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Since the 1970s productivity growth in most economies slowed, while information and communication technology expenditures increased: the “information technology (IT) productivity paradox.” Some researchers reported an end to the paradox, but this is most likely due to IT industry growth approaching the Year 2000 phenomenon. The purpose of this paper is to update IT productivity paradox research.

For comparability this research replicates methods employed by previous studies but employs a two-level approach: first macroeconomic indicators; second labor and multi-factor productivity.

Findings suggest IT investment has high positive correlation with gross domestic product growth, but not labor or multi-factor productivity. This ambiguity suggests the paradox is still poorly understood.

The findings are not conclusive; the authors cannot confirm or reject the existence of the productivity paradox. The global recession and banking crisis makes it prudent to wait until recovery before analyzing data from that period.

Lack of convincing evidence supporting positive effects from IT investment suggests some firms benefit from IT investment, but not others, and that IT investment has questionable returns.

Firm level studies might find IT investment benefits some firms, but lack of convincing macroeconomic level evidence of positive effects of IT investment suggests the paradox still exists.

This research updates the IT productivity paradox demonstrating the phenomenon is still poorly understood and thus worthy of further study, questioning the benefits of IT investment for industry and national economies.

From the early 1980s to the late 1990s overall productivity rates did not reflect the rising investment in information and computer technology (ICT). This paradox, the productivity paradox, which was widely discussed among economists may well turn out to be mainly a mirage once the assumption is excluded that investment has a short‐run effect on productivity. The apparent productivity paradox seems to be rooted in an ICT infrastructure that is inadequate and in an increase in income disparities that thwart the realization of economies of scale.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an engineering perspective on the modern productivity paradox. Specifically, to shed new light on the failure of information and communication technology (ICT) to increase overall factor productivity.

To this end, alternative approaches to modeling material processes are presented and discussed. Empirical evidence is brought to bear on the question of ICT productivity. Finally, the implication of the findings for production and management technology are presented and discussed.

The principal finding is theoretical in nature, namely that, according to classical mechanics and applied physics, ICT is not physically productive. Rather, information is an organizational input.

By identifying the role of ICT in material processes, the paper provides a framework to better understand and evaluate ICT investment, both at the firm and industry level. While ICT does not contribute to increasing physical output, it does nonetheless increase profitability. On a broader level, the paper provides a framework to evaluate ICT‐related public policy measures.

Among the contributions of the paper are the use of basic engineering principles to shed light on the modern productivity paradox; and the conclusion that information, unlike energy, is not physically productive and as such cannot be counted upon to increase output.

Information Technology has transformed the banking sector with respect to various systems and processes. Banks have adopted various measures to quicken their business activity and also save cost and time. That is why there has been large requirement of IT in the banking sector. The question arises whether this investment is enhancing the profitability of the bank or not. The purpose of this paper is to examine the presence of profitability paradox in Indian Banking Sector.

Data are collected from ten nationalized banks and three private sector banks from 2006 to 2013. The impact of IT expenditure on return on assets and profit efficiency is examined. Profit efficiency is determined using Stochastic Frontier Analysis. Data are collected from annual reports of the banks. Data on IT expenditure are collected through Right to Information Act 2005. Correlation and Panel Regression are used to investigate the relationship between IT expenditure and ROE or Profit Efficiency.

The findings of the paper confirm the presence of profitability paradox in the Indian Banking sector.

Extension of this study to other developing countries of the world will help to identify if any common pattern is there among the developing countries as far as productivity or profitability paradox is concerned.

There are some studies on the impact of IT on the banking sector in USA and Europe. This type of study however is rare in the context of India or for that matter other developing countries. Therefore, this paper will add new dimension to the existing literature and pave the way for future research in this area.

Looks at why investment in the work environment is important to the success of investment in information technology. Begins by looking at the history of the use of computers in the office environment, detailing in particular how the introduction of computers has altered office practices. Goes on to discuss the productivity paradox of knowledge workers, that is the ways in which management of the office environment enables productivity to increase.

Prior IT productivity research usually assumes constant returns on IT investment. This study suggests that the impact of IT investment on productivity may not be constant but may change with the IT investment scale and over time. Specifically, we divide IT investment into commercial IT and in-house IT and investigate their changing impacts on industry labor productivity.

A model of the productivity impacts of commercial IT and in-house IT with changing effects of scale and over time is developed and empirically tested based on industry-level panel data from the US. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).

The returns on commercial IT investment increase with scale but decrease over time, while the returns on in-house IT increase over time.

This study provides a new perspective for IT productivity research by investigating the changing productivity impacts of IT investment. It also suggests that commercial IT and in-house IT should be distinguished, as they have different impacts on productivity.

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 authors provide firm-level evidence that external financing affects international trade in a way different from internal financing.

The authors separate new entrants from incumbent exporters and investigate the roles of external and internal financing in export market participation and export quantity.

The authors find that external financing is of particular importance, as well as internal financing, in helping a firm become a new exporter. By contrast, external financing, unlike internal financing, is not significantly important for an incumbent exporter to stay in the international market. Regarding export quantity, a firm's internal financing is positively associated with more export quantity, whereas external financing is not.

The authors’ findings are consistent with the existence of significant fixed cost for entering the export market and external financing is particularly needed to cover such cost. Meanwhile, the financial need for maintaining the export status is much less and can be satisfied via internal financing.

There are manifold causal linkages between information and communications technologies (ICTs) and social sustainability. In this article, these linkages are classified into three areas: direct improvement of corporate productivity, changed behaviour of people/organizations, and improved decision‐making capabilities within society. A framework is proposed to analyse the first two of these three linkages, together with the results of a questionnaire survey. These point to a continuous growth trend in Japanese ICT investment with sectoral variations, and statistically significant evidence of ICTs’ contributions to corporate operations and environmental issues.