Firms, productivity and innovation in low-income countries
This dissertation consists of three empirical essays on firms, productivity and innovation in low-income countries. Chapter 1 examines whether changing management practices to encourage bottom-up innovation leads to beneficial information flows from production workers on lower hierarchical levels to...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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2020
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| _version_ | 1826286370182660096 |
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| author | Schreiber, V |
| author2 | Woodruff, C |
| author_facet | Woodruff, C Schreiber, V |
| author_sort | Schreiber, V |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | This dissertation consists of three empirical essays on firms, productivity and innovation in low-income countries. Chapter 1 examines whether changing management practices to encourage bottom-up innovation leads to beneficial information flows from production workers on lower hierarchical levels to higher-level management with the power to implement ideas. In a three-month field experiment with 1,600 workers in a Bangladeshi garment factory, I find that providing structured peer-to-peer lunches for workers to discuss ideas significantly improves the quantity and relevance of ideas which are implementable in the firm, driven by changes in workers’ ease of submissions and their aspirations. Additional encouragement from trained supervisors, however, comes at the cost of suppressing voice on critical topics about supervisors, which works through a perceived deteriorated voice climate. Chapter 2 (with Christopher Woodruff, Atonu Rabbani and Rocco Macchiavello) explores the impact of a low-cost group-based management training programme on productivity and working conditions in 25 Bangladeshi garment factories, with significantly positive effects on workers. Practices aimed at improving communication on the production floor are found to be more effective than technical and production-related practices, and lead to positive effects on human-resource related outcomes. Chapter 3 (with Ferrán Vega and Christopher Woodruff) analyses detailed line-level data in a Bangladeshi garment factory over a period of five years to examine the role of low-level autonomy in the process of adaptation to a negative productivity shock, caused by switching to a ‘faster fashion’ production model imposed by industry demands. We find that performance differences can be traced back to varying degrees of autonomy exercised by production managers in deviating from pre-determined plans. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T01:42:44Z |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oxford-uuid:976924b9-860c-45e3-bce7-0db9b19d1115 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T01:42:44Z |
| publishDate | 2020 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:976924b9-860c-45e3-bce7-0db9b19d11152022-03-26T23:59:28ZFirms, productivity and innovation in low-income countriesThesishttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_db06uuid:976924b9-860c-45e3-bce7-0db9b19d1115Development economicsEnglishHyrax Deposit2020Schreiber, VWoodruff, CQuinn, SVega Carol, FThis dissertation consists of three empirical essays on firms, productivity and innovation in low-income countries. Chapter 1 examines whether changing management practices to encourage bottom-up innovation leads to beneficial information flows from production workers on lower hierarchical levels to higher-level management with the power to implement ideas. In a three-month field experiment with 1,600 workers in a Bangladeshi garment factory, I find that providing structured peer-to-peer lunches for workers to discuss ideas significantly improves the quantity and relevance of ideas which are implementable in the firm, driven by changes in workers’ ease of submissions and their aspirations. Additional encouragement from trained supervisors, however, comes at the cost of suppressing voice on critical topics about supervisors, which works through a perceived deteriorated voice climate. Chapter 2 (with Christopher Woodruff, Atonu Rabbani and Rocco Macchiavello) explores the impact of a low-cost group-based management training programme on productivity and working conditions in 25 Bangladeshi garment factories, with significantly positive effects on workers. Practices aimed at improving communication on the production floor are found to be more effective than technical and production-related practices, and lead to positive effects on human-resource related outcomes. Chapter 3 (with Ferrán Vega and Christopher Woodruff) analyses detailed line-level data in a Bangladeshi garment factory over a period of five years to examine the role of low-level autonomy in the process of adaptation to a negative productivity shock, caused by switching to a ‘faster fashion’ production model imposed by industry demands. We find that performance differences can be traced back to varying degrees of autonomy exercised by production managers in deviating from pre-determined plans. |
| spellingShingle | Development economics Schreiber, V Firms, productivity and innovation in low-income countries |
| title | Firms, productivity and innovation in low-income countries |
| title_full | Firms, productivity and innovation in low-income countries |
| title_fullStr | Firms, productivity and innovation in low-income countries |
| title_full_unstemmed | Firms, productivity and innovation in low-income countries |
| title_short | Firms, productivity and innovation in low-income countries |
| title_sort | firms productivity and innovation in low income countries |
| topic | Development economics |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT schreiberv firmsproductivityandinnovationinlowincomecountries |