DO&IT Seminar Series
http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/doit/events/seminars.aspx
Speaker:
Professor Barrie R. Nault, University of Calgary
Date:
Friday, October 25, 2013
Time:
1:15 pm-2:30 pm
Location:
Room 1520
Title: The Impact of IT on Productive Capacity and its Utilization Rate
Abstract:
Capacity Utilization (CU) has long been a key measure of economic activity, and is the ratio of
actual output over productive capacity. Research on Information Technology (IT) productivity has
documented a substantial impact of IT on actual output. However, prior work has not studied the impact of IT
on capacity. We study three questions. The first is whether IT capital has a greater contribution to capacity
than to actual output, and the second is whether IT capital is a more binding constraint on capacity than non-IT
capital. The third is whether IT reduces CU because of its impact on capacity or whether IT increases CU by
allowing production to move closer to capacity. As a general-purpose technology, we expect a significant
impact of IT on both capacity and CU. Using a production-function framework, we find that IT is a more
critical constraint on capacity -- increasing IT capital expands capacity more than increasing non-IT capital.
Moreover, since the late 1990s, both IT and non-IT capital have helped to reduce CU, again with IT capital's
impact being greater than that of non-IT capital.
Bio:
Dr. Barrie R. Nault is the Robson Professor and Director of the Informatics Research Centre at the
University of Calgary. He was previously on faculty at The Ohio State University, the University of
California, and the University of Alberta. He received his Ph.D. form the University of British Columbia. Dr.
Nault was an Information Systems Department Editor for Management Science from 2004-07. His research
interests include productivity of information technology; ownership, incentives, membership and investment in
networks, virtual organizations and supply chains; versioning strategies for information goods; third-party
logistics; and environmental incentives for new technology conversion. Dr. Nault has published in academic
journals such as Information Systems Research; IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management; Journal of
Money, Credit and Banking; Management Information Systems Quarterly; Management Science; Production
and Operations Management; Strategic Management Journal; Marketing Science; Journal of Monetary
Economics, and Organization Science. He has also written reports for the National Research Council, and has
held grants from the NSF in the U.S. as well as NSERC and SSHRC in Canada. He has consulted for the
Alberta Union of Public Employees, the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences,
British Columbia Systems Corporation and Shell Canada. He also volunteers for the Bow Valley SPCA.
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