Khalil Summary

Wealth is created according to Khalil by how technology is used to add value to a resource and provide marketable products and services with it. Khalil focuses on three points on how technology can create wealth in this chapter. First Khalil looks at how technology spurs economic growth and expansion. The three ingredients needed for economic growth are capital, labor, and technical progress (the “total productivity factor”) according to Boskin and Lau. Khalil also states that new technologies stimulate economic expansion. Clearly the management of technology creates wealth and prosperity in itself. Second Khalil looks at how technology can help develop faster and more efficient production techniques with better management. Here we read how Henry Ford’s use of the assembly line and worker specialization increased productivity in the 1900’s. With production advancements during both World War I and World War II new management concepts like planning, statistics analysis, and material-handling emerged. Even today with the emergence of information technology and organizational theory production appears limitless. It is clear that management of technology creates wealth and prosperity. The third point Khalil reviews is the evolution of product technology. In the past two centuries new product technologies have contributed to economic growth and prosperity increasing the overall quality of life for everyone it touches. Products inventions from the Steam power locomotive to the personal computer of today are just a few examples of how technology can do this. In closing Khalil states two example of how all three of these factors can be used to create national economic growth. The first example is the recent economic prosperity of Japan and Germany. The second example is the turn around of the U.S. economy in the 1990’s was based on “technology, production, and smart work” (or management).