Simon Gim

Simon Gim
Cornell Ph.D.

[Simon Gim @gim_simon47359]

7. Technology’s organizational consequences often emerge unintentionally through staffing choices, prior relationships, expertise, and repeated interactions over time.

[Simon Gim @gim_simon47359]

DAY 215
Barley, S. R. (1986). Technology as an occasion for structuring: Evidence from observations of CT scanners and the social order of radiology departments. Administrative science quarterly, 78-108.

[Simon Gim @gim_simon47359]

5. CT scanners gave technologists greater expertise and discretion, weakening the traditional dominance of radiologists.

6. Suburban became substantially more decentralized than Urban even though both hospitals introduced essentially identical CT scanners.

[Simon Gim @gim_simon47359]

7. Since the late 1980s, automation has accelerated while new-task creation has weakened, contributing to slower U.S. labor-demand growth.

[Simon Gim @gim_simon47359]

5. “So-so” automation can be especially harmful when it replaces workers but generates only small productivity improvements.

6. From 1947–1987, displacement from automation was largely offset by the creation of new labor-intensive tasks.

[Simon Gim @gim_simon47359]

3. New tasks create a reinstatement effect by giving workers new activities in which labor has a comparative advantage.

4. The future of work depends on the balance between technologies that automate existing tasks and technologies that create new tasks for workers.

[Simon Gim @gim_simon47359]

DAY 214
Acemoglu, D., & Restrepo, P. (2019). Automation and new tasks: How technology displaces and reinstates labor. Journal of economic perspectives, 33(2), 3-30.

[Simon Gim @gim_simon47359]

Key Takeaways
1. Automation creates a displacement effect by shifting tasks previously performed by workers to machines or software.

2. Automation can raise productivity while still reducing labor demand when displacement is stronger than the productivity gain.

[Simon Gim @gim_simon47359]

This paper states that technology affects labor through a balance between automation that displaces workers from existing tasks and new tasks that reinstate workers into production, so productivity growth alone does not guarantee higher labor demand or wages.

[Simon Gim @gim_simon47359]

7. Sustained advantage comes from idiosyncratic combinations of unique people and organizational systems, not generic HR best practices alone.

[Simon Gim @gim_simon47359]

DAY 213
Coff, R., & Kryscynski, D. (2011). Invited editorial: Drilling for micro-foundations of human capital–based competitive advantages. Journal of management, 37(5), 1429-1443.

[Simon Gim @gim_simon47359]

5. Retention depends on more than pay, including supervision, coworkers, career opportunities, and meaningful work.

6. Motivation is difficult because employee contributions and preferences are often hard to observe and reward accurately.

[Simon Gim @gim_simon47359]

7. Ployhart’s “RBV 2.0” shifts attention from simply asking what resources firms possess to asking what performance those resources actually produce.

[Simon Gim @gim_simon47359]

DAY 212
Ployhart, R. E. (2021). Resources for what? Understanding performance in the resource-based view and strategic human capital resource literatures. Journal of Management, 47(7), 1771-1786.

[Simon Gim @gim_simon47359]

5. Firm specificity should be viewed as a resource’s proximity to firm-specific performance rather than as a fixed resource trait.

6. More proximal knowledge and skills are more firm-specific, while distal traits such as ability are more transferable.