Introduction

In the context of maximising the economic growth of organisations, industries and national economies, attention is increasingly paid to productivity and innovation performance. Productivity is a measure of how well input resources are converted into goods and services and is a significant determinant of competitiveness.

Increasing productivity involves innovation as organisations seek to use labour, materials and machines more effectively to produce more, reduce costs or raise the quality of their goods and services. Consequently, encouraging innovation is a major objective of economic policy.

Technological innovations are the main drivers of long-term productivity growth. The links between the most significant technology of our time, namely ICT, and productivity growth are of considerable interest.

The rollout of ICT across the economy raises significant challenges for economists in measurement. This is, in particular, because of the widespread use of ICT and the many changes that occur in relation to its use. In undertaking research into these issues, DCITA has used a variety of modelling approaches as well as an examination of measurement issues, an investigation into the nature of the technology itself and the implications for economic modelling.

The five major themes of DCITA’s productivity reports are:

• good business management strategies used in adopting ICT;
• the contribution of ICT to productivity growth;
• forecasting productivity growth;
• methodology and research framework issues; and
• spillovers from ICT and ICT R&D.

While the common theme in all of these reports is the relationship between ICT and productivity growth, they examine the issue from different perspectives.

* The National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE) joined DCITA in April 2004.

All reports in table 1 can be found (catalogued by year) on the Department’s website: www.dcita.gov.au/communications_and_technology/publications_and_reports

• Document ID: 68005 |
• Last modified: 5 February 2008, 9:02am