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>>I'm up here in the ivory tower, so perhaps this is a silly question: if
>>management constantly throttles both productivity and creativity, how do
>>corps produce new products and generate profits? Doesn't even a
>>capitalist economy demand innovation? For instance, if creativity in
>>research and devel is stifled in one pharma and encouraged in another,
>>wouldn't the creativity-stifled pharma miss out on the profits generated
>>by new patented drugs?
>>
It happens in spite of management, or it just plain doesn't happen. In
pharma, a lot of the "new" discoveries are just new labels slapped on
old products. In hi tech you get....Vista. etc.
>>Also, I'm not sure I understand the distinction between productivity and
>>efficiency. Isn't increasing efficiency just producing more goods and
>>services per worker?
>>
>>
For example. I'm a tech writer. The company I work for right now is
forcing me to use authoring software that is twenty years old and is a
nightmare to use. So, in order for me to be productive, I have to work
twice as hard just to do my normal job....because I have to fight this
#^$%(&* software every step of the way. They can terrorize me into being
more productive, but the only way to gain in efficiency would be to
replace the stupid tools with better tools.
I think the issue of workers have to do their work with out-of-date or bad tools is not restricted to hi tech.
Joanna