Productivity & Innovation in Enterprise Agreements
21st January 2015
The Fair Work Commission has published a research report entitled Productivity and Innovation in Enterprise Agreement Clauses: An overview of literature, data and case studies at the workplace level..
The report, prepared by Commission staff, summarises the literature on the drivers of productivity and explores the relationship between productivity and innovation with enterprise agreements that purport to address productivity. It includes 8 case studies on enterprise agreement clauses nominated by employers, employees and their representatives as productivity enhancing or innovative.
Not surprisingly, the authors review of the literature noted mixed findings on the relationship between bargaining and productivity, with some studies finding that firms that engage in bargaining are more productive than those that do not, and others contending that enterprise bargaining has not contributed much, if anything, to productivity. The literature also highlighted the difficulty in finding a causal relationship in this area. The researchers concluded, in light of the limitations of the case studies, further work was needed but were positive that the particular case studies conducted may provide practitioners with a starting point for developing enterprise agreement clauses which enhance productivity or innovation.
I can recommend the report to business owners and managers that would like a concise and honest summary of the current state of our understanding of the factors contributing to workplace level productivity and innovation. Advocates of enterprise bargaining may be disappointed with the lack of useful data available on the impact of collective bargaining.
The report is an initiative under the productivity and engaging with industry theme of the Commission’s Future Directions 2014–15: Continuing the change program.