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HUMAN CAPITAL ACCUMULATION AND THE TRANSITION FROM SPECIALIZATION TO MULTITASKING

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2008

RAOUF BOUCEKKINE  and
PATRICIA CRIFO
RAOUF BOUCEKKINE*
Affiliation:
CORE Université catholique de Louvain and University of Glasgow
PATRICIA CRIFO
Affiliation:
Ecole Polytechnique University of Haute Alsace and Catholic University of Louvain
*
Address correspondence to: Raouf Boucekkine, Department of Economics and CORE, Université catholique de Louvain, Place Montesquieu, 3, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium; e-mail: boucekkine@core.ucl.ac.be.
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Abstract

This paper provides theoretical foundations to the contemporaneous increase in computer usage, human capital, and multitasking observed in many OECD countries during the 1990s. The links among work organization, technology, and human capital is modelled by establishing the conditions under which firms allocate the workers' time among several productive tasks. Organizational change is then analyzed in a dynamic perspective as the transition from specialization toward multitasking emphasizing its technological and educational determinants. We show that large enough “organizational shocks” can trigger a transition from specialization to multitasking, and this transition obviously should be accompanied by gradual increases in human capital.

Keywords

Information TechnologiesOrganizational ChangeHuman CapitalSpecializationMultitaskingDynamics

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Macroeconomic Dynamics , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , June 2008 , pp. 320 - 344
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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