Learning Dynamics and Managerial Quality

Abstract

The authors study 5 distinct factors of managerial quality that are likely to impact learing by doing within the firm: vocation-specific experience managerial autonomy cognitive skills personality demographic relatability to workers. They find that experience predictably impacts all aspects of learning and retention, but so do managerial autonomy and cognitive skills. Personality traits impact learning but not forgetting; while relatability to workers surprisingly shows no impact on productivity. They also find that firms can increase productivity at lower cost by adopting better screening mechanisms in the hiring of new supervisors and training existing supervisors in deficient qualities. This research was funded under the Private Enterprise Development in Low-Income Countries (PEDL) Programme