Determinants of manufacturing productivity: pilot study on labor-intensive industries

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to address the impact of three issues: degree of skills, favorable working environment and R&D on manufacturing productivity of labor‐intensive industries.Design/methodology/approach – Convenience sampling method has been used to conduct this study. Three categories of labor‐intensive manufacturing industries (A, B and C) have been chosen to perform this research. Industrial category A represents the manufacturing operations which are based on skill of labor. Category B is a group of industries which provides a favorable working environment to utilize the potential of skill in manufacturing process. Category C is a specialized group of industries and its manufacturing process is dependent on R&D. Input–output data for manufacturing operations of the sample industries have been analyzed by using standard statistical techniques to establish the relationship between dependent and independent variables.Findings – The degree of skill and productivity is positively correla...