Research study focuses on food and biotech sectors

By NZPA

Wednesday 16th May 2007

A research project aimed at identifying ways of boosting productivity in the food and beverage, and biotechnology sectors has been granted a $400,000 government grant.

Led by Professor Sally Davenport, the project will be shared between Victoria University's management school, the University of Wollongong and Britain's National Institute of Economic & Social Research.

The grant has been made by the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology.

Davenport said the four-year project would try to shift the emphasis of productivity on to companies.

"Productivity is usually viewed as either a result of individual effort or as an economic measure of a nation's output relative to inputs but it is from within firms that productivity is driven," she said.

She said improved productivity was "as much about the development of innovation, leadership and workplace cultures as it is about objective measurement of inputs and outputs".

The country wanted more globally competitive firms, but it was impossible to improve company-level productivity "without understanding the collectively-held resources and capabilities that underpin greater productivity".

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