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Increasing Productivity: Global Mantra but Local Meanings
Professor Sally Davenport
Victoria Management School
Victoria University of Wellington
PO Box 600
Wellington
New Zealand
Dr Michelle Renton
Victoria Management School
Victoria University of Wellington
PO Box 600
Wellington
New Zealand
Dr Jane Bryson
Victoria Management School
Victoria University of Wellington
PO Box 600
Wellington
New Zealand
Dr Urs Daellenbach
Victoria Management School
Victoria University of Wellington
PO Box 600
Wellington
New Zealand
Professor Shirley Leitch
Deputy Vice Chancellor, Academic
Swinburne University
VIC
Australia
Professor Judy Motion
School of English, Media and Performing Arts
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
University of New South Wales
NSW 2052
Australia
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Simon Scott
Victoria Management School
Victoria University of Wellington
PO Box 600
Wellington
New Zealand
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Increasing Productivity – Global Mantra but Local Meanings
Introduction
The sad reality, however, is that Canada, even after all this effort, is slipping badly on
the productivity front…. In 2003 and 2004 growth per output in the business sector in
Canada was essentially zero. In the US the growth has been 3.5 per cent a year since
2000. We are 25 percentage points behind the U.S. and we are ranked 17th among the
top 30 industrial nations. (Atkins, 2006: 1)
Productivity means many things to many people - and therein lies the challenge for
useful exploration of the topic: is it one concept or several? Or is it one multi faceted
concept? Or is the construction of the concept evolving? (Bryson et al., 2008: 1)
Nations all around the world appear to be concerned with the levels of productivity in their
economy and the challenge of poor productivity to their international status as indicated by
league tables such as the OECD rankings. This is despite the fact that serious issues with
approaches to conceptualising, let alone measuring, productivity were identified decades ago
(eg. Griliches and Mairesse, 1983; Berndt and Fuss, 1986 and references therein). In
particular, there is apparent confusion over the levels of analysis and nomenclature (eg.
Pritchard et al., 1988) with productivity units at: national; sector or industry; enterprise or
organisation or firm or workplace; workgroup; or individual levels.
This paper will explore variations and distinctive features of the way in which productivity is
discussed around the world. Not only are there measurement and unit of analysis
uncertainties, there are also semantic instabilities in the productivity discourse. Definitions
vary as do the contexts in which it is framed and the audiences to which the productivity
discourse is addressed. This ambiguity likely affects the types of initiatives implemented as
efforts directed towards increasing productivity. By analysing a selection of productivity
reports from four different countries (New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom and
Canada) over a ten year period (2000-2009), we will map the discursive representations of the
concept „productivity‟ in order to gain insights into the local meanings of, as well as global
similarities in, approaches to generating productive change.
Discourse strategies constitute the means by which actors achieve goals within discourse (van
Dijk, 1997a). The aims of productivity discourses and the strategies invoked in an attempt to
spur, often unspecified, actors to action, indicate a striking level of rhetorical isomorphism
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(the tendency to be alike). The paper will explore the nature of the similarities which occur
despite the different political and cultural contexts and the uncertainty surrounding the very
notion of productivity, and posit some potential reasons for such mimetic discursive
isomorphism.
Literature
Isomorphism
As organizations struggle to attain legitimacy they tend act in ways that make them appear
similar to other organizations that have already achieved legitimacy in their field. Such
institutional isomorphism has been the subject of studies in many different contexts and types
of organizations (see summaries in Mizruchi & Fein, 1999; Baretto and Baden-Fuller, 2006),
including both private and increasingly public sectors (eg. Frumkin & Galaskiewicz, 2004;
Villadsen et al., 2010). Most refer to two seminal works in neo-institutional theory. First that
of Meyer and Rowan (1977) who posited that organizations were prone to construct stories
about their actions that conformed to socially prescribed expectations of how such
organizations ought to act, even if the actuality of what the organization had done was quite
different. Second, Di Maggio and Powell (1983) developed the concept further, arguing that
organizations become increasingly similar over time as they respond to pressures from
stakeholders in the organizational competition for political and institutional legitimacy.
Di Maggio and Powell (1983) described three isomorphic mechanisms: coercive, normative
and mimetic. Coercive isomorphism “results from both formal and informal pressures
exerted on organizations by other organizations upon which they are dependent and by
cultural expectations in the society within which organizations function” (Di Maggio and
Powell, 1983: 150). Normative isomorphism “stems primarily from professionalization” by
which Di Maggio and Powell mean “the collective struggle of members of an occupation to
define the conditions and methods of their work… to establish a cognitive base and
legitimation for their occupational autonomy” (1983: 152). Mimetic isomorphism occurs
when organizations model themselves on other organizations because of uncertainty in the
environment, as “uncertainty is a powerful force that encourages imitation” (Di Maggio and
Powel, 2003: 151). Thus, “mimetic isomorphism (or „mimicry‟) provides legitimacy and is
more likely to happen when managers face ambiguous situations with unclear solutions”
(Barreto and Baden-Fuller, 2006: 1561).
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Whilst much of the focus of neo-institutional isomorphism debate is on mimicry of
organizational structures and strategies, decision-making and actions, homogeneity in
organizational discourses can also be a consequence of isomorphic pressures (eg. Davenport
and Leitch, 2009). Creating legitimacy often involves the assertion of one discourse over
another (Sutherland, 2005) with the result that a new „common sense‟ emerges (Laclau and
Mouffe, 1985). Similarly to organizational isomorphism, mimetic discourse can thus enable
the author to appear “more rational and prudent to the social system” (Deephouse and Carter,
2005). We propose that the subject of this paper, the (inter-) national discourses on
productivity, are reaching a seemingly „common sense‟ status that provides inherent
legitimacy to the concept and authors yet this universalised discourse is by no means
homogenous when it is analysed in detail.
Productivity and its Measurement
At the simplest level, productivity can be defined as the efficiency with which volumes of
measured inputs are converted into volumes of measured outputs (Janssen and McLoughlin,
2008). Two measurements of productivity are commonly used, labour productivity and multi
factor productivity. Labour productivity, (LP) is a measure of outputs produced by a volume
amount of labour input, while multi factor productivity (MFP) measures output not
attributable to physical capital, labour, materials or other inputs and may include growth in
output derived from more efficient use of existing resources, or from the introduction of more
efficient production processes. MFP is therefore measured as a residual, and as such, is prone
to errors in the evaluation of production inputs.
Significant conceptual difficulties exist in understanding labour and multi factor productivity,
for example, increases in average labour productivity (ALP) over time can be explained
through the more efficient use of existing resources per unit of labour, and as such, uses a
measure of MFP to account for a positive effect on ALP. Separating out the effects of MFP
from ALP in creating productivity improvements may be conceptually and practically
difficult.
Additionally, diverse arrays of measures are used to investigate productivity related research
questions. Productivity can be assessed using economy wide measures, enabling aggregate
comparisons across countries of both labour and multi factor productivity such as those found
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in the OECD standings. Measurements chosen may vary according to the argument one wants
to make. Keep, Mayhew and Payne (2006) illustrate this point citing two policy documents
issued in December 2005 by the UK HM Treasury in which one argues the UK has poor
productivity performance on the basis of an output per hour worked measure, and the other
argues significant progress in productivity using an output per worker measurement. The
concept of productivity is therefore both complex and ambiguous. It is however, also a
widely used notion and one that is the focus of governments, economists, business owners,
managers and individual workers alike to connote the economic measurement of outputs.
However, productivity may be more broadly conceptualised within different national
discourses and it is this that we wish to explore.
Research approach
Based on our interest in differences and similarities in productivity discuss, our research centred
on three questions:
1) What were the definitions of productivity and productivity growth used, and how did
they differ between Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand in the period
1998-2009?
2) What was the nature (as indicated by keywords) of the discourse surrounding
productivity and what similarities and differences existed between the four countries?
3) What are the discursive strategies enrolled in support of the productivity growth?
Discourse analysis
The study of discourse is here understood to mean the analysis of interrelated sets of texts that
„systematically form the objects of which they speak‟ (Foucault, 1972: 49). The study of
discourse practices, then, is the analysis of the means by which such objects are formed. The
concept of „intertextuality‟ (Bakhtin, 1986; Kristeva, 1986) refers to the relations that exist
between texts. Every text may be seen as a „link in a chain of texts, reacting to, drawing in
and transforming other texts‟ (Fairclough and Wodak, 1997: 262). The implication of this
insight is that it is meaningless to analyse texts in isolation from one another (Grant et al.,
2004; van Dijk, 1997a, 1997b). Rather, textual analysis necessarily involves an examination
of related links in the intertextual chain in order to understand how a particular text
reproduces and/or transforms meaning. Intertextual analysis can, therefore, contribute to our
understanding of the processes by which change occurs. In this study we analyse the
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intertextual chain that links reports intended to drive significant productivity growth from four
different countries, New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom and Canada.
Intertextual linkages may be traced through the analysis of the lexicalization or word choices
that are drawn on by chains of texts (van Dijk, 1995). Fairclough (1993: 129) contended that
„discourses “word” or “lexicalize” the world in particular ways‟. He further argued that
„discourses may use the same words . . . but they may use them differently, and again it is
only through focusing upon semantic relations that one can identify these differences‟ (pp.
130–1). The central focus of this study is on analysing the ways in which the words
„productivity‟ and other words such as „growth‟ are used within a set of interrelated texts and
the role that this word usage plays in facilitating a coherent presentation of a productivity
message.
We adopt Raymond Williams‟ (1976/1983) term „keywords‟ to describe words that express
central concepts within particular texts and discourses. Keywords are highly salient words
within a discourse closely associated with the issues that are central to that discourse as well
as words for which there are multiple meanings, (Williams, 1976/1983), Williams‟ keyword
analysis, is always contextual, historically situated in a particular society and culture. Our
keyword analysis is situated within the context of the productivity growth discourse in the
four countries during the period 1998-2009.
Leximancer
Leximancer is a software tool which extracts, counts and rates common concepts from
multiple texts (Cummings and Dallaenbach, 2009) identifying themes and conducting
thematic analysis of the words used in the texts. The programme generates concept maps,
graphical representations which may be compared to show how the discourse on productivity
shifts between different contexts (in this case between four nations). giving an insight into the
impacts of the local meanings of productivity and productive growth. We used Leximancer to
undertake a key word and thematic analysis of the productivity reports from Australia, New
Zealand, the United Kingdom and Canada. Leximancer has the advantage that it extracts
keywords based on frequency and co-occurrence and, as well enables specific keywords to be
seeded within an analysis. We chose the former approach so that the analyses reflect
keywords and concepts featured most prominently within the four country texts.
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An individual Leximancer concept map was created for each report, using default settings,
and then combined maps were formed for the 5 reports from each country. The form and
layout of the Leximancer concept maps convey a large amount of information (Smith, 2008).
There are five major features of the maps:
1) The brightness of a concept is related to its frequency (i.e. the brighter the concept,
the more often it appears in the text).
2) The brightness of links connecting concepts relates to how often the two connected
concepts co-occur closely within the text.
3) Nearness in the map indicates that two concepts appear in similar conceptual contexts
(i.e. they co-occur with similar other concepts).
4) (Coloured) circles with names surround local clusters of concepts. These are called
themes, and form around highly connected concepts which are parents of thematic
clusters. Leximancer labels themes based on the most central and frequently occurring
concept.
5) A set of pathways connecting concepts on the map. The pathways navigate the most
likely path in conceptual space between concepts, and help with interpretation of the
map.
Report selection
The initial search for reports began with a visit to the relative Google homepage for each
country and a search on the term „productivity‟. Some reports were available directly while
others were located by following appropriate links in order to gain access, and then
downloaded and saved. All links from a minimum of twenty pages of Google results were
followed to find each country‟s pool of reports, with a resultant pool of over 220 reports from
the four countries.
From this pool, twenty matched reports were selected with five from each country (Table 1).
Two main selection criteria were used. Where possible the reports were selected because of
the inclusion of the word „productivity‟ in the title and secondly that each contained a section
which described the productivity situation or trends in the country of origin. In addition, we
searched for reports taking an economy-wide (rather than issue specific) approach to
productivity. One report (Aus4) did not fit the productivity title criterion but was focused on
productivity issues, and no alternatives fitting the selection crieteria were found so it was
included to complete the set in the first analysis.
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From the sub-set of reports satisfying the above criteria, the report pool was narrowed down
along 5 dimensions:
1) Early in the period (1998-2003). Three of the early reports were from between
1998-2000, one slightly later report (2003) was from New Zealand and was
included because it was the earliest report for New Zealand that was publicly
available on the internet;
2) Late in the period (2007-2009);
3) A representative report from a government department (noting that most of those in
categories 1 and 2 were also from government departments);
4) A representative report from a lobby or industry group; and
5) A report with a labour or wages focus.
Table 1 gives the titles and dates of the twenty reports along with the labels used to attribute
excerpts used in this paper which accord with the 5 categories given above, that is, the early
report from New Zealand is „NZ1‟ while the government report from Canada is labelled
„Can3‟ etc.
Analysis – Local Meanings
Definitions
The definitions of productivity used in the reports vary greatly in terms of their specificity. At
one extreme, the early report from New Zealand (NZ1) defines productivity using a
mathematical formula:
In general, a productivity index is defined as the ratio of an output index to an input index,
that is:
where At is a productivity index, Qt is an output index and I t is an input index. Each
index represents accumulated growth from period 0 to period t.
At the other extreme several of reports use vague conceptions of productivity, such as this
example which equates productivity and competitiveness:
The single best measure of competitiveness is productivity as it reflects overall performance and
hence relates to the relative efficiency of an economy. (UK3)
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Most of reports, though, employ a fairly non-technical description aligning productivity with
production, living standards or efficiency and expressing it as an output/input ratio of some
form:
An economy‟s output depends on two things: how many people are working; and how much
they produce, that is how productive they are. Productivity is the main determinant of national
living standards. It refers to how well an economy uses the resources it has available by relating
the quantity of inputs to outputs. (UK1).
Of the twenty reports, fifteen progressed to specifically define labour productivity (LP) and
eleven of those then defined total- (TFP) or multi-factor productivity (MFP), as typified in
this Australian report:
There are two commonly used measures of productivity: labour productivity, which is the volume of
output per hour worked; and MFP, which is the volume of output from a bundle of both labour and capital
inputs. MFP provides the better indicator of the overall improvement in an economy‟s efficiency, as it
measures the growth in economic output above that directly attributable to growth in measured capital
and labour inputs. (Aus3)
Despite the fact that many of the reports identify that MFP as probably a better measure of
productivity, they tend to focus on LP because it is easier to measure. For example, the early
UK report (UK1) states that:
Output per worker has the advantage of being easy to calculate because the data, namely total output and
employment, are readily available.
While the Australian Lobby report (Aus4) says this of the two measures:
The most commonly used is labour productivity, but a better indicator of economic efficiency and
effectiveness is multifactor productivity (MFP). This measures the growth in output above that explained
by growth in measured capital and labour inputs….. International comparisons of productivity levels need
to be approached with caution. Most comparisons are based on labour productivity rather than the more
complex measures of multifactor productivity.
When the reports do try to explore MFP, it is evident that associated complexity makes it
difficult to give a precise explanation or description of MFP as a concept, with the reports
often falling back on explaining it as a „residual‟, that is, the unexplained remainder of
productivity, sometimes resorting to quite ambiguous descriptions of MFP/TFP„s role:
Multifactor productivity (MFP) takes into account both labour and capital inputs. It is the part of output
growth that cannot be attributed to the growth of labour or capital inputs.(NZ3)
With quality adjustment, quality improvements increase the growth rate of the input and hence its
contribution to output. This means that the size of the residual (or total factor productivity) is reduced,
shedding more light on the sources of growth. (Can4).
Thus our analysis of the reports appears to confirm the literature findings that uncertainties in
defining and measuring productivity persist, yet this does not seem to have hampered the
promotion of productivity as part of the economic discourse in many nations.
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Productivity Concept Relevance
Using Leximancer as an analytical tool, keywords, or „concepts‟, were collated for each of the
reports, according to frequency of use. The analysis showed that while „productivity‟ was a
common concept in all four countries, and „growth‟ a concept closely related to productivity
in each, the emergent themes relating to productivity growth differed between each of the
countries. Whilst concepts such as change, economy, industry, market and output appear at
similar frequency levels across all of the four countries, there were significant variations in
strength of relevance for other themes such as labour, firm and policy. In figure 1, we have
graphed the frequency of concepts (relative to productivity which is 1.0) in such as way as to
illustrate the key distinctive emphases with respect to each country.
As indicated above, growth is a strong concept for all of the countries but is particularly
dominant in the Canadian reports, followed by Australia, New Zealand then the UK. For
Canada, productivity is strongly related to labour (as a grouping of employees, people, staff,
workers etc) and also to wages (salaries). The wages concept occurs at very low levels in the
other 3 countries‟ concept lists, despite this being an aspect of the criteria for selection. In
contrast, the UK and New Zealand reports place an emphasis on skills upon which the
Canadian reports are silent.
The next most obvious area of difference is around the place of firms (businesses, companies
etc) in the documents. The firm grouping is a more prominent concept in the New Zealand
reports relative to labour, and is also important for the UK, but is not so strongly evident in
the Australian and Canadian reports. The role of capital appears to be of similar relevance for
all countries. In contrast to the significance of firms in the New Zealand data, the role of
government as represented by policies, is very low but given higher prominence in the UK,
Canada and Australia. The innovation and performance concepts are emphasised in the New
Zealand, UK and to a lesser extent Australian reports, but are absent from the Canadian data.
In summary then, whilst growth is a common productivity theme, the key differences derived
in a pure concept/keyword analysis appear to be that the Canadian reports emphasise labour
and wages, the New Zealand reports, labour and firms, the Australian reports have lesser
emphases on labour, capital and performance and finally the UK reports appear to be fairly
„well-rounded‟ with the absence of wages being a key differentiator. Whilst it may be argued
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that the choice of reports might produce such differences, our process of matching five reports
of similar authorship and context from each country to form the concept frequency statistics
should mitigate against such bias.
The concept frequency data highlight that differences exist, but they do little to shed light on
why. We could argue, for example, that the history of „free market‟ laissez faire policy and
regulation settings put in train in New Zealand in the early 1980s may have caused the
heightened relevance of firm and capital themes at the expense of government, but such a
conclusion requires support from additional analysis. In particular, the concept lists do not
necessarily illustrate the relationships between concepts and this is where Leximancer concept
mapping may be able to add evidence for the linkages between certain productivity trends and
concepts in each country.
Productivity Concept Maps
The Leximancer concept maps group related concepts into themes which are represented as
circles. Size and centrality in the maps are indicators of importance and proximity of themes
indicates how closely these keywords/themes are inter-connected. The distinctive country-
specific differences noted above are still evident in the maps (with more prominent concepts
in brighter colours in figures 2-5) but the relationships add a layer of complexity to our
understanding of how each country approaches productivity. Whilst many of the themes are
the same across countries, there is greater variation between the countries in the
concepts/keywords that occur within themes, the relationships they have with other themes
and in their centrality on the map.
Starting with the productivity theme, it is very central in the Canada map (figure 5) suggesting
it is closely linked to all the other themes, fairly central in the New Zealand map (figure 2) but
more peripheral in both the Australian (figure 3) and UK (figure 4) maps. The overlap
between productivity and the central „capital‟ theme in the UK map suggests that the interest
is in total- or multi-factor productivity rather than labour productivity. In the New Zealand
map, productivity is populated by concepts of market and economy and is closely related to
economic performance we well as growth.
Despite the fact that growth was such a frequently noted concept for most countries, the New
Zealand map is the only one in which growth is raised to theme level and a highly „populated‟
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one at that. The New Zealand growth theme is built upon labour, capital and output concepts
but is distant from the themes of business and firms suggesting that the discussions of growth
are not necessarily aimed at the business sector in the NZ reports. However, given the absence
of government related concepts such as policy and regulation in the New Zealand map, it is
not clear what or who is responsible for the „growing‟ other than perhaps statistics, as data,
output and series are concepts in this theme.
In the other maps, growth remains at a concept level usually as part of the productivity theme
but, in each map, it is connected to quite different concepts. In the Australian map, growth is
connected to rate and labour while in the UK it is connected to economy. In the Canadian
map, growth is actually subsumed under the labour theme and while it is connected to
productivity concepts such as level and sector, it is more strongly connected with concepts
such as goods and labour to be located (just) out of the productivity theme. When this is
factored alongside the separate and central „wages‟ theme, the map strongly reinforces the
distinctive emphasis in Canada of the centrality of labour and wages to productivity growth.
Another distinctive feature of the maps is the placement and relationships of „government‟. In
both the Canadian and UK maps, „government‟ is fairly central and is elevated to theme level.
In the Canadian map the theme is distant from the labour and wages themes but is loosely
connected to firms and is the only government theme to include policy/ies as concepts -
suggesting that a) it is not policies that are expected to generate growth in labour output and
wages but that b) policies might be applied with respect to firm competitiveness.
In both the Australian and New Zealand maps, the government concept is positioned in the
work theme. In the New Zealand map, government relates to employees and through the work
concept to people, suggesting the government‟s role has a stronger employment orientation,
especially as the work theme overlaps with the training theme. In the Australian case, it
appears that government‟s role is to drive change, particularly within the workplace,
reinforced by the fact that the business concept is located next to government within the work
theme. This strong notion of a need for change in the Australian reports is also evident in the
fact the change theme is placed centrally in the map and that „reforms‟ is a concept connected
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to productivity. In fact, this is the only time that change and reform surface as major
keyword/themes in any of the maps1.
For the UK, the government theme is connected to, but less central than, capital, management
and firms, suggesting a very strong link between government and business in productivity,
which is again reinforced by the fact that the concepts business, investment, work and market
are a part of the „government‟ theme. Of particular note in the UK map is the number of
themes relating to organisation level themes, including firms, innovation, management, as
well as a cluster of themes labelled skills, performance and regions perhaps indicating a shift
of focus away from a centralised approach to productivity towards regional initiatives.
The New Zealand map has fewer themes overall than all of the other maps and also has very
strong cluster of private sector related themes of firms, investment, business and performance,
which, with the absence of a government theme, does probably reflect the „free market‟
approach of the last decades to the New Zealand economy. Of particular note is the fact that
the overlap between the investment and firms themes is the skills concept indicating where
the investment is apparently to be focused. In the New Zealand map services is elevated to
theme level overlapping with productivity and business while in the Australian map, work is
linked through the „services‟ concept to industry. The importance of services to productivity
is evident in these two maps and is reinforced by the following except which again highlights
another recognised difficulty with productivity measurement:
Productivity can be hard to measure, especially in economies dominated by the service sector, like New Zealand. (NZ4)
The „firms‟ theme in the New Zealand map is very highly populated with concepts ranging
from staff, processes and training through to information, technology and innovation. It might
be expected that technology, R&D and innovation would be concepts that arise in discussions
of productivity as, although the relationship is not always supported in statistical analyses,
generally investments in innovation are thought to drive productivity growth in firms (eg.
Griffith et al., 2006). As in the concept relevance, the role of innovation and related concepts
1 One bias that may have been introduced in the analysis is the size of the early Australian report (Aus1) which
at nearly 300 pages is significantly larger than the others. Given its subject includes „reforms‟ it could argued
that this is the cause of the prominence attributed to related notions. However, given the concept reform had only
24% frequency relative to productivity for this individual report, we propose that the reform and change concepts
must have been present in other reports to have raised the notion to theme level, but it is an aspect that will
require further analysis.
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varied greatly across our country maps. In the UK map, innovation is raised to theme level
and is linked to the R&D concept in the firm theme and through activity to the skills theme,
suggesting that innovation-related topics are important in the UK‟s productivity discussions.
In the New Zealand map, innovation and technology are concepts in the „firms‟ theme, while
in the Australian map, the innovation concept is located with firms in the performance theme,
closely connected to both the research and development concepts. As indicated in the concept
frequency analysis, the Canadian map contains little reference to innovation, technology,
R&D or research concepts suggesting that these factors have not arisen greatly in this
country‟s productivity discussions.
In summary then, the analysis of concepts in the twenty productivity reports indicate that
there are a range of subtle and not-so-subtle nuances to the productivity discussions in each
country which will be reflecting the differing political and cultural contexts within which the
reports have been written. Having said that, though, there are also several discourse strategies
which are consistent across the countries, which we will now discuss.
Discussion – Global Mantras
The consistent elements across the four countries were not so much centred on themes or
keywords as described above, but with certain discursive devices that were observed
regarding how the topics and data presented in the reports were harnessed for persuasive
purposes. Four different rhetorical strategies surfaced in the productivity reports which we
have called: aspirational; fear of failure; national threat; and exhortation to action. These are
our global mantras as, despite the nuances that surfaced in the concept analysis, they are
relatively common across all of the reports. This suggests that the productivity reports have a
role over and above that of describing the state of productivity in each nation and that role
includes using elements of shock tactics and persuasion to invoke action on productivity
related issues.
Aspirational
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In the first mantra, that of aspiration, almost all of the reports contain productivity-related
goals to which the nation must aspire, be it in terms of OECD ranking or a raise in standard of
living levels (not often given in explicit detail) that had supposedly been enjoyed at a previous
point in time. Examples include:
Productivity growth is important to Australia because, through income growth, it contributes to our
community wellbeing. (AusG)
The challenge for the future is to build on where our workplaces are performing well, while also
achieving improvements that move New Zealand to a sustainable, high value, high skill and high wage
economy. To achieve this will require engaging New Zealanders and lifting national awareness about
what improved productivity can contribute to our lives. (NZLabour)
High productivity at a firm level contributes to the overall productivity of the national economy, which in
turn helps to create higher living standards. Workplace productivity therefore benefits everyone. (NZ
Labour)
For this reason, the Government aims to raise the economy‟s trend growth rate – the long-term rate at which the economy can grow without causing inflationary pressures. (UK early)
Of particular note in the aspirational rhetoric is the role of comparisons with other countries in
emphasising the goals to be achieved. Productivity growth rates above that of the local
economy are usually cited so that such comparisons are overwhelmingly negative, portraying
the home nation as „behind‟ and that the aspiration, as below, is to „narrow the gap‟.
The Government‟s economic policy has a central aim of narrowing the productivity gap between the UK
and its main competitors such as the USA, France and Germany (UK5).
We specifically looked for examples of inter-country comparisons in all of the reports and
found at least nineteen examples in eleven of the twenty reports (Table 2). Whilst the subject
of the comparisons varied from management practices to competitiveness, labour and
total/multi-factor productivity growth, fourteen of the comparisons were unfavourable to the
host nation with only five painting the host country in a favourable light.
Fear of Failure
Coupled with these negative comparisons between productivity levels across different
countries, a common rhetorical strategy was used to invoke fear around the consequences of a
nation not achieving the productivity levels to which it aspired. As is exemplified in the
following excerpt, alongside the statistics, comparisons tend to employ quite emotional terms
such as „disappointing‟, „poor‟ „deteriorated‟, „in danger of‟, „decline‟ and even „dismal‟.
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From an international perspective, Canada's productivity growth performance in recent years has been
disappointing. Over the 1989-96 period, output per person employed rose only 4.3 per cent, the smallest increase of the 13 industrial countries for which the US Bureau of Labor Statistics produces data.
Canada's poor performance has meant that our relative productivity level has deteriorated, dropping from
82.2 per cent of output per person employed in the United States in 1989 to 80.5 per cent in 1996,
although our level is still in the mid-range for industrial countries. OECD productivity statistics paint
even a more dismal picture of Canada's business sector productivity performance over the 1979-96
period. Of 22 OECD countries, Canada was 19th in terms of labour productivity, and 21st in terms of
capital and total factor productivity growth. (Can1, emphases added)
Australia‟s productivity record was consistently poor compared with other high-income countries. Over a
very long period, Australia made much less progress than other similarly-placed countries in catching up
to leading international productivity standards…..At the root of the economic problem has been the
failure of productivity to increase at the rates that prevailed during the post-war years to the mid-1970s. (Aus1, emphases added)
The negativity associated with the productivity reports is also evident in some of the report
titles. One of the reports from the UK is titled “Productivity in the UK: Securing Long Term
Prosperity”, insinuating that the prosperity is not secure at present. „Challenge‟ is a key word
used in association with productivity concerns and is present in two of the titles; firstly in
“New Zealand – The Workplace Productivity Challenge” (NZ5), and, coupled with the
evocative word „fading‟ in “Fading Productivity: Making Sense of Canada‟s Productivity
Challenge” (Can4). Productivity is strongly associated with challenges to be overcome:
Differences in language, political systems, culture, values, history and size may act as barriers to
economic integration and provide New Zealand firms with new challenges to overcome in accessing
markets. (NZ2)
The productivity challenge for the UK is to have a faster rise in productivity than its main competitors as
it closes the productivity gap. This challenge is increasing as major economies, especially the US,
continue to have stronger productivity growth than the UK and to widen the productivity gap. (UK1)
Often the fear generated over low productivity levels was reinforced through articulation with
previous levels of living standards or with major world events in the past. In the first quote
the strong „reform‟ driver in Australia sees the need for change associated with decline in
living standards in previous decades. In the Canadian example, images of the Great
Depression and World War II are invoked.
Economic reform in Australia during the 1980s and 1990s resulted from a recognition that longstanding
government policies and institutions, including highly regulated product and labour markets, high levels
of industry protection, centralised wage determination and government ownership of large sections of
economic infrastructure, were major contributors to the sustained decline in Australia‟s relative living
standards in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. (Aus2)
Since 1973, Canada's productivity growth has fallen off substantially. The key explanation of this
slowdown is the ebbing of the impact of the historically unprecedented factors that came together to boost
18
productivity growth in the immediate postwar period (e.g. shift of the workforce out of low productivity
agriculture, increased international trade, rapid capital accumulation and introduction of new technologies
postponed during the Great Depression and World War II). (Can1)
National Threat
The fear invoked by a nation seemingly being „behind‟ others is sometimes manifested as
direct threats, again to (ambiguous) concepts such as „living standards‟ and „well-being‟:
Canada‟s weak productivity performance is especially troubling. If the country does not improve on its
poor performance since 2000, Canadians are likely to see their economic well-being decline relative to
other major industrial countries. (Can3).
Reflecting the conceptual themes from the earlier analysis, excerpts below illustrate a
Canadian threat to real wages, while in the UK, the threat relates to the private sector‟s ability
to innovate and thereby increase productivity:
It is worrying, therefore, that real median earnings failed to increase from 1980 to 2005, while labour
productivity grew 37.4 per cent. If most Canadians are not seeing the benefits of labour productivity
growth in the form of higher real wages, why should they support policies favouring productivity growth?
(Can5)
Innovation without entrepreneurial people to take ideas forward and to exploit their business potential will not contribute to productivity or output. Similarly, enterprises without innovation run the risk of
performing more poorly than other businesses and ultimately failing. (UK5)
Exhortation to Action
The aspirational and threatening rhetorical strategies set the scene for calls for action. Who is
being exhorted to act is sometimes very vague, at other times all encompassing. Often the
expectations are that the action embodies new government policies while for other nations, it
is the private sector that is deemed to be a priority for action. The calls are very normative in
nature (actions „must‟ happen or are „essential‟ or „fundamental‟) and evocative words such as
„urgency‟ and „critical‟ are used to highlight the importance of the „effort‟ needed.
There is no silver bullet. Building sustainable economic growth and lifting living standards demand a
focused effort and strategic approaches across industry, firms and government…. Improving productivity
is not primarily about working harder and harder but about working smarter. It sounds straightforward but
there is no one answer to achieving it. (NZ5)
Since the early 1990s New Zealand‟s rate of economic growth has generally been higher than many other
countries and above the OECD average. This has arrested the decline in New Zealand‟s relative
income….. Nevertheless, to catch up requires a concerted effort in driving growth through as many sectors of the economy as possible, from the firm level up. (NZ5)
To increase productivity, the private sector must increase investment in plant and equipment, train and
motivate its workforce, and undertake greater R&D and diffuse the resulting innovations. (Can1)
In sum, the challenges confronting Australia lend urgency to policy efforts to raise national productivity.
(Aus3)
19
The productivity challenge does not fall solely to the Government. All participants in the economy –
businesses, employees, investors and others – have an important role to play in raising aggregate
economic growth. (UK1)
What does New Zealand need to do? Productivity growth is a dynamic process, facilitated by policies that
establish underlying institutional arrangements in a way that makes it possible for people to seize
economic opportunities as they appear. (NZ4)
These last two calls for action carry with them very strong nationalistic elements, that it is the
patriotic duty of all (eg. the „people‟ to „seize‟ the „opportunity‟) to engage in fighting the
productivity challenge. Effectively the economy becomes the metaphor for the nation as a
healthy productive national economy implies on-going well-being for its organizations and
communities. It becomes „obvious‟, or common sense, that the enemy of the nation is poor
productivity. This seemingly ideological approach to productivity is reminiscent of other
„nation-building‟ discourses which are organized around prioritizing the nation state
(Sutherland, 2005).
Whilst it is not likely that the authors of the various reports purposefully evoked this
metaphor, it is interesting that, despite the lack of a common understanding of how to
measure productivity and also the distinctive local meanings as surfaced by the concept
analysis, the four mantras were common to many of the reports. This apparent isomorphism
appears to be accepted and it is interesting to question the reasons behind the seeming
uniformity in discourse strategies.
The similarities are unlikely to be a form of coercive isomorphism in that there are no
apparent direct pressures from stakeholders to copy the rhetoric of other nations. Certainly,
coercive elements in the „globalising‟ of economic „prescriptions‟ and practices have long
been observed in the influence of organizations such as the World Bank, IMF and WTO on
developing countries (eg. Steinberg, 1997; Biersteker, 1990), despite variation in local
contexts. Whilst it is likely that developing nations may also be coerced into imitating
productivity discourses, such direct (eg through sanctions or trade barriers) coercive pressures
were unlikely to have been directed at the four nations that are the object of this study. Having
said that, more subtle coercion to remedy poor performance can be found, as indicated by the
following commentary in an OECD report describing New Zealand‟s „productivity paradox‟
(McCann, 2009):
The mystery is why a country that seems close to best practice in most of the policies that are regarded as the key drivers is nevertheless just an average performer. (OCED, 2003)
20
It is possible that we may be observing some elements of normative isomorphism in that there
may be tendencies for economists and policy makers worldwide to conform to „standard‟
ways of treating the subject of productivity as proscribed by such influential organizations as
the OECD. Thus, economists in public and private sector organizations conform to the
cognitive norms of their profession, resulting in the international diffusion of productivity
rituals and rhetoric. By doing so, the authors of the reports may be attempting to establish or
confirm their own legitimacy by imitating the major elements and themes of the globalised
productivity discourse.
Lastly, we would suggest it is likely that most of the convergence is a form of mimetic
isomorphism. This is particularly evident in the tendency in all of our countries, and many
others as well, to compare their productivity performance, usually negatively, to that of other
economies to which they aspire. Mimetic isomorphism is probably more likely because of the
uncertainty around what constitutes productivity and the varying definitions that abound, as
well as contextual and cultural influences that are not well understood. Organizations (and we
would suggest report authors) tend to model themselves after others “when goals are
ambiguous, or when the environment creates symbolic uncertainty” (Di Maggio and Powell,
1983: 51). Mimetic isomorphism is thus a logical strategy employed to reduce uncertainty
(Villadsen et al., 2010) with the result that explicit acknowledgement of local contextual
variables is suppressed even though these can be unique to the locale as suggested by our
concept analysis.
Conclusions
Our analysis of the productivity literature (Bryson et al., 2008) and how it is defined in reports
from four countries has shown that considerable semantic instability and ambiguity exists
around the very meaning of productivity and how to measure it, despite the fact that it has
become such a ubiquitous concept. It has become „common sense‟ discursively yet there is no
common understanding, as exemplified in this quotation from a New Zealand economist:
The word "productivity" trips nicely oft the tongue and sounds great in economic speeches. Economists will always press for more of it (as they have been doing for decades). But if they
21
were reasonably honest, they would say they have difficulty measuring it - and if they were
thoroughly candid, they would say they have only rudimentary ideas. (Edlin, 2009).
Our thematic and keyword analysis of the reports has shown that local contextual factors have
considerable influence on what is considered important in discussions of productivity. It is
likely that such variation is wide-spread, not just in our four sample countries, which makes a
mockery of „one-size-fits-all‟ best practice approaches to productivity solutions. It also should
alert those interested in enhancing productivity to be cynical of inter-national comparisons as
the aspirations are not likely to be realistic. A contingency approach to local productivity
issues is probably more appropriate so that effort should be focused on tailoring measures to
local conditions that may then be more sustainable in the long-term.
Despite the wide variation in local themes, significant isomorphism, particularly mimetic
isomorphism, is evident in the global mantras or discourse strategies employed by the report
authors. We propose that this tendency to imitate is probably driven by the uncertainty
surrounding the productivity notion. In many of the reports the economy is effectively
conflated with the country and the discourse strategies invoke strong nationalistic overtones.
We have not yet specifically analysed the remedies employed in the nations to grow
productivity (none appears to wish to decrease productivity!) to contrast this with those
espoused in the documents but it is likely that we would uncover a tension between the
globalised prescriptions and the local contexts.
While it has been interesting to identify the local meanings and global mantras in the
productivity discourses, there is certain irony and futility in the isomorphism generated which
should make those interested in productivity wary. First, the results raise a question about
whether any nation thinks they are addressing the supposed „productivity challenge‟ correctly.
Second, given the merry-go-round of comparisons, if every country is trying to raise national
productivity to levels higher than that observed in other countries, it becomes a never ending
and potentially futile quest. If most countries are extolling working harder or working smarter
as the path to improved productivity, but no nation is happy with their levels of productivity,
it begs the question as to whether the issue is really one of productivity, however defined, or
is more about acknowledging the diversity of potential approaches to building a sustainable
economies and societies.
22
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24
Table 1: Reports included in the Sample
NZ Aus UK Canada
Early NZ1: Productivity in
New Zealand 1988 to 2002 (New Zealand Treasury 2003, pgs 43)
Aus1: Microeconomic
reforms and Australian productivity: exploring the links (Productivity Commission 1999, 264 pgs)
UK1: Productivity in
the UK: The Evidence and the Government’s Approach (HM Treasury 2000, 59 pgs)
Can1: Productivity:
Key to Economic Success – (Centre for the study of Living Standards 1998, 99 pgs)
Late NZ2: Putting Productivity First (NZ Treasury 2008, 32
pgs)
Aus2: Raising the level of productivity growth in the
Australian economy (Australian Treasury 2009, 20 pgs)
UK 2: Productivity in the UK 7: Securing long-term prosperity
(HM Treasury Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform
2007, 68 pgs)
Can2: Three Policies to Improve Productivity Growth in
Canada (Centre for the study of Living Standards 2007, 49 pgs)
Government NZ3: New Zealand’s
Productivity Performance (NZ
Treasury 2008, 30 pgs)
Aus3: Enhancing
Australia's productivity growth (Productivity
Commission 2007, 22 pgs)
UK3: BERR’s role in
raising productivity: new evidence
(Department for Business Enterprise & Regulatory Reform 2008, 107 pgs)
Can3: Business Sector
Productivity in Canada: What Do We Know?
(Industry Canada 2008, 11 pgs)
Industry/Lobby NZ4: Productivity Perspectives (Business NZ 2006, 28 pgs)
Aus4: Embedding Workplace Collaboration: Preventing Disputes
(Business Council of Australia 2009, 16 pgs)
UK4: In search of high value added production: Product strategies, skills and
innovation in UK firms (National Institute of Economic and Social Research 2008, 39
pgs)
Can4: Fading Productivity: Making sense of Canada’s productivity challenge
(Certified General Accountants Association of Canada 2007, 28 pgs)
Labour/Wages NZ5: The Workplace Productivity Challenge (Workplace
Productivity Working Group 2003(?), 98)
Aus5: Management Matters in Australia: Just how productive
are we? (University of Technology Sydney for Department of Innovation, Industry,
Science and Research, Australian Government 2009, 42 pgs)
UK5: Exploring the links between Skills and Productivity: Final
Report (Institute for Employment Research - University of Warwick 2009, 72 pgs)
Can5: The relationship between labour productivity and
real wage growth in Canada and OECD countries (Centre for the study of Living
Standards 2008, 87 pgs)
25
Figure 1
26
Figure 2: Leximancer Concept Map for New Zealand
27
Figure 3: Leximancer Concept Map for Australia
28
Figure 4: Leximancer Concept Map for the UK
29
Figure 5: Leximancer Concept Map for the Canada
30
Table 2: Productivity Comparisons Between Countries.
Comparisons New
Zealand
Australia UK Canada
Unfavourable NZ3:
Australia, US
(LP)
Canada,
Australia, US
(LP growth)
NZ5:
OECD
average (GDP per capita)
NZ4: Australia, US
(productivity
growth)
Aus1:
High income
countries-(productivity)
US(labour prod)
Aus3:
US (productivity)
Aus5:
OECD leaders
(productivity)
USA, Japan,
Germany & Sweden (mgmt practices)
UK2:
US(MFP,
LP)
UK3:
US, France, Germany
(productivity)
Can2:
US, OECD
(productivity growth)
Can3: US(MFP)
Can4:
G8 France,
Russia, UK and
Germany
(competitiveness)
Favourable NZ5:
OECD
average (economic
growth)
Aus3:
EU (productivity)
Aus5:
France, Great
Britain & Germany (mgmt practices)
UK2:
G7,
Germany, France(GDP
per capita –
caught up)
Can3:
US (Capital)