Parallel Session IARIW 2014

1. DEVELOPING A TASK-BASED APPROACH FOR THE
MEASUREMENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES IN
KNOWLEDGE-BASED CAPITAL
Paper presented by Mary O’Mahony, KCL
1
Mariagrazia Squicciarini (OECD) and
Marie Le Mouel (DIW Berlin)

2. Context
• Literature suggests knowledge based capital
(KBC) is important for economic performance
of firms, industries and countries.
• KBC defined as firm specific intangible assets
that generate knowledge and are long lasting
• Embodied in workforce so intrinsically linked
with human capital
2

3. Context
• Previous estimates of some assets, e.g. organisational
capital, based on occupations (managers)
• This paper: Estimates of KBC using information on tasks
rather than occupations
• TaSK - takes account of skills and knowledge of
workforce
• Looks at four types of KCB
– Organisational capital (OC)
– Computerised information (CI)
– R&D
– Design

4. Methodology
Three steps
1. Identify the tasks associated with KCB
2. Select the occupations with high content of
these activities
3. Estimate share of workforce in these
occupations

5. Data
US ONET survey
• 41 tasks, 35 skills and 33 knowledge areas
• Likert scale on two dimensions
• “Importance” of particular task, skill or knowledge area in
day to day job
• the extent to which employees perform or use certain tasks,
skills or knowledge in their daily job “Level”
• aim is to identify occupations that perform tasks related to
KBC assets in addition to, rather than in substitution of,
other tasks
Link to occupation and employment data from EU LFS and CPS
Also use OECD survey, Programme for the International
Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), as check

6. Methodology: Employ clustering analysis to
identify TaSKs associated with KBC assets
Asset R&D
Task 123 Estimating the Quantifiable Characteristics of
Products, Events, or Information
Skill 1150
2610
2620
2650
Mathematics
Operations Analysis
Technology Design
Programming
Knowledge 42
31
41
Physics
Engineering & Technology
Mathematics
Skills codes can be associated with more than one KBC asset
Example

7. Linking to occupations
• Identifying those occupations providing higher
importance and level answers to the tasks,
skills and knowledge areas identified
• Two methodologies:
– Descriptive – rank according to importance and
level answers and choose top quartile
– Clustering
• Use only those occupations that are selected
by both methods

8. Linking to occupations: Examples
ISCO 3
digit ISCO Title OC CI R&D Design
216
Architects, planners, surveyors and
designers
√ √ √ √
213 Life science professionals
√ √ √
121
Business services and administration
managers
√ √
221 Medical doctors
√ √
111 Legislators and senior officials
√
211 Physical and earth science professionals
√ √ √
212
Mathematicians, actuaries and
statisticians
√ √

9. Results: OC related workers in manufacturing and in services, as a
percentage of total employed persons in the sector, 2012
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
UK BE FR NL US DE NO FI ES SE PT PL CZ DK IT
OC only OC, R&D OC, CI OC, CI and R&D OC, CI, R&D, design
OC only OC, R&D OC, CI OC, CI, R&D OC, CI, R&D, design
Manufacturing :
Services :
Manufacturing Services
UK BE FR NL US DE NO FI ES SE PT PL CZ DK IT

10. Results: CI related workers in manufacturing and in services, as a
percentage of total employed persons in the sector, 2012
Manufacturing Services
FI UK DK FR SE US NO DE BE NL ES CZ PL PT IT
0%
2%
4%
6%
8%
10%
12%
14%
16%
18%
20%
22%
FI UK DK FR SE US NO DE BE NL ES CZ PL PT IT
CI only CI, R&D CI, OC CI, R&D, OC CI, R&D, design CI, R&D, design, OC
CI only CI, R&D CI, OC CI, R&D, OC CI, R&D, design CI, R&D, design, OC
Manufacturing :
Services :

11. Results: R&D related workers in manufacturing and in services, as a
percentage of total employed persons in the sector, 2012
Manufacturing Services
UK FI DK FR SE NO DE BE NL ES PL CZ US PT IT
0%
2%
4%
6%
8%
10%
12%
14%
16%
18%
20%
UK FI DK FR SE NO DE BE NL ES PL CZ US PT IT
R&D only R&D, CI R&D, OC R&D, CI, OC R&D, Ci, design R&D, CI, design, OC
R&D only R&D, CI R&D, OC R&D, CI, design R&D, CI, OC R&D, CI, design, OC
Manufacturing :
Services :

12. Results: Design related workers in manufacturing and in services,
as a percentage of total employed persons in the sector, 2012
Manufacturing Services
US DK FI UK SE NO IT DE FR BE CZ NL ES PL PT
0%
1%
2%
3%
4%
5%
6%
7%
8%
9%
10%
US DK FI UK SE NO IT DE FR BE CZ NL ES PL PT
Design only Design, CI Design, CI, R&D Design, CI, R&D, OC
Design only Design, CI Design, CI, R&D Design, CI, R&D, OC
Manufacturing :
Services :

13. Results
• KBC related employment represents up to 20% of
the workforce, e.g.
– OC in Services in UK, France, US and Poland;
– R&D and CI in Finnish Manufacturing;
– R&D in UK Manufacturing
• OC and Design seem more important in Services
than Manufacturing; converse is true of R&D and
of CI
• Large extent of overlap between assets,especially
R&D and CI

14. Additional Analysis: PIAAC
• PIAAC survey provides internationally comparable
information on tasks performed at work for
employees of 17 OECD countries
• Clustering analysis suggests only OC can be
identified of the KBC assets
• Results by country suggest similar pattern as for
analysis based on ONET – high UK and Sweden,
low Italy
• Higher shares of employment using PIAAC but
probably reflects more aggregate occupation data

15. Conclusions
• Considerable overlap of occupations across the
four types of KBC assets
• Results confirm the importance of managers in
contributing to the formation and accumulation
of OC in firms, but also point to the importance
of other professional occupations, e.g.
engineering professionals, Health and Teaching
professionals.
• The cross country pattern is reasonably robust to
different methods and data sources

16. Commentary: Cross country pattern broadly consistent with
data on intangible investments as % of GDP (from
INTANInvest)
CC CI R&D Design
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
US BE UK NL FR SE CZ PL DE FI DK PT NO IT ES
US BE UK NL FR SE CZ PL DE FI DK PT NO IT ES

17. Commentary
• Going beyond employment figures to
estimates of investment requires:
– Time use surveys
– Employment figures in full-time equivalent
– Occupation and industry specific salary
information
• Information on the duration of time spent in
tasks is not readily available so assumptions
are required

18. Commentary
• A major insight of paper is that the range of
occupations involved in KBC assets is much
broader than assumed in previous literature,
e.g. OC measured by 20% manager time by
Corrado et al.
• Should professionals also be included?

19. In absence of data could ask is time use by
managers very different than for professionals?
American time use survey, % working by time of day
Managers Professionals
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
12am 1am 2am 3am 4am 5am 6am 7am 8am 9am 10am 11am 12pm 1pm 2pm 3pm 4pm 5pm 6pm 7pm 8pm 9pm 10pm 11pm

20. Commentary
• Could just assume 20% also of professionals time
in OC
• However TaSK based approach suggests
investments in one asset mean simultaneous
investments in other assets so danger of double
counting
• Previous work by authors highlighted cross
industry differences, in particular the greater
importance of professionals relative to managers
in OC in public services