconsidering organizational practices, values, and policies in a way that would foster employees’ well-being and happiness within the organization and mitigate their cyberloafing behaviour.

ACTUAL ISSUES OF REPRODUCTION OF FIXED ASSETS OF DOMESTIC ENTERPRISES

The article touches upon topical issues of reproduction of fixed assets of domestic enterprises in terms of their accounting, audit and strategic aspects of management. The study emphasises the necessity of constant renewal of fixed assets to ensure competitiveness, increase of labour productivity and quality of products. The main purpose of the study is to identify the key problems of managing the reproduction of fixed assets and formulate ways to solve them. To achieve the research objective, the methods of analysis and synthesis, comparative analysis and empirical methods were used. The paper emphasises the importance of improving accounting and auditing, considers the concepts of physical and moral wear and tear, as well as depreciation of fixed assets. It is determined that improving the depreciation policy is an important factor in increasing the investment activity of business entities. It is substantiated that internal audit plays an important role in providing reliable information on the process of reproduction of fixed assets, which contributes to the effective management of enterprise resources. The author defines the tasks of internal audit, including verification of the correctness of recognition and assessment of fixed assets restoration costs, reliability of information on depreciation charges, depreciation and residual value of fixed assets, control over accounting of lease transactions and transactions with investment property. The publication also discusses the strategic aspects of fixed assets reproduction, emphasising the importance of an innovative approach to improving the competitiveness of enterprises. It is noted that the implementation of innovative reproduction requires an integrated approach, including the construction of a mechanism that ensures the orientation of the market and the macroeconomic model of management to innovative forms of reproduction of fixed capital. The article pays special attention to the problems of financing innovative projects and cooperative technological chains. The article concludes by emphasising the need to form a comprehensive mechanism at the macro level, focused on the priority reproduction of fixed asset systems using the latest technologies. The paper emphasises the importance of creating a unified system of innovation and investment activities of enterprises, taking into account the interests of all participants. It stresses the expediency of using both market and non-market incentives for the reproduction of fixed assets, which will facilitate the production of competitive products and ensure the sustainable development of enterprises in the market.

A Study on the Impact of China’s Prefabricated Building Policy on the Carbon Reduction Benefits of China’s Construction Industry Based on a Difference-in-Differences Method

The construction industry is a significant contributor to carbon emissions in China. To effectively meet the “dual carbon” targets, several provincial regions within the country started to implement policies promoting prefabricated buildings. This study examines data from 18 provinces in China over the period from 2012 to 2021, treating the introduction of prefabricated building policies as a quasi-natural experiment. Utilizing the difference-in-differences methodology, this research assesses the impact of these policies on the carbon emission performance of China’s construction sector and evaluates the robustness of the findings. The results indicate that the prefabricated building policies positively influenced the carbon emission efficiency of the construction industry. Specifically, these policies enhance carbon emission efficiency by increasing labor productivity, optimizing the allocation of mechanical resources, and improving the utilization rate of building materials. Additionally, the effectiveness of these policies is positively correlated with the level of regional technological innovation, environmental protection efforts, and the advancement of energy structure optimization. The study concludes with several policy recommendations aimed at further enhancing the effectiveness of prefabricated building policies.

Повышение эффективности производственно-хозяйственной деятельности как базовое условие обеспечения международной конкурентоспособности отечественного производства

The importance of production and economic activity increasing efficiency is basic condition for achieving the country technological sovereignty and the international competitiveness of domestic production. Therefore, the conditions of tightening market competition in the post-industrial economy determine the relevance of the presented research. Moreover, the collective West makes serious efforts to restrain the intensity of research and development processes in the Russian Federation. They introduce antiRussian sanctions, including those aimed at limiting the access of domestic enterprises to the latest world scientific developments and technologies and, accordingly, at restricting the sales market for domestic products. Subsequently, the increasing the intensity, effectiveness, and efficiency of domestic enterprises development by enhancement their production and economic activities. The purpose of the research is to identify the issues of improving domestic enterprises operating efficiency as a component of the economic security and country international competitiveness in terms of their effective solutions. Identifying a set of problems allows ones to improve the efficiency of production and economic activity of domestic enterprises. Therefore, the most realistic way to improve their competitiveness, based on increasing labour productivity using the principles of scientific organization of labour, is to increase the profits by reducing the duration of the production and sales cycles. The practical significance of the obtained results concerns with their using by federal and regional authorities for development as so as implement their mechanisms for improving the efficiency of production and economic activity as a basic condition for ensuring international competitiveness of domestic production.

Employment and Poverty under Neoliberal Capitalism

ABSTRACT: Neoliberal capitalism, characterized by freer movement of goods and services and capital, including finance, across country borders, keeps down real wages everywhere even as labor productivity increases. This raises income inequalities, creating an ex ante tendency toward overproduction, which underlies the current stagnation and growing unemployment in the world economy. This crisis cannot be overcome within neoliberalism, since globalized finance opposes larger state expenditure financed through heavier taxation of the rich or a larger fiscal deficit. This underlies the current pervasive tendency toward neofascism. Overcoming neofascism requires transcending neoliberalism by mobilizing working people around a rights-based welfare state.

Оцінка забезпеченості людським капіталом на тов тк «добра хата»

An analysis of the change in the number of Ukrainians from 1990 to the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war and during the war, which negatively affected the formation of human capital of domestic enterprises, is carried out. The work examines and defines the essence of the «human capital of an enterprise» concept and defines this economic category. It has been established that human capital is an employee’s abilities that allow him to bring the most effective results in the economic activity of the enterprise (organization) in which he works. The effectiveness of using human capital at «DOBRA КHATA» TC LLC was investigated, and an assessment of human capital provision at this enterprise was provided. The structure, dynamics, and movement of the human capital of the enterprise LLC TC “DOBRA KHATA” are analyzed, and the relationship with the change in the population of Ukraine during the Russian-Ukrainian war is determined. It was established that despite the situation in the country and the lost potential, the enterprise continues to function and encourages its workers to cooperate. Yes, the enterprise uses very active methods of corporate culture, which only improve yearly. Ways to improve human capital efficiency used at«DOBRA КHATA» TC LLC have been identified. These included the guaranteed professional growth of employees who underwent training and retraining, the system of training and retraining of personnel at the expense of the state and enterprises, the creation of such an atmosphere at the enterprise that would help to interest employees in increasing labor productivity indicators, and constant assessment and analysis of the outflow of human capital and what exactly contributed to this, as well as efforts to eliminate these causes and prevent them from appearing in the future. The expediency of developing and implementing measures to increase human capital to increase labor productivity and achieve high results in enterprise development is substantiated. Keywords: human capital, enterprise, development, assessment, indicators.

Financial development and labour productivity growth in stagnant industries

ABSTRACT In recent decades, the US economy has experienced the flow-on effects of rapid expansion by industries with low productivity growth. We investigate whether financial development increases labour productivity growth in these so-called stagnant industries, with analysis revealing remarkable post-1980 US interstate banking deregulation. These improvements are not an artefact of growing consumer demand, nor driven by skilled labour migration. Rather, they are the likely outcome of improved capital allocation and enhanced credit access for small firms. Our findings underscore the pivotal role of financial development in revitalizing stagnant sectors, and mitigating productivity disparities across industries.

Possibilities for increasing labour productivity by implementing innovative activities in the repair and service sector of animal husbandry

At present, the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus are signifi cantly behind the developed countries in terms of labor productivity and the share of domestic companies implementing technological innovations in the main sectors of the economy (especially in agriculture). One of the signifi cant factors of this lag is the underestimation in past years of the promising potential of various innovative technologies and, as a consequence the very limited and slow implementation of breakthrough innovations in the most significant sectors of the domestic economy. The decisive turn of the state economic policy of neighboring states in the area of deep technological transformation of all sectors of the economy is aimed at an innovative breakthrough and reaching advanced growth rates in the technological and economic development of fraternal countries. However, along with the introduction of the latest technologies the creation of completely new modern high-tech industries, which will require colossal financial investments, the task of comprehensively and thoroughly exploring internal production reserves, searching for new forms and methods of improving the efficiency of labour organization at existing enterprises, which will also bring a noticeable economic effect, remains relevant. This article describes in sufficient detail practical activities to improve and streamline accounting, planning, certifi cation, rationalization of workplaces of animal husbandry technical service organizations under the current conditions of the developing market. The results of the studies show that certification and rationalization of workplaces are effective tools in fi nding internal production reserves to improve the use of labour resources, fixed production assets, promotes the replacement of obsolete equipment, improves the relationship between workplaces, improves working conditions, and optimally balances the need for labour with the number of existing workplaces. This will significantly increase the overall efficiency of activities and competitiveness of service enterprises in the field of animal husbandry.

Africa's Manufacturing Puzzle: Evidence from Tanzanian and Ethiopian Firms

Abstract Recent growth accelerations in Africa are characterized by declining shares of the labor force employed in agriculture, increasing labor productivity in agriculture, and declining labor productivity in modern sectors such as manufacturing. To shed light on this puzzle, this study disaggregates firms in the manufacturing sector by average size, using two newly created firm-level panels covering Tanzania (2008–2016) and Ethiopia (1996–2017). The analysis identifies a dichotomy between larger firms with superior productivity performance that do not expand employment and small firms that absorb employment but do not experience much productivity growth. Large, more productive firms use highly capital-intensive techniques, in line with global technology trends but significantly greater than what would be expected based on these countries’ income levels or relative factor endowments.

Personnel motivation in the sphere of business management

Introduction. The paper deals with the peculiarities of personnel motivation in the field of business management that organization and use of values management help to strengthen the value of staff identity and is focused on the formation of the value system in the company as a whole. The purpose of the paper is to study of the personnel motivation system in the field of business management. Results. The result of the study is the generalization and systematization of the concepts of management of value staff. According to the results of the study, dominant trends in the organizational behavior of employees were revealed, depending on their level and tendency to changes in work. Increasing labor productivity and efficiency can be achieved by using your own potential through a motivational mechanism and makes work interesting. The peculiarities of changes in the work used by employees in organizations do not allow them to reduce the stress of working with people, which inevitably leads to psycho-emotional burnout. The methods used allow to provide the risks of professional burnout, the dismissal of the employee and the reduction of qualitative indicators, as well as to determine the dominant strategy of rethinking their organizational behavior. Conclusion. Value management integrates economic (labor efficiency) and psychological (involvement, relationships, satisfaction from work). It is an integral part of a developed organizational culture and becomes available only at a certain stage of the company's life cycle. The management of values based on a resource approach allows the leader to improve the economic indicators of the organization at the expense of personal resources of employees (through their involvement, identification of personal values with values of the organization) without the use of additional financial incentives and penalties.