Knowledge Exchange and Productivity Spill-overs in Bangladeshi Garment Factories

Working Paper
Published on 1 May 2020
Authors
Andreas Menzel

Abstract

Knowledge sharing between employees has long been viewed as a major driver of firm productivity growth, and has commonly been measured by productivity spill-overs within firms. Using data from three Bangladeshi garment factories, I first find that spill-overs occur within organizational sub-divisions of the factories, but not across. I then show that a management intervention that routinely brought together team leaders producing the same garments to exchange production knowledge further strengthened spill-overs within sub-divisions, but not across, when it was implemented in randomly selected sub-divisions. These findings suggest that boundaries between sub-divisions pose strong frictions to knowledge sharing within firms.

Authors

Andreas Menzel

CERGE-EI