The role of management practices in closing the productivity gap

Siebers, Peer-Olaf; Aickelin, Uwe; Battisti, Giuliana; Helen, Celia; Clegg, Chris; Fu, Xiaolan; Hoyos, Raphael De; Iona, Alfonsiana; Petrescu, Alina; Peixoto, Adriano

Abstract

There is no doubt that management practices are linked to the productivity and performance of a company. However, research findings are mixed. This paper provides a multi-disciplinary review of the current evidence of such a relationship and offers suggestions for further exploration. We provide an extensive review of the literature in terms of research findings from studies that have been trying to measure and understand the impact that individual management practices and clusters of management
practices have on productivity at different levels of analysis. We focus our review on Operations
Management (OM) and Human Resource Management (HRM) practices as well as joint applications of
these practices. In conclusion, we can say that taken as a whole, the research findings are equivocal. Some
studies have found a positive relationship between the adoption of management practices and
productivity, some negative and some no association whatsoever. We believe that the lack of universal
consensus on the effect of the adoption of complementary management practices might be driven either
by measurement issues or by the level of analysis. Consequently, there is a need for further research. In
particular, for a multi-level approach from the lowest possible level of aggregation up to the firm-level of
analysis in order to assess the impact of management practices upon the productivity of firms.

Citation

Siebers, P.-O., Aickelin, U., Battisti, G., Helen, C., Clegg, C., Fu, X., Hoyos, R. D., Iona, A., Petrescu, A., & Peixoto, A. The role of management practices in closing the productivity gap. Advanced Institute of Management Research

• Book Type: Monograph
• Deposit Date: Dec 18, 2008
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1016130
• Related Public URLs: http://ima.ac.uk/papers/siebers2008.pdf
• Additional Information: AIM Working Paper Series Number 065