IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bol/bodewp/538.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The role of general and firm-specific training for new technology adoption and economic growth: a critical review

Author

Listed:
  • R. Antonietti

Abstract

Aim of this article is to present an overview of the main economic literature focusing on the issue of how technology adoption and the accumulation of technical skills by firms affects the aggregate performance of economic systems. Since the analysis is labour?demand oriented, a differentiation between a mainstream and a non?mainstream approach is supposed to be crucial, the first being consistent with the neoclassical paradigm of the firm and human capital, while the second with the Schumpeterian paradigm and the so called view of the firm as a learning organization . Going through the basic models, the paper argues that while the mainstream approach is primarily based on production costs analyses and the capacity of the market and hierarchies to provide the specific skills in order for workers to deal with new technologies, non?mainstream approaches are mainly oriented to the analysis of dynamic competition, entrepreneurial/managerial skills and within?firm organizational learning processes that are necessary in order to cope with a changing environment.

Suggested Citation

  • R. Antonietti, 2005. "The role of general and firm-specific training for new technology adoption and economic growth: a critical review," Working Papers 538, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    • Handle: RePEc:bol:bodewp:538
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://amsacta.unibo.it/4752/1/538.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daron Acemoglu & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 1998. "Why Do Firms Train? Theory and Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(1), pages 79-119.
    2. Helpman, Elhanan & Rangel, Antonio, 1999. "Adjusting to a New Technology: Experience and Training," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 4(4), pages 359-383, December.
    3. Lawrence F. Katz & Kevin M. Murphy, 1992. "Changes in Relative Wages, 1963–1987: Supply and Demand Factors," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(1), pages 35-78.
    4. Cecilia Chaing & Lindsay McSweeney, 2010. "A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice," CPI Journal, Competition Policy International, vol. 6.
    5. Jacob Mincer, 1993. "Studies In Human Capital," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 316.
    6. Ichniowski, Casey & Shaw, Kathryn & Prennushi, Giovanna, 1997. "The Effects of Human Resource Management Practices on Productivity: A Study of Steel Finishing Lines," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(3), pages 291-313, June.
    7. Timothy F. Bresnahan & Erik Brynjolfsson & Lorin M. Hitt, 2002. "Information Technology, Workplace Organization, and the Demand for Skilled Labor: Firm-Level Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(1), pages 339-376.
    8. Bowles, Samuel & Gintis, Herbert, 1975. "The Problem with Human Capital Theory-A Marxian Critique," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 65(2), pages 74-82, May.
    9. Casey Ichniowski, 1990. "Human Resource Management Systems and the Performance of U.S. Manufacturing Businesses," NBER Working Papers 3449, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Eliasson, Gunnar, 1977. "Competition and Market Processes in a Simulation Model of the Swedish Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(1), pages 277-281, February.
    11. David H. Autor & Lawrence F. Katz & Alan B. Krueger, 1998. "Computing Inequality: Have Computers Changed the Labor Market?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(4), pages 1169-1213.
    12. Hashimoto, Masanori, 1981. "Firm-Specific Human Capital as a Shared Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(3), pages 475-482, June.
    13. Assar Lindbeck & Dennis Snower, 2000. "The Division of Labor and the Market for Organizations," CESifo Working Paper Series 267, CESifo.
    14. Richardson, G B, 1972. "The Organisation of Industry," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 82(327), pages 883-896, September.
    15. Ballot, Gerard & Taymaz, Erol, 2001. "Training policies and economic growth in an evolutionary world," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 311-329, September.
    16. Philippe Aghion & Peter Howitt, 2002. "Wage Inequality and the New Economy," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 18(3), pages 306-323.
    17. Ballot, Gérard & Taymaz, Erol, 1993. "Firm-Sponsored Training, Technical Progress and Aggregate Performance in a Micro-Macro Model," Working Paper Series 402, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    18. Zon, Adriaan van & Antonietti, Roberto, 2005. "Education and Training in a Model of Endogenous Growth with Creative Destruction," Research Memorandum 010, Maastricht University, Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    19. Jacob Mincer, 1962. "On-the-Job Training: Costs, Returns, and Some Implications," NBER Chapters, in: Investment in Human Beings, pages 50-79, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Boothby, Daniel & Dufour, Anik & Tang, Jianmin, 2010. "Technology adoption, training and productivity performance," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 650-661, June.
    2. R. Antonietti, 2006. "The skill content of technological change. Some conjectures on the role of education and job-training in reducing the timing of new technology adoption," Working Papers 556, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zon, Adriaan van & Antonietti, Roberto, 2005. "Education and Training in a Model of Endogenous Growth with Creative Destruction," Research Memorandum 010, Maastricht University, Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    2. Bergemann, Annette & Mertens, Antje, 2004. "Job Stability Trends, Layoffs, and Transitions to Unemployment: An Empirical Analysis for West Germany," IZA Discussion Papers 1368, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Piva, Mariacristina & Santarelli, Enrico & Vivarelli, Marco, 2005. "The skill bias effect of technological and organisational change: Evidence and policy implications," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 141-157, March.
    4. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2373-2437 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Ballot, Gerard & Taymaz, Erol, 2001. "Training policies and economic growth in an evolutionary world," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 311-329, September.
    6. Adriaan van Zon & Robert Antonietti, 2004. "On the Role of Education and Training as Drivers of Growth," DEGIT Conference Papers c009_027, DEGIT, Dynamics, Economic Growth, and International Trade.
    7. Adriaan Zon & Roberto Antonietti, 2016. "Education and training in a model of endogenous growth with creative wear-and-tear," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 33(1), pages 35-62, April.
    8. Jung-Seung Yang, 2022. "Dynamics of Firm’s Investment in Education and Training: An Agent-based Approach," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 60(4), pages 1317-1351, December.
    9. Bergemann, Annette & Mertens, Antje, 2000. "Job stability trends, layoffs and quits: An empirical analysis for West Germany," SFB 373 Discussion Papers 2001,102, Humboldt University of Berlin, Interdisciplinary Research Project 373: Quantification and Simulation of Economic Processes.
    10. Oscar Afonso, 2010. "Growth And Wage Inequality In A Scale‐Independent Model With R&D And Human‐Capital Accumulation," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 78(2), pages 149-182, March.
    11. Yanick Labrie & Claude Montmarquette, 2005. "La formation qualifiante et transférable en milieu de travail," CIRANO Project Reports 2005rp-04, CIRANO.
    12. Ahn, Sanghoon, 2003. "Technology Upgrading with Learning Cost," CEI Working Paper Series 2003-21, Center for Economic Institutions, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    13. Carlos Medina & Christian Posso, 2010. "Technical Change and Polarization of the Labor Market: Evidence for Brazil, Colombia and Mexico," Borradores de Economia 614, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    14. T. Gries & R. Grundmann & I. Palnau & M. Redlin, 2017. "Innovations, growth and participation in advanced economies - a review of major concepts and findings," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 293-351, April.
    15. Dupuy, Arnaud & Marey, Philip S., 2008. "Shifts and twists in the relative productivity of skilled labor," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 718-735, June.
    16. David J. Deming, 2017. "The Growing Importance of Social Skills in the Labor Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(4), pages 1593-1640.
    17. Fibla Gasparín, Ma. Teresa, 2010. "Productivity in southern European small firms: When and how work organization complements process innovation," Working Papers 2072/179600, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    18. Borghans, Lex & Weel, Bas ter, 2001. "What happens when agent T gets a computer?," Research Memorandum 017, Maastricht University, Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    19. Lee, Jong-Wha & Wie, Dainn, 2015. "Technological Change, Skill Demand, and Wage Inequality: Evidence from Indonesia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 238-250.
    20. Irene Brambilla, 2018. "Digital Technology Adoption and Jobs: A Model of Firm Heterogeneity," Department of Economics, Working Papers 117, Departamento de Economía, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
    21. Sandra E. Black & Lisa Lynch & Anya Krivelyova, 2003. "How Workers Fare When Employers Innovate," NBER Working Papers 9569, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bol:bodewp:538. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sebolit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.