Kwan Wing Kai. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 85-93). / Abstract / Acknowledgment / Chapter Chapter 1. --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- A Review of Recent Studies on the Productivity of Chines Economy --- p.3 / Chapter 1.2 --- Aims of Study --- p.10 / Chapter Chapter 2. --- The Sources of Productivity Growth --- p.16 / Chapter 2.1 --- Degree of Government Intervention --- p.16 / Chapter 2.2 --- Ownership Structure --- p.18 / Chapter 2.3 --- Output Structure --- p.24 / Chapter 2.4 --- Changes in Regional Development Strategy --- p.25 / Chapter 2.4.1 --- Regional Development Strategy before1979 --- p.27 / Chapter 2.4.2 --- Regional Development Strategy since1979 --- p.29 / Chapter 2.4.3 --- The Impacts of Different Regional Strategies on Productivity Change --- p.31 / Chapter Chapter 3. --- Theoretical Framework and Estimation Methods --- p.33 / Chapter 3.1 --- Methed I: The Conventional Approach --- p.35 / Chapter 3.2 --- Method II: Replacing the Variable of the Growth of Capital Stock by Investment-Output Ratio --- p.40 / Chapter 3.3 --- Method III: Approximation of the Production Function by Taylor Expansion --- p.45 / Chapter Chapter 4. --- Empirical Results of the Three Different Methods --- p.51 / Chapter 4.1 --- Estimation Results of the Three Different Methods --- p.51 / Chapter 4.2 --- Comparison of the Estimation Results of the Three Methods --- p.63 / Chapter 4.3 --- An Assessment of Provincial Productivity Growth --- p.66 / Chapter 4.4 --- Regional Productivity Difference since1979 --- p.75 / Chapter Chapter 5. --- Conclusion --- p.82 / References --- p.85 / Appendix 1. List of the Abbreviations for Provinces --- p.94 / Appendix 2. A Summary of Notations --- p.95 / Appendix 3. Estimates of Provincial Capital Stock (1979-1992) --- p.97 / Chapter A3.1 --- Initial value of Capital Stock --- p.98 / Chapter A3.2 --- Net Increase of Capital Stock --- p.101 / Chapter A3.3 --- Estimating the Annual Series of Capital Stock --- p.102 / Appendix 4. The Process of Fiscal Decentralization and Deterioration of Regional Redistribution --- p.106 / Chapter A4.1 --- The Process of Fiscal Decentralization --- p.106 / Chapter A4.2 --- The deterioration of Regional Redistribution --- p.110 / Appendix 5. Estimation Results of the Three Different Methods --- p.114

Qual a idéia de história anunciada nos últimos textos de Merleau-Ponty? Que impasses ela procura resolver? Pareceu-nos que responder a essas questões exigia, de início, reavaliar os limites da filosofia da história presente no existencialismo de ju-ventude de Merleau-Ponty, ainda preso aos marcos de uma certa filosofia da consciên-cia. A partir da análise desses limites, procuramos reconstruir o trajeto que levou Merle-au-Ponty a reescrever seu conceito de história. Tentamos fazê-lo em dois momentos. No primeiro, trata-se de recompor o modo pelo qual, nos anos 50, Merleau-Ponty pensará a racionalidade do mundo da cultura, através das idéias de instituição de sentido e de estrutura diacrítica. A ela corresponderá uma idéia do sentido da história (pública, cultural) como núcleos inteligíveis ou afinidades eletivas. No segundo momento, será preciso perguntar em qual concepção de experiência podem se estribar aquelas no-vas análises acerca do mundo cultural. No lógos silencioso operante no mundo sensível, descobriremos a produtividade ontológica de uma Natureza já significante antes dos atos da consciência, o que retira da produtividade humana o papel de protagonista que lhe era dado nos textos de juventude. Tentaremos, por fim, esboçar que contornos isso acarretaria para idéia de uma história ontológica, anunciada pelos tetos finais de Mer-leau-Ponty. / Which idea of history is announced in Merleau-Pontys last writings? Which difficulties it intends to solve? In order to answer those questions, it seemed necessary to reexamine the limits of the philosophy of history characteristic of the philosophers early existentialism, still attached to a certain philosophy of consciousness. Once those limits were established, we tried to retrace the path that led Merleau-Ponty in rewrit-ing his concept of history. We tried to do it in two moments. Firstly, we analyzed the way in which Merleau-Ponty, in the early fifties, understood the cultural worlds ration-ality through the concepts of institution of meaning and diacritical structure. This goes along with an idea of history that is centered on the notion of elective affinities. Secondly, we tried to establish the concept of experience presupposed by these new analysis of the cultural world. In the sensible worlds silent lógos, Nature proved itself to be already meaningful independently of the acts of consciousness. That alters the role attributed to human productivity in Merleau-Pontys earlier texts. Finally we tried to comment on the notion of an ontological history, which can be found in the later texts of Merleau-Ponty.

This thesis explored the measurement of performance of New Zealand tertiary education institutions (TEIs) and the demand for their services. This involved analysing the research performance of New Zealand universities, analysing the productive efficiency of New Zealand TEIs and examining the choice of provider by bachelor’s degree starters. Bibliometric data was used to measure the research productivity of New Zealand universities. This showed that following a fall during the early 2000s, the research productivity of New Zealand universities increased following the introduction of the Performance-Based Research Fund (PBRF). A multi-dimensional analysis of university research performance between 2000 and 2005 showed that no individual university was top in all four of the performance measures assessed. The overall performance of three universities, Massey University, Lincoln University and Auckland University of Technology, were noticeably below that of the other five universities. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was then applied to input and output data of New Zealand TEIs to analyse their productive efficiency. In 2006, polytechnics that had: low levels of bachelor’s degree provision, were not regionally based, had a high proportion of subcontracting and were larger institutions, achieved higher levels of pure technical efficiency. The analysis showed that several polytechnics could improve their technical efficiency by reducing their scale of operations. In polytechnics, higher technical efficiency was associated with better financial performance. A number of technically efficient polytechnics struggled financially, indicating that the overall efficiency of the polytechnic sector was not high, or the funding model they operate under is not appropriate. The analysis also showed that decreasing bachelor’s degree provision, poor financial performance in the previous year, an increase in provision of community education, was associated with higher growth in total factor productivity between 1996 and 2006. The application of DEA to Australasian university data between 1997 and 2005 showed that New Zealand universities performed relatively well in terms of relative pure technical efficiency, compared with their Australian counterparts. However, the total factor productivity of New Zealand universities increased at a lower rate, on average, than that of the Australian Group of Eight and newer Australian universities. The application of DEA to a dataset of the participating TEIs in the PBRF showed that polytechnics had lower technical efficiency, on average, than other TEIs. The choices of bachelor’s degree starters in 2006 were analysed for evidence of a lack of parity of esteem between university and polytechnic degrees. The results showed that a lack of parity of esteem between polytechnic and university degrees may be influencing student choices. Students from higher deciles schools, with higher secondary school qualifications, Asians, students who travel for study, were all more likely to enrol in a university to start a bachelor’s degree. There was less clear cut evidence of a lack of parity of esteem between selected groupings of New Zealand universities. However, there did appear to be a lack of parity of esteem between the four older metropolitan universities and the two newest universities, with signs the former were held in higher esteem.

<p>Denna avhandling undersöker hur investeringar i IT, och digitaliseringen av informationsflöden, har påverkat produktiviteten inom sjukvården. Genom empiriska undersökningar av avgränsade sjukvårdsprocesser – samt diskussioner baserade på idéer och teorier relaterade till ekonomi, ”produktivitetsparadoxen”, så kallade General Purpose Technologies (GPTs), och medicinsk informatik – detekteras och analyseras effekter av digitaliseringen.</p><p>Produktivitetsparadoxen – vilken ställer frågan varför tidigare omfattande investeringar i IT till synes inte har genererat de förväntade produktivitetsökningarna – är en viktig utgångspunkt i föreliggande studie. Forskare har dryftat detta dilemma i många år men</p><p>hittills har inga fullständigt tillfredsställande förklaringar lagts fram. Detta beror till stor del på att tidigare forskning huvudsakligen har inriktat sig på makroekonomisk statistik och aggregerade data, vilket har resulterat i otydliga eller ofullständiga slutsatser angående IT och ekonomisk tillväxt. För att verkligen beskriva effekterna av digitaliseringen är denna forskning istället baserad på undersökningar på mikronivå (organisations- eller avdelningsnivå) ur ett historiskt och kvalitativt perspektiv.</p><p>En annan viktig tanke som genomsyrar denna avhandling är att för snäva definitioner av IT och produktivitet har bidragit till förbiseende av många nyttor till följd av digitalisering. Därför utvidgas termen IT här till att inkludera teknologi för att samla, lagra, bearbeta, återfå och kommunicera data, text, bilder och tal. Dessutom omfattar denna definition både administrativ och inbäddad IT. Vidare ifrågasätts de traditionella definitionerna av produktivitet, och begreppet ges en bredare betydelse för att fånga upp alla möjliga nyttor och/eller nackdelar som kan härledas till IT investeringar.</p><p>Resultaten och analysen som presenteras i denna studie visar att produktiviteten inom sjukvården har ökat enormt tack vare IT-investeringar. Generellt sett så har sjukvårdsprocesserna snabbats upp avsevärt, sjukvårdskvaliteten har förbättrats, och kostnadseffektiviteten har ökat. Med andra ord, genom att introducera nya tankar gällande produktivitetsparadoxen, har fler effekter kunnat detekteras och analyseras. Det finns emellertid också många problem förknippade med implementering, användande och spridning av IT, vilka ges tillbörlig uppmärksamhet i denna undersökning.</p><p>I förlängningen bidrar analysen av digitaliseringseffekterna till en ökad förståelse för hur IT-fieringen” av modern sjukvård påverkar dess produktivitet i form av exempelvis bättre (och även helt nya) behandlingsmetoder, förkortad konvalescens och snabbare patientflöden. Vidare ges förslag på hur implementeringsförfaranden kan skötas smidigare än tidigare, vilka problem relaterade till digitalisering som bör beaktas och lösas, samt vilka möjliga framtida nyttor som skulle kunna realiseras och hur.</p><p>Detta torde vara av intresse för yrkesverksamma inom sjukvården, patienter, politiker som kall besluta om sjukvård, och även samhället i stort. Det övergripande målet med avhandlingen är således att underlätta utvecklingen mot en alltmer digitaliserad – och förhoppningsvis därav förbättrad – sjukvård genom att fördjupa förståelsen för relationen mellan IT och produktivitet.</p> / <p>This thesis examines how investments in IT, and the digitization of information flows, have affected health care productivity. Through empirical investigations of health care processes – along with discussions based on notions derived from theories related to e.g. economics, the Productivity Paradox, General Purpose Technologies, and medical informatics – effects from digitization are detected and analyzed.</p><p>An important point of departure is the so called Productivity Paradox, which raises the question why previous comprehensive investments in IT seemingly have not generated the anticipated productivity growth. Researchers have debated this dilemma for many years now but no sufficient explanations have been put forth. This is so due to a prior focus on snapshot descriptions, founded on macroeconomic statistics and aggregated data, which has resulted in ambiguous conclusions about IT and economic development. Thus, in order to really describe the effects from digitization, the process investigations mainly are carried out at the organization or department level, and from a qualitative and historical perspective.</p><p>Furthermore, in the current research, it is believed that too narrow definitions of IT and productivity have contributed to the overlooking of benefits from digitization. Therefore the term IT is extended to include technology for collecting, storing, processing, retrieving, and communicating data, text, images and speech. Moreover, this definition includes both administrative and embedded IT. Also, the traditional definitions of productivity are questioned, and the concept is given a broader meaning in order to capture all possible benefits and/or disadvantages from IT investments.</p><p>The results and analysis presented in this thesis show that productivity within health care has increased immensely thanks to investments in IT. In general, the treatment processes have been speeded up, health care quality has improved, and the cost effectiveness has been significantly enhanced. In other words, by introducing new thoughts regarding the Productivity Paradox, more effects from digitization are detected and analyzed. However, there are some problems connected to the implementation, adoption and diffusion of IT within health care, and they are also given proper attention throughout the current work.</p> / Report code: LIU-TEK-LIC-2007:37.

Since the 1990s and the Swedish membership in the European Union in 1995, the presence of Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) has increased radically in the Swedish economy. The objective with this study is to analyze MNEs effects in different regions within the Swedish manufacturing industry in terms of productivity. Is a region with more MNEs, more pro-ductive than a region with a lower share of MNEs? The theory claims that productivity spillovers of MNEs occurs through three channels namely, via R&amp;D, increased competi-tion and transmission of technology. By observing 81 regions which consists of all 290 municipals in Sweden and taking the average value of productivity and the explanatory variables trough 1997-2004, a cross-sectional analysis is conducted. The results evidently showed signs of productivity spillovers of MNEs on local firms in the manufacturing in-dustry. Findings suggest that (1) a regions with higher share of MNEs did face a higher re-gional productivity. However the spillovers was not successfully absorbed by regions with a industry structure that was not dominated by a the manufacturing industry. (2) Larger re-gions, in terms of population, tend to show a lower productivity level compared to the av-erage levels of the rest of the regions, since their structure was dominated by the service sector. (3) Regions with small technological difference compared to the MNEs, tends to hold the skills and knowledge needed to efficiently exploit the productivity spillovers, hence MNEs influence on regional productivity was greater in these regions than regions with a lower level of technical capability.

According to the Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman, “productivity isn’t everything, but in the long-run it is almost everything”. It is unfortunate that the productivity in the construction industry has lagged behind the manufacturing industry for the last several decades. The research presented in this thesis aims to improve productivity in the infrastructure sector of the construction industry by developing and validating Best Productivity Practices Implementation Index (BPPII) for Infrastructure projects. The BPPII Infrastructure is a check list of practices that are considered to have a positive influence on labour productivity at the project level for infrastructure projects. These practices have been identified through a literature review and consultation with industry experts, and have been anecdotally proven to positively affect productivity. These practices have been grouped together into a formalized set of BPPII’s categories, sections, and elements. Each practice and its planning and implementation levels have been completely defined. Each practice in the index has been assigned a relative weight based on its importance in affecting labour productivity. In total, there are 61 elements, 20 sections, and 6 categories. The six categories of the BPPII Infrastructure are: (1) Materials Management; (2) Construction Machinery and Equipment Logistics; (3) Execution Approach; (4) Human Resources Management; (5) Construction Methods; and (6) Health and Safety. The productivity factor defined as a ratio of estimated productivity and actual productivity was used as a metric to collect information about labour productivity. Data were collected for infrastructure projects on the planning and implementation level of practices, on the productivity factor, and on project schedule performance. The research hypothesis tested was that projects that have a high level of implementation of best practices as defined by the BPPII Infrastructure will have a better productivity performance than projects which have a low level of implementation of best practices. The regression analysis confirms that the BPPII score has a strong positive relationship with the productivity factor. ANOVA tests confirm that there is statistically significant difference between the productivity of projects that have a high level of implementation of practices and those that have a low level of implementation. Also, it was found that projects that have a high score on the index perform better in terms of project schedule performance than projects which have a low score on the BPPII Infrastructure.

A hierarchical procedure is developed to determine maximum overall yield of a process and optimize process changes to achieve such a yield. First, a targeting procedure is developed to identify an upper bound of the overall yield ahead of detailed design. Several mass integration strategies are proposed to attain maximum yield. These strategies include rerouting of raw materials, optimization of reaction yield, rerouting of product from undesirable outlets to desirable outlets, and recycling of unreacted raw materials. Path equations are tailored to provide the appropriate level of detail for modeling process performance as a function of the optimization variables pertaining to design and operating variables. Interval analysis is used as an inclusion technique that provides rigorous bounds regardless of the process nonlinearities and without enumeration. Then, a new approach for identification of cost-effective implementation of maximum attainable targets for yield is presented. In this approach, a mathematical program was developed to identify the maximum feasible yield using a combination of iterative additions of constraints and problem reformulation. Next, cost objectives were employed to identify a cost-effective solution with the details of design and operating variables. Constraint convexification was used to improve the quality of the solution towards globability. A trade-off procedure between the saving and expenses for yield maximization problem is presented. The proposed procedure is systematic, rigorous, and computationally efficient. A case study was solved to demonstrate the applicability and usefulness of the developed procedure.

The Corporate Real Estate Executive has many factors to consider when selecting and outfitting workspace for the company's employees, most of whom are knowledge workers. There are many factors to consider other than cost including the office space design, the LEED or other green building characteristics of the space,the business context in which the company operates, and how all these factors work together to impact productivity. A workplace and productivity assessment tool was completed for four different companies to assess eight different productivity elements and how they interact to impact productivity. Two companies occupied LEED certified facilities, one company occupied a green building, and the fourth company was in conventional office space.

According to the Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman, “productivity isn’t everything, but in the long-run it is almost everything”. It is unfortunate that the productivity in the construction industry has lagged behind the manufacturing industry for the last several decades. The research presented in this thesis aims to improve productivity in the infrastructure sector of the construction industry by developing and validating Best Productivity Practices Implementation Index (BPPII) for Infrastructure projects. The BPPII Infrastructure is a check list of practices that are considered to have a positive influence on labour productivity at the project level for infrastructure projects. These practices have been identified through a literature review and consultation with industry experts, and have been anecdotally proven to positively affect productivity. These practices have been grouped together into a formalized set of BPPII’s categories, sections, and elements. Each practice and its planning and implementation levels have been completely defined. Each practice in the index has been assigned a relative weight based on its importance in affecting labour productivity. In total, there are 61 elements, 20 sections, and 6 categories. The six categories of the BPPII Infrastructure are: (1) Materials Management; (2) Construction Machinery and Equipment Logistics; (3) Execution Approach; (4) Human Resources Management; (5) Construction Methods; and (6) Health and Safety. The productivity factor defined as a ratio of estimated productivity and actual productivity was used as a metric to collect information about labour productivity. Data were collected for infrastructure projects on the planning and implementation level of practices, on the productivity factor, and on project schedule performance. The research hypothesis tested was that projects that have a high level of implementation of best practices as defined by the BPPII Infrastructure will have a better productivity performance than projects which have a low level of implementation of best practices. The regression analysis confirms that the BPPII score has a strong positive relationship with the productivity factor. ANOVA tests confirm that there is statistically significant difference between the productivity of projects that have a high level of implementation of practices and those that have a low level of implementation. Also, it was found that projects that have a high score on the index perform better in terms of project schedule performance than projects which have a low score on the BPPII Infrastructure.

Motivation, job satisfaction and their links with productivity have been researched for decades, with many researchers producing contradictory findings. This topic has become especially important in recent times as companies struggle in a challenging economic environment. The organisation that successfully implements strategies which address these issues can gain a significant competitive advantage, as a sustainable increase in productivity from their staff will result in running costs being reduced. This study was carried out on the short-term insurance industry within South Africa and investigated the impact that motivation and job satisfaction have on productivity within the organisation. The study comprised a literature review, which includes the following concepts: a definition of motivation, motivational theories, driving forces of motivation, skills variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, job feedback and organisational productivity. These topics provided insight into motivation, job satisfaction and productivity. A quantitative research methodology was used for this study to understand the relationship between job satisfaction, motivation and productivity. Due to the research being carried out on one insurance company, which the researcher had access to, a non-probability convenience sampling method was used. A key finding was that employees who were motivated or satisfied with their job were more productive. However, staff who were not motivated did not believe they were unproductive. The study also found that there was a relationship between motivation and job satisfaction. One of the recommendations of this study is that companies should empower staff to make decisions, as this is a key factor in them being motivated. Furthermore, job satisfaction is driven by one’s personal beliefs about whether or not their job is important to the organisation; therefore, companies should ensure that managers communicate with their staff regarding how their job affects the organisation. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2011.