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Knowledge workers labor to meet their business goals with the support of practical information technology (IT) tools. IT advances can be organizational enablers, when aligned with business goals, and when selectively applied. Workplace leaders and their workers often experience a productivity paradox. This paradox forms an operational limit for current knowledge workers and organizational success. Performance management steps within a Balanced Scorecard (BSC) framework can help overcome workplace productivity paradoxes. The BSC frames and tabulates lagging and leading indicators of IT tools’ usage and soft skill engagements. These adaptive measures dashboard workplace progress and success for organizations of all sizes and in public and private sectors. Lessons can be learned from BSC deployment successes in several business sectors. Valued practices exist to pick / monitor / adapt organizational capability objectives, measures and HR initiatives. Can right IT tool(s) or application(s) help achieve aligned business goals? Yes. Certain IT applications can favorably frame learning and development (L&D) efforts and metrics for knowledge workers as most valuable players, or MVPs.How do knowledge workers and their business leaders manage and leverage these IT applications for employee L&D to improve organizational capabilities? How do they address and adapt to complex and chaotic business conditions, and manage disruptive technologies: a. Artificial Intelligence (AI), b. The Internet of Things (IoT), and c. Data Analytics? Prudent managers and workers can accommodate these conditions and disruptions with agile, productive BSC approaches to generate productivity-ware and to attain their aligned business goals.

This study gauges the profitability and performance of Indian commercial banks under the technology advancements. In this study, the authors identified three domains that give advantage to banks due to technology incorporation, that is, increased sales revenue, reduced operating expenses, and increased employee productivity. The authors assess the effect of these domains on banks’ profitability and performance. This study is conducted for the period between the years 2003 and 2018 across 34 public and private banks for empirical analysis. The authors examined the impact of investment in technology on the profitability using panel data analysis and evaluated the long-term effect of technology investment using the vector error correction model. This study found that there is a mixed effect of technology spend on the profitability and performance of Indian banks, where private sector banks are more aggressive in technology investment as compared to the public sector banks. This study recommends an optimal technology-related strategy to gain improved productivity for the banking business, that is, planned technology reserves, customer awareness campaigns about technology-enabled products, and robust employee–customer motivation policy.

The Covid-19 pandemic has quickly transformed the notions of crises and of living in a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) world into a lived experience. This chapter offers a perspective on how New Zealand businesses experienced and reacted to Covid-19 related management from a distance and with a mindset that was informed by the government’s focus on health and well-being and “being kind.” This exploratory findings from a sample of New Zealand exporters show that technology-supported management of digital distance and trust, infused with a partner-specific exhibition of empathy, fostered successful business relationships during these challenging times.

Information and communications technology (ICT) offers enormous opportunities for individuals, businesses and society. The application of ICT is equally important to economic and non-economic activities. Researchers have increasingly focused on the adoption and use of ICT by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as the economic development of a country is largely dependent on them. Following the success of ICT utilisation in SMEs in developed countries, many developing countries are looking to utilise the potential of the technology to develop SMEs. Past studies have shown that the contribution of ICT to the performance of SMEs is not clear and certain. Thus, it is crucial to determine the effectiveness of ICT in generating firm performance since this has implications for SMEs’ expenditure on the technology. This research examines the diffusion of ICT among SMEs with respect to the typical stages from innovation adoption to post-adoption, by analysing the actual usage of ICT and value creation. The mediating effects of integration and utilisation on SME performance are also studied. Grounded in the innovation diffusion literature, institutional theory and resource-based theory, this study has developed a comprehensive integrated research model focused on the research objectives. Following a positivist research paradigm, this study employs a mixed-method research approach. A preliminary conceptual framework is developed through an extensive literature review and is refined by results from an in-depth field study. During the field study, a total of 11 SME owners or decision-makers were interviewed. The recorded interviews were transcribed and analysed using NVivo 10 to refine the model to develop the research hypotheses. The final research model is composed of 30 first-order and five higher-order constructs which involve both reflective and formative measures. Partial least squares-based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) is employed to test the theoretical model with a cross-sectional data set of 282 SMEs in Bangladesh. Survey data were collected using a structured questionnaire issued to SMEs selected by applying a stratified random sampling technique. The structural equation modelling utilises a two-step procedure of data analysis. Prior to estimating the structural model, the measurement model is examined for construct validity of the study variables (i.e. convergent and discriminant validity).

The estimates show cognitive evaluation as an important antecedent for expectation which is shaped primarily by the entrepreneurs’ beliefs (perception) and also influenced by the owners’ innovativeness and culture. Culture further influences expectation. The study finds that facilitating condition, environmental pressure and country readiness are important antecedents of expectation and ICT use. The results also reveal that integration and the degree of ICT utilisation significantly affect SMEs’ performance. Surprisingly, the findings do not reveal any significant impact of ICT usage on performance which apparently suggests the possibility of the ICT productivity paradox. However, the analysis finally proves the non-existence of the paradox by demonstrating the mediating role of ICT integration and degree of utilisation explain the influence of information technology (IT) usage on firm performance which is consistent with the resource-based theory. The results suggest that the use of ICT can enhance SMEs’ performance if the technology is integrated and properly utilised. SME owners or managers, interested stakeholders and policy makers may follow the study’s outcomes and focus on ICT integration and degree of utilisation with a view to attaining superior organisational performance.

This study urges concerned business enterprises and government to look at the environmental and cultural factors with a view to achieving ICT usage success in terms of enhanced firm performance. In particular, improving organisational practices and procedures by eliminating the traditional power distance inside organisations and implementing necessary rules and regulations are important actions for managing environmental and cultural uncertainties. The application of a Bengali user interface may help to ensure the productivity of ICT use by SMEs in Bangladesh. Establishing a favourable national technology infrastructure and legal environment may contribute positively to improving the overall situation. This study also suggests some changes and modifications in the country’s existing policies and strategies. The government and policy makers should undertake mass promotional programs to disseminate information about the various uses of computers and their contribution in developing better organisational performance. Organising specialised training programs for SME capacity building may succeed in attaining the motivation for SMEs to use ICT. Ensuring easy access to the technology by providing loans, grants and subsidies is important. Various stakeholders, partners and related organisations should come forward to support government policies and priorities in order to ensure the productive use of ICT among SMEs which finally will help to foster Bangladesh’s economic development.

Wages have been spreading out across workers over time – or in other words, the 90th/50th wage ratio has risen over time. A key question is, has the productivity distribution also spread out across worker skill levels over time? Using our calculations of productivity by skill level for the United States, we show that the distributions of both wages and productivity have spread out over time, as the right tail lengthens for both. We add Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) countries, showing that the wage–productivity correlation exists, such that gains in aggregate productivity, or GDP per person, have resulted in higher wages for workers at the top and bottom of the wage distribution. However, across countries, those workers in the upper-income ranks have seen their wages rise the most over time. The most likely international factor explaining these wage increases is the skill-biased technological change of the digital revolution. The new artificial intelligence (AI) revolution that has just begun seems to be having similar skill-biased effects on wages. But this current AI, called “supervised learning,” is relatively similar to past technological change. The AI of the distant future will be “unsupervised learning,” and it could eventually have an effect on the jobs of the most highly skilled.

This chapter presents the key results of a research project that explored managing service productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa through the lens of lived experiences of bank executives employed as ‘knowledge workers’ in the Nigerian banking sector. The study adopted a qualitative phenomenological research design. Data was gathered from 16 Nigerian top bank executives purposively selected using semi-structured face-to-face interviews. Trans Positional Cognition Approach (TPCA), a new phenomenological research method, was used to analyse the data gathered. The study data analysis yielded five themes; micromanagement practices, use of dysfunctional strategies to drive service operations, deposit mobilisation target as a productivity measure, managerial indifference to potential nescience economy issues and master-servant (power culture) strategy, which epitomises fundamental managerial approaches adopted in the sector. The study identified critical service productivity management issues grounded in reality that influence the capability and potentiality of the study knowledge workers. It also contributes the novel, ‘official knowledge worker lived experience of service productivity model’ for use by decision-makers in the banking sector. Thus, it sets an agenda for these ‘knowledge workers’ line managers’ and bank regulators in the research setting. The study extended the viable system model by applying it in this phenomenological enquiry and using it to explain/deepen our understanding of the findings that emerged. The output of this work contributes to scholarly knowledge on service productivity management from the sub-Saharan African banks’ perspective. It can be generalisable in countries with similar financial and economic characteristics like the research setting.

The aim of this chapter is to determine the relationship between labor productivity and economic development. In this context, the annual data of Turkey on a range of 1970–2017 are included in the study period. On the other hand, these data are tested with the help of Toda Yamamoto causality analysis. Thus, it will be possible to determine whether there is a strong relationship between the two variables. According to the obtained results of the analysis, it is defined that there is a causal relationship from labor productivity to economic growth in Turkey. Based on these results, it can be said that labor productivity should rise in order to increase economic development in Turkey. For this purpose, educational programs in Turkey can be revised with the help of a detailed study. In this process, cooperation with companies to understand the needs in the market plays a key role. Additionally, regulations should also be prepared related to the salaries of the employees. If it can be possible to prevent employees from receiving wages below a certain amount by placing a minimum legal limit on salaries, it will be possible to increase the motivation of the employees. This situation has a positive and significant contribution to the labor productivity.