The new productivity challenge

"The single greatest challenge facing managers in the developed countries of the world is to raise the productivity of knowledge and service workers," writes Peter F. Drucker in "The New Productivity Challenge." Productivity, says Drucker, ultimately defeated Karl Marx; it gave common laborers the chance to earn the wages of skilled workers. Now five distinct steps will raise the productivity of knowledge and service workers--and not only stimulate new economic growth but also defuse rising social tensions.     

The discipline of innovation.

As managers recognize the heightened importance of innovation to competitive success, they face an apparent paradox: the orderly and predictable decisions on which a business rests depend increasingly on the disorderly and unpredictable process of innovation. How can managers expect to plan for--or count on--a process that is itself so utterly dependent on creativity, inspiration, and old-fashioned luck? Drawing on his many years' experience studying innovative and entrepreneurial companies, the author argues that this paradox is apparent only, not real. Most of what happens in successful innovations is not the happy occurrence of a blinding flash of insight but, rather, the careful implementation of an unspectacular but systematic management discipline. At the heart of that discipline lies the knowledge of where to look for innovation opportunities and how to identify them. It is to this study of the sources of innovation that Mr. Drucker here addresses himself.     

They're not employees, they're people

In this essay, business thinker Peter Drucker examines the changing dynamics of the workforce--in particular, the need for organizations to take just as much care and responsibility when managing temporary and contract workers as they do with their traditional employees. Two fast-growing trends are demanding that business leaders pay more attention to employee relations, Drucker says. First is the rise of the temporary, or contract, workers; 8 million to 10 million temp workers are placed each day worldwide. And they're not just filling in at reception desks. Today, there are temp suppliers for every kind of job, all the way up to CEO. Second, a growing number of businesses are outsourcing their employee relations to professional employee organizations (PEOs)--third-party groups that handle the ever mounting administrative tasks associated with managing a company's employees. (Managers can easily spend up to one-quarter of their time on employee-related rules, regulations, and paperwork.) Driving these trends, Drucker observes, is the shift from a dependency on manual labor to create wealth and jobs to a dependency on specialization and knowledge. Leaders are increasingly trying to keep up with the needs of many small groups of product or service experts within their companies. Temps and PEOs free up leaders to focus on the business rather than on HR files and paperwork. But if organizations outsource those functions, they need to be careful not to damage relationship with their people in the process, Drucker concludes. After all, developing talent is business's most important task--the sine qua non of competition in a knowledge economy.     

Using choice experiments to assess smallholder farmers' preferences for pig breeding traits in different production systems in North-West Vietnam

Livestock form key components of the livelihood strategies of many of the world's poorest people. However, despite the potential to alleviate poverty and improve food security through livestock development interventions, the lack of smallholders' participation in the planning and design of breeding programs has often been a major cause of the failure of such programs. Particularly in developing countries where livestock production is still mostly subsistence-oriented and livestock fulfil manifold functions a considerable number of livestock breeding programs have failed. The development of adequate tools to characterise these functions, bearing in mind that these are expressed only rarely in properly functioning markets, is therefore important.This paper seeks to advance the application of such methodologies to the smallholder pig sector in Vietnam. A choice experiment was applied across 140 households involved in pig breeding in order to assess farmers' preferences and the trade-offs for a list of adaptive and productive traits. These included growth, reproduction, disease resistance, feed requirements and appearance.The findings indicate that smallholders highly value both adaptive and performance traits, particularly in resource-driven (i.e. subsistence) production systems. Performance traits were more highly valued in the demand-driven (i.e. market-oriented) systems. These findings have implications for breeding program breed choice and breeding objectives.     

做卓有成效的管理者

养成五项习惯·有效的管理者知道他们的时间用在什么地方.他们所能控制的时间非常有限,他们会有系统地工作,来善用这有限的时间.·有效的管理者重视对外界的贡献.他们并非为了工作而工作,而是为了成果而工作.他们不会一接到工作就一头钻进去,更不会一开头就探究工作的技术和手段,他们会首先自问 “别人期望我做出什么成果?”·有效的管理者善于利用长处,包括自己的长处、上司的长处、同事的长处和下属的长处.他们还善于抓住有利的形势,做他们想做的事.他们不会把工作建立在自己的短处上,也绝不会去做自己做不了的事.     

Choosing the “cargo” for Noah's Ark - Applying Weitzman's approach to Borana cattle in East Africa

If Noah had had the opportunity to select the animals he took on board his Ark, he would have had to choose between many species, breeds and types within breeds, all containing different genetic material. How could he have made the right choice and which would he have taken on board given the constraints he had to face? Those trying to save threatened livestock breeds within a tight conservation budget face similar questions. In this paper we assess how different types of Borana cattle, a culturally significant breed in East Africa, might be prioritized for conservation. By applying a cost-effectiveness analysis on the basis of Weitzman's approach we conclude that the highest priority should be given to the Ethiopian Borana type (EB) in Ethiopia. Noah, however, would also have been concerned about the problems of inbreeding and effective population size. To overcome this problem we suggest that, rather than loading just two animals, he should have loaded on board 1000 female and 100 male animals as a safe minimum. The minimum cost of conserving 1100 animals of the EB type with the participation of Ethiopian communities is calculated to be €7700 per year, mostly in the form of compensation payments to meet the opportunity costs of livestock-keepers that arise when maintaining the EB.     

The discipline of innovation

Some innovations spring from a flash of genius. But as Peter Drucker points out in this HBR Classic, most result from a conscious, purposeful search for opportunities. For managers seeking innovation, engaging in disciplined work is more important than having an entrepreneurial personality. Writing originally in the May-June 1985 issue, Drucker describes the major sources of opportunities for innovation. Within a company or industry, opportunities can be found in unexpected occurrences, incongruities of various kinds, process needs, or changes in an industry or market. Outside a company, opportunities arise from demographic changes, changes in perception, or new knowledge. These seven sources overlap, and the potential for innovation may well lie in more than one area at a time. Innovations based on new knowledge, of course, tend to have the greatest effect on the marketplace. But it often takes decades before the ideas are translated into actual products, processes, or services. The other sources of innovation are easier and simpler to handle, yet they still require managers to look beyond established practices. Drucker emphasizes that in seeking opportunities, innovators need to look for simple, focused solutions to real problems. The greatest praise an innovation can receive is for people to say, "This is obvious!" Grandiose ideas designed to revolutionize an industry rarely work. Innovation, like any other endeavor, takes talent, ingenuity, and knowledge. But Drucker cautions that if diligence, persistence, and commitment are lacking, companies are unlikely to succeed at the business of innovation.     

Measuring Heterogeneous Preferences for Cattle Traits among Cattle-Keeping Households in East Africa

This study employs mixed logit and latent class models to examine preferences for cattle traits with a focus on heterogeneity among cattle keepers, using choice experiment data of 506 cattle-keeping households in Kenya and Ethiopia. The findings indicate the existence of preference heterogeneity based on cattle production systems. Highly valued cattle traits for the cropping systems include traction fitness and trypanotolerance, while traits associated with herd increase are considered important in pastoral systems. Considering heterogeneity within population segments provides a framework for adapting breeding policy interventions to specific producer segments, by integrating preferred traits in a breed improvement program.     

Payments for agrobiodiversity conservation services for sustained on-farm utilization of plant and animal genetic resources

This paper discusses the potential application of Payment for Ecosystem Services-like schemes to tackle market failures associated with the public good characteristics of agrobiodiversity conservation services. So called payments for agrobiodiversity conservation services (PACS) would increase the private benefits from utilizing local plant and animal genetic resources on-farm through voluntary reward mechanisms, so as to sustain their on-farm conservation. Theoretical and applied insights about PACS are discussed and attention drawn to some of the challenges to be overcome in implementing PACS. In particular, these relate to the identification of potential buyers, the complex institutional setting in which PACS might operate and the articulation of a meaningful conservation goal based on a safe minimum standard approach. The latter is urgently needed, so as to ensure that additional agrobiodiversity services are generated. Relative to a fixed pricing approach, PACS schemes that seek to overcome information asymmetries through the use of conservation auctions may be associated with significant efficiency gains. However, potential trade-offs between ecological effectiveness, economic efficiency, and social equity considerations need to be carefully evaluated.