Date of Award

1-1-2019

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.

Department

Economics

First Advisor

Markus Schneider, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Kimon Valavanis, Ph.D.

Third Advisor

Christine Ngo, Ph.D.

Fourth Advisor

Peter Ho, Ph.D.

Keywords

Information technology, Communication technology

Abstract

The use of information and communication technology to automate routine tasks involves two types of innovation: technological and organizational. Together, improvements in technological capabilities and complementary changes made by firms in the way they organize work and implement work practices constitute the conditions under which machines substitute for or complement human workers. Building on the prevailing model of routine-biased technical change and recent insights into organizational complementarities, I conduct three qualitative case studies in health care and real estate to assess the relationship between technology and firm-level labor demand. Unique combinations of technological innovation, organizational complementarity, and decision-making at each firm produce differential impacts for labor demand, with even similar technologies exhibiting quite different patterns of substitution for workers of all skill types. In addition, studying firm-level complementarities illuminates how and why the scope of the routine task may be growing, with particularly important implications for relatively higher skill workers.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

Rights holder

Spencer J. Rockwell

File size

84 p.

File format

application/pdf

Language

en

Discipline

Economics

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