Living standards in the UK and US are in danger of falling. A decline in growth due to poor productivity and an unfavourable change in demography has weakened the stand of liberal democracy, and voter dissatisfaction is encouraging populist policies that threaten even worse outcomes. Whilst living standards once grew faster than productivity they now grow more slowly, and the working population is no longer growing faster than the population as a whole. To avoid falling living standards the productivity problem must be addressed. Andrew Smithers argues that faster productivity does not depend, as many suggest, on technology; it also relies on investment. Current growth theory is based on a faulty model which has induced pessimism about our ability to encourage more growth. Productivity and the Bonus Culture sets out a revised model which demonstrates that weakness in productivity is the result of the bonus culture, and suggests ways to change this flawed system so that investment is encouraged and growth returns.

"Living standards in the UK and the US are in danger of falling. In the past change has brought disruption with the offsetting reward of higher living standards from growth. Today we have disruption without reward. The resulting voter dissatisfaction encourages populist policies which threaten even worse outcomes. The decline in growth has weakened the standing of liberal democracy both at home and internationally. The decline is entirely due to poor productivity combined with an unfavourable change in demography. The UK and the US have changed from having a demographic surplus in which the working population grew faster than the total population to a demographic deficit. Before living standards grew faster than productivity they now grow more slowly. Faster immigration could change demography, but voters are likely to press for less. To avoid falling living standards we must increase the rate at which productivity improves. Faster productivity does not only depend on technology. We can improve it by encouraging more investment. Growth depends on Total Factor Productivity ("TFP"), for which current consensus estimates are based on a faulty model which has induced pessimism about our ability to encourage more growth. The book sets out a revised and superior model of TFP which demonstrates that the weakness in productivity is the result of the bonus culture and suggests ways by which this can be changed so that investment is encouraged and growth returns."

#1 New York Times Bestseller Legendary venture capitalist John Doerr reveals how the goal-setting system of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) has helped tech giants from Intel to Google achieve explosive growth—and how it can help any organization thrive. In the fall of 1999, John Doerr met with the founders of a start-up whom he'd just given $12.5 million, the biggest investment of his career. Larry Page and Sergey Brin had amazing technology, entrepreneurial energy, and sky-high ambitions, but no real business plan. For Google to change the world (or even to survive), Page and Brin had to learn how to make tough choices on priorities while keeping their team on track. They'd have to know when to pull the plug on losing propositions, to fail fast. And they needed timely, relevant data to track their progress—to measure what mattered. Doerr taught them about a proven approach to operating excellence: Objectives and Key Results. He had first discovered OKRs in the 1970s as an engineer at Intel, where the legendary Andy Grove ("the greatest manager of his or any era") drove the best-run company Doerr had ever seen. Later, as a venture capitalist, Doerr shared Grove's brainchild with more than fifty companies. Wherever the process was faithfully practiced, it worked. In this goal-setting system, objectives define what we seek to achieve; key results are how those top-priority goals will be attained with specific, measurable actions within a set time frame. Everyone's goals, from entry level to CEO, are transparent to the entire organization. The benefits are profound. OKRs surface an organization's most important work. They focus effort and foster coordination. They keep employees on track. They link objectives across silos to unify and strengthen the entire company. Along the way, OKRs enhance workplace satisfaction and boost retention. In Measure What Matters, Doerr shares a broad range of first-person, behind-the-scenes case studies, with narrators including Bono and Bill Gates, to demonstrate the focus, agility, and explosive growth that OKRs have spurred at so many great organizations. This book will help a new generation of leaders capture the same magic.

The book highlights the day-to-day lived experience of miners’ work and organisational practices that shape the day-to-day running of the production process in a deep-level mining workplace.

Honours fulfil one of the most fundamental desires of human beings, namely, to be recognised and held in esteem by others. There are thousands of awards in all areas of society: the state, arts and media, sports, religion, the voluntary sector, academia, and business. Awards are well visible, can raise the recipients' intrinsic motivation and creativity, and establish a bond of loyalty to the giver. They have distinct advantages over money and other rewards. Presenting empirical evidence using modern statistical techniques Honours versus Money argues that awards can significantly raise performance in different contexts even if they are purely symbolic, recommending how this can be used in practice. It makes the case for reorienting our focus- away from the monetary or material dimensions of work and private life, and towards the symbolic dimensions to celebrate and shine a light on merit and achievement. Honours versus Money discusses award bestowals in their different forms and facets, including as signals and as components of organisations' human resource strategies. It opens our perspective for motivational strategies beyond money, while also outlining their potential pitfalls.

How firms are structured, the management practices they develop, as well as the way in which workers and managers interact can have wider implications for both the performance of the firm and the well-being of its workers. This volume contains ten original articles that investigate aspects related to workplace practices and productivity.

In 1980, a conference on tissue culture of fruit crops was held at Beltsville to summarize the current status of this technology and to stimulate interest in it among research scientists, students, and commercial producers in the U. S. Interest in that conference and the proceedings from it far exceeded the expectations of the organizing committee. Since that time, micropropagation of fruit crops in the U. S. has increased significantly, but still lags far behind applications to production of ornamental plants. Within the past two years, a number of new laboratories have been established and some of the existing laboratories have expanded to a size far larger than any previously anticipated. Creation of new laboratories capable of producing more than 400,000 plants per week will test the ingenuity of laboratory managers and the skills of marketing departments. In recent years, numerous symposia have been held on various aspects of biotechnology and genetic engineering. Although micro propagation is the key to providing large numbers of genetically engineered plants, it is a topic that has been relegated to a minor position, or ignored completely, at such meetings. Accordingly, the time seemed propitious for a conference devoted solely to all aspects of micropropagation as applicable to horticultural crops.

In British political discourse the idea that in the 1970s trade unions 'ran the country' has become a truism, a folk mythology invoked against the twin perils of socialism and strikes. But who exactly wielded power in Britain’s workplaces and on what terms? Assembling cultures takes a fine-grained look at factory activism in the motor industry between 1945 and 1982, using car manufacturing as a key case for unpicking important narratives around affluence, declinism and class. It traces the development of the militant car worker stereotype and looks at the real social relations that lay behind car manufacturing’s reputation for conflict. In doing so, this book reveals a changing, complex world of social practices, cultural norms and shared values and expectations. From relatively meagre interwar trade union traditions, during the post-war period car workers developed shop-floor organisations of considerable authority, enabling some to make new demands of their working lives, but constraining others in their more radical political aims. Assembling cultures documents in detail a historic process where, from the 1950s, groups and individuals set about creating and reproducing collective power and asks what that meant for their lives. This is a story of workers and their place in the power relations of post-war Britain. This book will be invaluable to lecturers and students studying the history, sociology and politics of post-war Britain, particularly those with an interest in power, rationality, class, labour, gender and race. The detailed analysis of just how solidarity, organisation and collective action were generated will also prove useful to trade union activists.