Owner Time Constraints and Procrastination in Process Adoption
Even when firm directors become convinced of the profitability of modern management practices, implementation is delayed by executive time scarcity and behavioral procrastination.
Picture this
Imagine a doctor who runs a busy clinic and works 70 hours a week seeing patients. The doctor agrees that converting paper patient files into digital records will save time and money, but because every workday is consumed by immediate patient emergencies, setting up the new computer software is postponed month after month.
What the evidence says
Firm directors worked an average of 68 hours per week; owner time scarcity and procrastination rose from causing 3.7% of practice nonadoption at baseline to 14.0% after 9 months as an implementation backlog accumulated.
- Who
- 28 plants across 17 large cotton textile woven fabric firms in Tarapur and Umbergaon near Mumbai, India.
- How
- Bimonthly tracking flowchart logs recording nonadoption constraints across 38 operational practices during a 5-month management intervention.
What to do
Schedule dedicated, recurring execution blocks and assign external implementation facilitators to prevent operational improvements from being derailed by executive routine demands.
From the source
"Although initially owners' time accounted for only 3.7% of nonadoption in treatment plants, by nine months it accounted for 14.0% as a backlog of management changes built up that the owners struggled to implement."
541 Management in India QJE.pdf