van Biema M, Greenwald B
Columbia Business School, New York City, USA.
Harv Bus Rev. 1997 Jul-Aug;75(4):87-95.
In the two decades following World War II, U.S. productivity grew at an annual rate of 3%. But since the beginning of the 1970s, it has grown at only about 1%. Had the earlier rate been sustained, the gross domestic product would now be about $11 trillion instead of about $6.5 trillion. That extra $4.5 trillion per year in economic output would have had a profound impact on a wide range of social and economic problems. What is preventing a productivity revival in the U.S. economy? Clearly not the manufacturing sector, which has rebounded since the early 1980s. The service sector, on the other hand, has seen productivity growth rates stagnate during the same period. Why? Michael van Biema and Bruce Greenwald believe that the usual explanations are incomplete and have resulted in some serious misconceptions. The authors point out the limitations of those explanations and offer one of their own. They lay the blame in two places: the ineffectiveness of many service-sector managers at improving productivity and the inherent complexity of the sector itself. The authors argue that the problem is not a lack of resources; rather, it is that service sector companies operate below their potential. If managers focused on putting the existing technologies, labor force, and capital stock to work, rapid productivity growth would follow. Although the service sector is complex, the authors believe that managers would do well to apply the same tools, techniques, and policies that have been so effective in manufacturing sector. Doing so would help them keep their eye on the ball - the efficiency of basic operations.
在第二次世界大战后的二十年里，美国的生产率以每年3%的速度增长。但自20世纪70年代初以来，其增长率仅约为1%。如果维持早期的增长率，国内生产总值现在将约为11万亿美元，而不是约6.5万亿美元。每年额外的4.5万亿美元经济产出将对一系列广泛的社会和经济问题产生深远影响。是什么阻碍了美国经济生产率的复苏？显然不是制造业，制造业自20世纪80年代初以来已经反弹。另一方面，服务业在同一时期生产率增长率停滞不前。为什么？迈克尔·范·比埃马和布鲁斯·格林沃尔德认为，通常的解释并不完整，并且导致了一些严重的误解。作者指出了这些解释的局限性，并提出了自己的一种解释。他们将责任归咎于两个方面：许多服务业经理提高生产率的效率低下以及该行业本身固有的复杂性。作者认为问题不在于缺乏资源；相反，是服务业公司的运营未达到其潜力。如果经理们专注于使现有技术、劳动力和资本存量发挥作用，生产率将迅速增长。尽管服务业很复杂，但作者认为经理们最好应用在制造业中如此有效的相同工具、技术和政策。这样做将有助于他们专注于关键问题——基本运营的效率。
