| Abstract: | In the modern economy firms, in addition to the ‘traditional’ production factors - traditional
physical capital and labour - increasingly tend to form and use some ‘new’ types of
production factors: information and communication technologies (ICT) capital, human capital
and organizational capital. It is therefore necessary to investigate the effect of these new
production factors on firm performance in various contexts and also to compare it with the
effect of the traditional production factors in various contexts. In this paper is described a
comparative empirical study of the effect of the ICT capital, the human capital, the
organizational capital (new organizational practices associated with ‘employee voice’ and
new forms of ‘work design’) and their combination on labour productivity in Greece and
Switzerland. This study has been based on firm-level data from both countries, which have
been collected through a common questionnaire, from samples of similar composition
(concerning firm sizes and sectors). Based on these data econometric models of similar
specification have been estimated for both countries based on the framework of firm-level
production function. From these models it is concluded that in both countries physical capital,
ICT capital, human capital and new “employee voice”-oriented organizational practices have
a statistically significant positive effect on labour productivity. Also, some considerable
differences between the two countries have been identified: Swiss firms are more efficient and
mature in creating, using and combining these ‘new’ production factors (ICT capital, human
capital, organizational capital and knowledge capital) than the Greek ones. These conclusions
have interesting policy implications both at the firm and government level. |
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Greek