What drives differences in management practices?

Nicholas Bloom, Erik Brynjolfsson, Lucia Foster, Ron Jarmin, Megha Patnaik, Itay Saporta-Eksten and John van Reenen
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Itay Saporta Eksten

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Partnering with the US Census Bureau, we implement a new survey of "structured" management practices in two waves of 35,000 manufacturing plants in 2010 and 2015. We fnd an enormous dispersion of management practices across plants, with 40 percent of this variation across plants within the same frm. Management practices account for more than 20 percent of the variation in productivity, a similar, or greater, percentage as that accounted for by R&D, ICT, or human capital. We fnd evidence of two key drivers to improve management. The business environment, as measured by right-to-work laws, boosts incentive management practices. Learning spillovers, as measured by the arrival of large "Million Dollar Plants" in the county, increases the management scores of incumbents.

JEL-codes: D24 L25 L60 M11 M50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36 pages
Date: 2019-05-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hrm and nep-ind
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (101)

Published in American Economic Review, 1, May, 2019, 109(5), pp. 1648 - 1683. ISSN: 0002-8282

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http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/101175/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: What Drives Differences in Management Practices? (2019)
Working Paper: What drives differences in management practices? (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:101175

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