Short and Long Run Impact of Management on Performance: Evidence from Indian Firms

长期以来，经济学家一直困惑于为什么在企业和国家之间的生产率存在如此显著的差异。例如，美国的人均GDP大约是印度的10倍。对这些生产率差异的自然解释在于管理实践的差异。然而，直到最近，几乎没有严谨的证据表明良好的管理对生产力有多大的影响，更不用说管理不善的公司是否（以及如何）得到改善了。在最近一项针对印度纺织企业的随机实验中，我们进行了为期5个月的密集管理咨询，旨在改善这些低生产率企业的管理。这种干预导致了管理实践的巨大改进，这反过来又导致了质量、效率和生产力的改进。这项工作得到了政策、媒体和学术界的广泛关注。本提案的目的是在我们上次收集数据后的一年内，不经通知地返回这些公司，以衡量良好的管理实践是否“坚持”，确定哪些因素决定了管理实践的持久性，公司所有者是否能够将成功的实践转移到其他工厂，找到管理变革的其他结果，并估计更好的管理对公司生产力的中期影响。良好的管理和生产力之间的这种联系非常重要，原因如下。首先，从成本效益的角度来看，公司是否值得以市场价格购买提高生产率的咨询服务，关键取决于这种效益能持续多久。其次，了解管理方面的改进是否持续（或衰退）对于理解持续管理不善的根本原因很重要。例如，如果潜在的原因是缺乏信息，那么一旦引入了这些实践（并且传达了它们的嵌入信息），它们应该在没有进一步投资的情况下继续存在。相反，如果原因是缺乏激励结构，那么一旦这些实践的外部监督停止，这些实践可能会恢复到以前的标准。成本效益和持久性的原因也会影响到从这项研究中得出的政策结论——即，如何为低生产率企业和国家的经济发展确定适当的投资政策。这里提出的研究与政策有很强的相关性，无论是国际还是国内。在印度国内，该项目得到了印度工业联合会总干事和印度储备银行（印度中央银行）总经理的认可，并得到了一位著名印度企业家为第一阶段工作提供的一些资金，显示出印度对政策和商业的强烈兴趣。世界银行为这项工作的第一阶段提供了15万美元以上的捐款，它对该项目的支持表明了国际组织在政策上的强烈兴趣。亚洲开发银行（ADB）在其年度旗舰出版物中引用了这项研究，并认为，鉴于中小企业（sme）对（亚太地区）总生产率和就业的（巨大）影响，此类研究应该“获得良好回报”。这项研究也引起了人们对美国商业环境的浓厚兴趣。研究结果已被斯坦福商学院（Stanford Business School）纳入美国管理人员课程，第一项研究的论文已被本科和mba级别的商学院学生以及美国企业高管广泛讨论。吸取的经验教训可以推广到其他生产率较低的领域——无论是在美国还是在国外——这些领域目前落后，但显然可以从最佳实践的转移中受益。

Economists have long puzzled over why there are such striking differences in productivity across both firms and countries. For example, GDP per capita in the US is about ten times that of India. A natural explanation for these productivity differences lies in variations in management practices. Until recently, however, there has been little rigorous evidence about exactly how much difference good management makes to productivity, let alone whether (and how) badly-managed firms could be improved. In a recent randomized experiment with textile firms in India, we caused five months of intensive management consulting to be provided, aimed at improving the management of these low-productivity firms. This intervention led to large improvements in management practices, which in turn resulted in improvements in quality, efficiency and productivity. This work has received substantial policy, media, and academic attention.The purpose of this proposal is to return unannounced to these same firms, over one year since we last collected data from them, to measure whether good management practices "stick", to identify what factors determine persistence in management practices, whether firm owners are able to transfer successful practices over to other plants, to find additional outcomes of changes in management, and to estimate the medium-term effects of better management on firm productivity. This link between good management and productivity is of large importance for several reasons. First, from a cost-benefit point of view, whether it would be worth it to the firm to buy productivity-enhancing consulting services at market rates depends critically on how long the benefits last. Second, knowledge of whether improvements in management persist (or decay) is important for understanding the root causes of persistent poor management. For example, if the underlying cause is lack of information, then once these practices are introduced (and their embedded information communicated), they should persist without further investment. Instead, if the cause is a lack of incentive structures, then once external monitoring of these practices stops, these practices may revert back to their previous standards. Both the cost-benefit and persistence reasons also feed into the policy conclusions to be drawn from this exercise -- namely, how to determine the proper investment policy for the economic development of low-productivity firms and nations. The research proposed here is of strong relevance to policy, both international and domestic. Within India, the project has received the endorsements of the Director General of the Confederation of Indian Industry and the General Manager of the Reserve Bank of India (India's Central Bank) and some funding for the first stage of the work from a prominent Indian entrepreneur, demonstrating strong Indian policy and business interest. The World Bank contributed over $150,000 to the first stage of this work and its support for the project demonstrates strong policy interest from international organizations. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) cites the study in their annual flagship publication and argues that such studies should "pay off well given the [large] impact SMEs [Small and Medium Enterprises] can have on aggregate productivity and employment [in Asia and the Pacific]."This research has generated strong interest in the US business context as well. The results have been included in courses for managers in the USA via the Stanford Business School and the paper resulting from the first study has been extensively discussed by undergraduate and MBA-level business-school students as well as US business executives. Lessons learned from can be extended to other low-productivity areas -- both in the US and abroad -- that currently lag but could clearly benefit from a transfer of best practices.