‘Causes and consequences of complementarities between information and communication technologies and business administration and management practices (CACOCOMTICPE)’

Ricard Gil, Carey Business School, Johns Hopkins University and Guillermo Uriz Uharte, University College London.

The project’s ultimate aim is to understand the factors that underlie advances in business productivity; specifically, to discover the causes behind persistent productivity differences (PPD) between firms that appear practically the same across most meaningful dimensions and the relationship between these unequal development levels and their implementation of information and communication technologies (ICTs).

The research team will try to show that the mechanisms whereby ICTs improve firms’ productivity stand in direct relation to their size: the fewer employees (and the lower the turnover), the more limited the scope of productivity gains.

The project will also measure the impact of ICT investment on business innovativeness and the radicality of the corresponding innovations; an investigation which, the team hopes, will unlock a new, original perspective.