Impact of computerization on firm performance: a case of Shanghai manufacturing enterprises

1 The authors acknowledge with gratitude the generous support of the Research Committee, Hong Kong Baptist University for the project (FRG/98-99/II-59) without which the timely production of the current report/publication would not be feasible. All correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Abstract Based on a sample of 514 Shanghai manufacturing enterprises, the present study examines the impact of computer-related input on enterprise productivity. Although a positive relationship between computer personnel and enterprise productivity is found, the efficiency of enterprises as a whole as well as by level of computerization is low. In particular, high computerization state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are found to be relatively low in efficiency performance as compared to other types of enterprises (high computerization non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs), low computerization SOEs, and low computerization non-SOEs). The implication of the result is that the adoption of high-tech production process or advanced technology for SOEs may not be beneficial to their efficiency performance even though higher enterprise productivity is attributable to computerization. On the other hand, non-SOEs have the niche in making use of advanced technological technique. The comparison of efficiency scores calculated from the subgroup of firms to those of the pooled sample reviews the importance of sampling in estimating firm efficiency.