The extensive literature on knowledge management spans several fields, but there are remarkably few studies that address the basic question as to whether knowledge management practices improve organizational performance. I examine that question using a national probability sample of...

We present a theory of the organization of work in an economy where knowledge is an essential input in production: a knowledge economy. In this economy a continuum of agents with heterogeneous skills must choose how much knowledge to acquire and may produce on their own or in organizations. Our...

This paper shows that top management structures in large US firms radically changed since the mid-1980s. While the number of managers reporting directly to the CEO doubled, the growth was driven primarily by functional managers rather than general managers. Using panel data on senior management...

Mergers and acquisitions are a fast way for a firm to grow. Using plant-level data, we examine how firms redraw their boundaries after acquisitions. We find that there is a large amount of restructuring in a short period following mergers. Acquirers sell 27% and close 19% of acquired plants...

This paper examines whether there are complementarities between investments in ICT, R&D and organizational innovation, and the effects of different investment profiles on total factor productivity growth on Dutch firm-level data. We estimate an integrated model of investment profile adoption and...

This study presents new empirical evidence on the relationship between investments in new computer-based information technology (IT) and productivity by investigating several plant-level mechanisms through which IT could promote productivity growth. We have assembled a data set on plants with a...

In this paper we report results of an empirical assessment of the cost reducing impacts of recent dramatic increases in stocks of "high-tech" office and information technology equipment (0) using annual data from various two digit US manufacturing industries over the 1952-1986 time period. While...

Both Research and Development (R&D) and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) investment have been identified as sources of relative innovation underperformance in Europe vis-à-vis the United States. In this paper we investigate R&D and ICT investment at the firm level in an effort to...

An increasingly influential "technological-discontinuity" paradigm suggests that IT-induced technological changes are rapidly raising productivity while making workers redundant. This paper explores the evidence for this view among the IT-using U.S. manufacturing industries. There is some...