In recent decades, a large and increasing number of leading firms in a diverse set of industries have faced allegations of ‘unethical' practices along their international value chains. In many cases this has triggered consumer boycotts and NGO campaigns, introducing a new link between upstream...

Does the matching between workers and jobs help explain productivity differentials across firms? To address this question we develop a job-worker allocation quality measure (JAQ) by combining employer-employee administrative data with machine learning techniques. The proposed measure is...

The construction industry has suffered from low growth in recent decades. Motivated by the economic impor-tance of the industry, we revisit the construction produc-tivity puzzle by analyzing the construction value chains of 12 European countries with data from the World In-put-Output and EU...

This Working Paper gives insights into the concepts of productivity and efficiency. Both concepts are popular measures for evaluating productive units, either on macro or micro level. This paper provides clear definitions for both concepts and outlines key areas of interest in this context, such...

In this study, we conduct interview surveys on management practices in Japanese and Korean firms following the study of Bloom, and Van Reenen (2007). The average management scores in Japanese firms are higher than those in Korean firms, and human resource management is positively associated with...

The construction industry has suffered from low growth in recent decades. Motivated by the economic impor-tance of the industry, we revisit the construction produc-tivity puzzle by analyzing the construction value chains of 12 European countries with data from the World In-put-Output and EU...

This scientific paper explores operational management strategies aimed at achieving sustainable productivity growth in manufacturing organizations. Productivity, a key driver of competitiveness and success, is intricately linked to the concept of sustainability in today's dynamic business world....

Firms have been investing millions of dollars on information technology (IT) in their manufacturing plants. However, the research literature is unclear about the extent and scope of the impact of IT use on plant operations. This study examines the impact of IT use on the structure, practices,...

We provide a novel, supply network-based perspective on inventory productivity and incentives for its improvement. Using data from 2003 to 2019, we find that inventory productivity reduces materially and statistically significantly for firms located upstream in the supply network, and increases...

Business Groups collect and coordinate legally autonomous firms spanning both within and across national borders . They represent a lion's share of value added generation on a world scale, and yet they received little attention in economics literature, probably due to a lack of detailed data. In...