Organizational Barriers to Technology Adoption: Evidence from Soccer-Ball Producers in Pakistan*
Quarterly Journal of Economics · 2017 · David Atkin、Azam Amjad Chaudhry、Shamyla Chaudry、Amit Kumar Khandelwal、Eric Verhoogen
中文摘要
本文研究了巴基斯坦锡亚尔科特足球生产商集群中的技术采用。我们发明了一种减少主要原材料浪费的新切割技术，并将该技术提供给随机抽取的一部分生产商。尽管对几乎所有企业都有明确的净收益，但在15个月后，采用率依然低得令人费解。我们假设缺乏采用的一个重要原因是企业内部激励不一致：关键员工（切割工和印花工）通常按计件工资支付，没有减少浪费的激励，且新技术会减慢他们的速度，至少在初期如此。由于担心有效工资下降，员工以各种方式抵制采用，包括向所有者误报该技术的价值。为检验这一假设，我们在最初获得该技术的企业中实施了第二个实验：我们向每家企业的一名切割工和一名印花工提供一笔一次性支付，约等于一个月的收入，条件是他们在所有者在场的情况下展示使用该技术的能力。从企业的角度来看，这一激励支付数额很小，但对采用产生了统计显著的正向效应。结果表明，企业内部激励不一致是我们研究情境下技术采用的一个重要障碍。
Abstract
Abstract This article studies technology adoption in a cluster of soccer-ball producers in Sialkot, Pakistan. We invented a new cutting technology that reduces waste of the primary raw material and gave the technology to a random subset of producers. Despite the clear net benefits for nearly all firms, after 15 months take-up remained puzzlingly low. We hypothesize that an important reason for the lack of adoption is a misalignment of incentives within firms: the key employees (cutters and printers) are typically paid piece rates, with no incentive to reduce waste, and the new technology slows them down, at least initially. Fearing reductions in their effective wage, employees resist adoption in various ways, including by misinforming owners about the value of the technology. To investigate this hypothesis, we implemented a second experiment among the firms that originally received the technology: we offered one cutter and one printer per firm a lump-sum payment, approximately a month’s earnings, conditional on demonstrating competence in using the technology in the presence of the owner. This incentive payment, small from the point of view of the firm, had a significant positive effect on adoption. The results suggest that misalignment of incentives within firms is an important barrier to technology adoption in our setting.