Based on the ergonomics evaluation of existing non-powered hacksaws with original/horizontal and conventional/market handles, ergonomically designed hacksaw handles are proposed. To accommodate the entire male and female populations, the hand dimensions are categorized into three groups: small, medium and large. The proposed handles give special emphasis to hand size, length, cross-section dime...

Researchers and practitioners have found it useful for cost estimation and productivity evaluation purposes to think of software development as an economic production process, whereby inputs, most notably the effort of systems development professionals, are converted into outputs (systems deliverables), often measured as the size of the delivered system. One central issue in developing such mod...

This paper reports the results of a series of field experiments designed to investigate how peer effects operate in a real work setting. Workers were hired from an online labor market to perform an image-labeling task and, in some cases, to evaluate the work product of other workers. These evaluations had financial consequences for both the evaluating worker and the evaluated worker. The experi...

This paper reports the results of a lab experiment designed to study the role of observability for peer effects in the setting of a simple production task. In our experiment, participants in the role of workers engage in a team real-effort task. We vary whether they can observe, or be observed by, one of their co-workers. In contrast to earlier findings from the field, we find no evidence that ...

This paper presents an empirical study in an industrial context on the production of software using a framework. Frameworks are semi-complete applications, usually implemented as a hierarchy of classes. The framework is developed first; then several applications are derived from it. Frameworks are a reuse technique that supports the engineering of product lines. In the study we compare quality ...

Labour Power and Stagnant Industrial Labor Productivity in Late Colonial India Susan Wolcott Sivasubramonian’s (2000) data on Indian industrial labour productivity indicate 15 percent growth in the period 1900-1938. However, a detailed examination of these data show that most measured growth in large-scale organized industry can be attributed to the enormous gains made by Tata Iron and Steel (T...

In this paper an effort is made in order to investigate the nexus of dynamic interrelations between the general macroeconomic environment of Greek economy with a special reference to the real wages determination. For the causality analysis among real wages, consumer price index, labour productivity, unemployment rate and gross domestic product a multivariate autoregressive VAR model was used, c...

Firms can increase profitability by appropriately motivating managers. We investigate drivers of managerial motivation, and propose how firms can use performance-pay to alter motivational patterns. We focus on the agent’s optimal effort decision in trading off compensation utility with effort cost in a static and dynamic setting. Surprisingly, we find that lower risk aversion or increased pay a...

This paper presents an empirical study in an industrial context on the production of software using a framework. Frameworks are semicomplete applications, usually implemented as a hierarchy of classes. The framework is developed first, then several applications are derived from it. Frameworks are a reuse technique that supports the engineering of product lines. In the study, we compare quality ...

The maintenance of the software applications are being outsourced across countries. There are increased concerns from the customers regarding productivity of the personnel of the vendor working out of a different country. Traditional methods of estimating effort and cost for outsourced software application maintenance are proving to be inadequate. Companies are looking for a flexible model wher...