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1、外文翻譯之二 The Software industry and India’s economic development Asish Arora Suma Athreye American Indian Information Economics and Policy, Vol.1(2001) 4. The growth of software and human capital formation: public and private investments in training and the rewards to an engineering

2、education Though India has one of the largest numbers of scientists and engineers it also has some of the lowest rates of literacy in the world with 52% of the total working population that cannot read or write. As Table 3 showed, despite the large total numbers of engineers, the numbers of enginee

3、rs per million of population was smaller in India compared to several other countries. There is correspondingly an over-reliance on the existing stock of trained but underemployed engineers, for whose services a slowly growing and protected economy could not generate adequate demand. A very large f

4、raction of the employees of Indian software firms are graduates of engineering college. Most of the Indian software firms interviewed by Arora et al. (2000) reported hiring only engineers. Data from a sample of nearly 60 software firms indicates that over 80% of their employees had an engineering de

5、gree. Only 13% were non-engineers trained in software development.14 In interviews, many firms categorically stated that they hired only engineers. This preference for engineers was unremarkable, and of little consequence, at the start of the industry, when its demand was small relative to the annu

6、al supply. India graduates over 160,000 engineers of all varieties. The sharp and sustained growth of the Indian industry has meant that by 1998-99, the number of employees has climbed to nearly 250,000, and estimates suggest that this may have crossed 400,000 in 2000-2001. If the industry continued

7、 to grow at 50% per year, then even allowing for increases in productivity, it appears that the software industry is going to run out of engineers to hire. (See Arora, Asundi and Fernandes, 2000 for more details.) These projections are consistent with other evidence. Wages in the software industry

8、have grown at over 20% per annum and attrition rates are high. When asked in 1998-99 to list the top 3 problems they faced, more than half of all firms (out of a sample of over 100 firms) irrespective of age, size or market orientations (either export or import) selected manpower shortage and employ

9、ee attrition as the most serious problem affecting them (Arora, et. al, 2000). Despite paying substantially above Indian standards, virtually all firms find it difficult to attract and retain talented software developers. The public policy response has been to emphasize increased investments in eng

10、ineering colleges, increased emphasis on information technology in engineering curricula and the creation of institutes of information technology (IIIT) along the lines of the better known Indian Institutes of Technology. Though superficially reasonable, this is not the answer. These investments are

11、 unlikely to have a significant affect on supply in the short run. Moreover, expanding such capacity faces the problem that the growth of the software industry has tended to siphon off engineering masters and PhD students. A recent report on graduate engineering education in India noted that the num

12、ber of engineering PhDs produced has fallen from 675 in 1987 to 375 in 1995. Concurrently, the number of engineers with postgraduate training has also risen only slowly, from a little over 12,000 in 1987-89 to a little over 17,000 in 1990-92. Surveys of India’s premier technological institutions-th

13、e Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) show that a very large fraction of postgraduates from those institutions enter the Information Technology (IT) sector, in some cases as many as 90%! Moreover, Table 6 below shows that the bulk of the Indian engineering capacity is located in just a few state

14、s – Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Further, the table also shows that the bulk of the capacity here is accounted for by “self financed” colleges, where students receive a much smaller subsidy, if at all, compared with the state financed colleges. An interesting and hitherto u

15、nexplored question is the reason that the organizational innovation of self- financing colleges has not diffused to other parts of the country. We can only speculate that this has to do partly with cultural and political factors, and partly with the lower returns to investments in human capital in o

16、ther parts of the country. Not coincidentally, the south and west are also economically more advanced. We believe that although investments in engineering education are necessary, a bigger part of the solution lies in a more efficient use of existing human capital resources. Implicit in the discuss

17、ion thus far is that only engineering graduates are well suited to perform the tasks required. This assumption appears to have shaky foundations. First, the bulk of the engineers working in the industry are not, in fact, trained in software engineering, computer science or related disciplines. Furth

18、er, a very significant fraction of the work involves developing and refining business applications, databases and the like. Indeed, initially a great of the work involved porting applications from one computing platform, typically a mainframe, to another platform such as a Unix platform. This work r

19、equires familiarity with software development tools. It does not require a deep knowledge of computer architecture or operating systems. Finally, much of the work has tended to consist of small projects, with fairly low levels of technical complexity. Arora et al (2000) report that the median size o

20、f the “most important export project” of the firms they surveyed was only 150 man months, with an average of 510. This suggests that the typical export project is even smaller. Moreover, about half of the work was carried out in India; the rest was onsite, in the US. When pressed, most of the manag

21、ers agreed that they did not require engineers: Bright graduates from any field could, with proper training, do what was needed. It seems that the preference for engineers is in some cases a way of signaling quality to customers. As one CEO put it “Take somebody from a good college (any of the top 2

22、0 colleges in India), give him 3 months of orientation and they are ready to take up a programming assignment. I don’t need all these engineers…. But I don’t want to be branded by my customers as a guy who hires NIIT graduates.” (Emphases added.) (From Sloan Report, Arora et al 1999) This is a cle

23、ar instance of a “race to the top”. With limited market power, Indian software exporters try to distinguish themselves from the competition by pointing to the quality of their processes and people, and when possible, their experience. Firms also have quality concerns. Some managers we interviewed b

24、elieve that an engineering education imparts a set of problem solving skills, methods of thinking logically and learning tools that help quick adaptation to changes in technology, domains and tasks. Since Indian firms provide services across a range of platforms and domains, this is an important ass

25、et. Another important consideration has to do the quality signaling in the labor market. The Indian education system is such that competition for an engineering education is intense, and as a result, graduating with an engineering degree is a signal of qualities such as intelligence and willingness

26、to work hard. Software firms may prize these qualities more than the specific substantive knowledge of engineering. If so, this is certainly an inefficient allocation of resources.17 Indeed; the software industry has been growing in part by drawing away engineers from other industries. In our inter

27、views we came across a number of instances of engineers with highly specialized training (such as VLSI design or satellite systems) working on tasks such as database design or development of business application software. Quite a few senior level engineers were drawn from a variety of public sector

28、research and development institutions. Such a transfer of resources is entirely in line with the presumed comparative advantage in software development. Of course, there are a variety of distortions in the Indian economy, which imply caution in interpreting the market signals.18 In addition to chang

29、ing the composition of economic activity, the increasingly tight market for engineers and managers is also likely to affect the organization of economic activity. As we discuss in greater detail in section 6, the increasing demand for trained engineers and managers is also affecting the balance betw

30、een capital and labor (or more precisely, between capital and human capital), resulting in organizational innovations. The clearly increasing payoffs to human capital are also inducing greater investment in human capital. The Indian middle class has always relied upon education, particularly profes

31、sional education such as engineering or medicine as means of economic advance. However, with a slowly growing economy, the returns to such investments have not been very high. The precarious state of public finances has limited the ability of the central and state governments to expand tertiary educ

32、ation. The rapid growth of the software sector has however, marked a watershed. One of the most rapidly growing sectors within the software industry is for private training. Private training institutions train individuals specifically for work in software development. NASSCOM sources estimated that

33、 there were 3800 such training firms in 1998, in what was then a $300 million market, although together NIIT and Aptech are believed to have 70% of the software training market. Private training institutes are also important for helping existing software developers acquire new skills. Many engineers

34、 also undertake further training in software development on their own from private training institutes. The growing presence of private training institutes in cities in India is increasingly making it possible for software developers to obtain certificates and diplomas from such institutes. It is a

35、lso noteworthy that this is a private sector response to a market opportunity, namely the demand for training in specialized skills. In the US and elsewhere, for profit firms compete with a variety of public institutions, such as state and community colleges in the US. In India, the rapid growth of

36、private training institutes testifies to the changed economic climate and the channeling of entrepreneurship into economically productive areas away from mere rent-seeking. This change, too, owes at least indirectly to the rapid growth of the software industry. To sum up the foregoing, we believe t

37、he evidence indicates that until recently, an excess supply of trained engineering talent was a significant source of competitive advantage for Indian firms. By the same token, it provided few incentives for firms to economize on the use of skilled engineering talent. Instead, the growth of the indu

38、stry and high salaries have attracted not only newly graduating engineers but also engineers, managers and other professionals from other industrial sectors. Despite this, the explosive growth in the software industry has lead to a stage where firms recognize that skilled engineers, software profes

39、sionals and good managers are a scarce resource. Moreover, faced with a number of attractive options including a move overseas, these talented engineers and managers are looking for more money and a more professional and rewarding work environment. In turn, this entails a variety of organizational c

40、hanges we discuss below. 軟件產(chǎn)業(yè)和印度的經(jīng)濟發(fā)展 Asish Arora Suma Athreye 美國 印度 《信息經(jīng)濟學(xué)和政策》，2001年第一期 4、軟件行業(yè)的發(fā)展和人力資本的形成：在教育方面的私人和公共投資和工程教育回報 盡管印度擁有世界上最多的科學(xué)家和工程師，但是其由于52%的工作人員無法讀寫，而同時成為世界上識字率最低的國家。正如表3所示，盡管有大量的工程師，但是印度每百萬人口里工程師的數(shù)量還是低于其他一些國家。由于緩慢增長的干預(yù)型經(jīng)濟不能產(chǎn)生對工程師的足夠需求，相應(yīng)的就有對現(xiàn)存但未被雇用的工程師的過度依賴。 大部分

41、的印度軟件公司的職員都畢業(yè)于工程學(xué)院。根據(jù)Arora et al. (2000)的報告，大部分被訪企業(yè)只雇用工程師。60家軟件公司的調(diào)查數(shù)據(jù)顯示，超過80%的公司雇員有工程師學(xué)位，只有13%是在軟件發(fā)展中被培訓(xùn)起來的非工程師。在采訪中，很多公司明確表示他們只雇用工程師。 在軟件行業(yè)發(fā)展的初期，由于需求遠遠小于每年的供給量，這種對工程師的偏好并不明顯或者不導(dǎo)致什么后果。印度總共有160，000各種各樣工程類畢業(yè)生。印度產(chǎn)業(yè)穩(wěn)定而快速的發(fā)展意味著在1998年和1999年間，被雇傭者的數(shù)量將會累計到近250.000，預(yù)計將會在2000到2001年間突破400，000。即使軟件產(chǎn)業(yè)每年以50%的增

42、長率增長，甚至假設(shè)生產(chǎn)力提高，軟件產(chǎn)業(yè)似乎還是會將出現(xiàn)工程師供不應(yīng)求的局面。（參考 Arora, Asundi 和 Fernandes,《2000年細節(jié)》。） 這些預(yù)言得到證據(jù)支持。軟件產(chǎn)業(yè)的工資率每年以20%的增長率在增長，同時人員損耗率也是相當?shù)母?。當?998年至1999年間，當軟件產(chǎn)業(yè)被問及列舉他們發(fā)展所面臨的三大問題時，超過一半的公司（以超過100的公司為樣本），不考慮公司的時間、規(guī)模和市場導(dǎo)向（出口或者進口），都不約而同的選擇了人員緊缺和人員損耗作為他們所面臨的最嚴重的問題。盡管愿意償付遠遠高于印度標準水平的工資, 很多企業(yè)最終還是發(fā)現(xiàn)難以吸引并且留住優(yōu)秀的軟件開發(fā)人才。 公

43、共政策對此做出的反應(yīng)是加強在工程學(xué)院上的投資，重視工程課程上的信息技術(shù)，和信息技術(shù)機構(gòu)（IIIT）以及更有名的印度技術(shù)機構(gòu)的創(chuàng)建等。盡管從表面上來看這些舉措是合理的，但是實際上這并不能解決問題。這些投資根本不可能在短期內(nèi)能顯著改善工程人員供給。同時，如此大規(guī)模擴容導(dǎo)致軟件產(chǎn)業(yè)發(fā)展趨向于抽調(diào)工程碩士和博士。一份最近對印度工程研究生教育的調(diào)查顯示，工程博士的數(shù)量已經(jīng)從1987年的675位下降到1995年的375位。同時，擁有碩士頭銜的工程師的數(shù)量也只是緩慢增長，從1987-89年間的12，000位增長到了1990-92年間的17，000位。對印度技術(shù)機構(gòu)理工學(xué)校的調(diào)查顯示，大量的該校畢業(yè)生進入信息

44、技術(shù)部門工作，有時甚至高達90%。 另外，表6顯示印度大部分工程學(xué)校集中在少部分的幾個州——Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh。同時其中大部分都是私立大學(xué)，在這些學(xué)校的學(xué)生收到的補助遠遠小于就讀于州立大學(xué)的學(xué)生。但是，私立學(xué)院并未能在國家的其它部分擴散開來是一個有趣而費解的現(xiàn)象。我們只能大概的估計這部分歸因于文化和政治因素，部分取決于在其它州人力資本投資的低收益率。并非巧合的，南部和西北在經(jīng)濟上確實是更發(fā)達。 我們認為，盡管在工程教育方面的投資是必需的，但是解決問題的更有效的辦法應(yīng)該是依賴于對現(xiàn)有人力資源的合理利用。

45、在這場爭論中的隱含假設(shè)是只有工程類畢業(yè)生才能勝任軟件開發(fā)任務(wù)。這個假設(shè)技術(shù)顯然是不合理的。首先,大部分現(xiàn)在軟件產(chǎn)業(yè)工作的工程師事實上都是沒有接受過在軟件工程、電腦科學(xué)或者相關(guān)領(lǐng)域等的訓(xùn)練。其次，很大一部分工作是涉及到商業(yè)應(yīng)用，數(shù)據(jù)庫等。事實上，最初大量的工作涉及到從一個運行平臺（通常如維護）到另一個運行平臺（如Unix平臺）的運用。這些工作只要求對軟件開發(fā)工具相當熟悉，但并不要求對電腦結(jié)構(gòu)和運行系統(tǒng)具有很深的認識。最后，大部分的工作其實都是由一個個具有較低技術(shù)復(fù)雜性的小工程組成的。Arora et al（2000）在他們調(diào)查中發(fā)現(xiàn)，公司最重要的出口工程的中等規(guī)模是150個人，但平均有510人。

46、這表明典型的出口工程甚至更小。更有甚者，大約一半的工作在印度國內(nèi)執(zhí)行，剩下的則在美國。 當迫于無奈，很多經(jīng)理也表示他們并不需要工程師：聰明的畢業(yè)生只要經(jīng)過適當?shù)呐嘤?xùn)，是能很快勝任何工作的。但是似乎對工程師的偏好是出于對顧客傳遞產(chǎn)品質(zhì)量信號的考慮。正如某一CEO所說，“雇傭任何一個優(yōu)秀學(xué)府的畢業(yè)生（印度排名前20的大學(xué)中的任何一所），給他們?nèi)齻€月的培訓(xùn)，他們就能夠勝任項目任務(wù)。事實上，我并不是完全需要這些工程師……但是我卻不想在我的顧客中以雇傭非技術(shù)工程大學(xué)的畢業(yè)生而出名。”（來自《斯隆報告》，Arora et al 1999）。 這是一個“競賽至上”的最好例子。受限于市場影響力，印度軟件

47、出口商們總是試圖通過人才和生產(chǎn)過程質(zhì)量，甚至可能的話，人才經(jīng)驗等方面來使自己在競爭中脫穎而出。 企業(yè)也有出于質(zhì)量方面的考慮。一些被采訪的經(jīng)理表示受過工程類專門教育涉及到一系列問題解決技巧、邏輯思考的方法和學(xué)習工具，這些都有助于（雇員）快速適應(yīng)在技術(shù)、領(lǐng)域和任務(wù)方面的變化。由于印度公司提供的是跨領(lǐng)域和平臺的一系列服務(wù)，因此這些能力是很重要的資本。另外一個重要的考慮是工程教育背景是勞動力質(zhì)量的信號指示。印度工程類教育體系是非常嚴格的，因而成功獲得工程類學(xué)位的畢業(yè)生至少顯示了智力和勤奮能力。軟件公司可能因此更看重的是這些素質(zhì)而不是具體大量的工程類知識。 如果事實如此，那么勞動力市場的分配必定是

48、缺乏效率的。事實上，軟件產(chǎn)業(yè)的發(fā)展部分是通過吸引來自別的產(chǎn)業(yè)的人才來實現(xiàn)的。在我們的采訪中，我們遇到大量的具有高度專業(yè)背景（如VLSI 設(shè)計和衛(wèi)星系統(tǒng)）的人從事諸如數(shù)據(jù)庫設(shè)計和商業(yè)應(yīng)用軟件的開發(fā)。甚至有些高級工程師是來自政府研究和發(fā)展機構(gòu)。這樣一種資源轉(zhuǎn)換是同我們先前假設(shè)的軟件發(fā)展在印度所具有的相對優(yōu)勢所吻合的。當然，印度經(jīng)濟存在很多扭曲的地方，這些都是在解讀市場信號時所應(yīng)該警惕的。除了上述提到的改變經(jīng)濟活動的組成，市場對工程師和經(jīng)理人日益增加的需求也將影響經(jīng)濟活動的組織。正如我們在第六部分以更多筆墨討論的那樣，對受訓(xùn)過的工程師和管理人員的需求增加也將影響資本和勞動力（或者更確切的說物質(zhì)資本和

49、人力資本）之間的平衡，從而引發(fā)組織革新。 對人力資本更多的回報也引發(fā)了對其更多的投資。印度的中產(chǎn)階級，總是依賴于教育，特別是諸如工程師和醫(yī)生的職業(yè)教育，作為改善經(jīng)濟狀況的一種手段。然而印度經(jīng)濟的緩慢增長，使這類投資的回報率顯得并不很高。政府公共財政的謹慎狀態(tài)也限制了中央和州政府擴張第三方教育的能力。然而，快速增長的軟件部門迅速分散。在軟件產(chǎn)業(yè)內(nèi)發(fā)展最迅速的部門之一既是私人培訓(xùn)。 私人培訓(xùn)機構(gòu)對個體在軟件開發(fā)工作方面進行專門培訓(xùn)。NASSCOM 估計，在1998年，有3800家類似于的培訓(xùn)機構(gòu)，而市場潛力卻是有30，000，000美元，盡管其中的70%相信被NIIT和Aptech所占領(lǐng)。私人

50、培訓(xùn)機構(gòu)在幫助在職軟件開發(fā)員獲得新的技術(shù)上也是非常重要的。很多工程師也參加私人培訓(xùn)機構(gòu)進修。私人培訓(xùn)機構(gòu)在印度城市的出現(xiàn)，使軟件開發(fā)人員獲得這些機構(gòu)的認證和證書的變得更加可能。 同時值得一提的是，這是私人部門對市場機會——對特殊技能訓(xùn)練需求的反應(yīng)。在美國和其它的國家，公司為了利益會和各種各樣的公共機構(gòu)（如公立大學(xué)）進行競爭。在印度，私人培訓(xùn)機構(gòu)的快速成長，表明經(jīng)濟環(huán)境的變化和企業(yè)家行為從純粹的尋租向經(jīng)濟效率性領(lǐng)域轉(zhuǎn)軌。這種轉(zhuǎn)變至少間接上是歸因于軟件產(chǎn)業(yè)的快速發(fā)展。 綜上所述，我們認為，直到現(xiàn)在，證據(jù)顯示受過訓(xùn)練的工程類人才的過度供給是印度公司一個巨大的競爭優(yōu)勢。同樣的，這種過度供給也將導(dǎo)致公司缺乏人盡其用的激勵。甚至，產(chǎn)業(yè)發(fā)展和高工資不斷不僅吸引著新畢業(yè)的工程師，還吸引了包括工程師、經(jīng)理和來自其它產(chǎn)業(yè)部門的專家。 盡管如此，軟件產(chǎn)業(yè)的爆炸性成長使很多公司認識到技術(shù)型的工程師、軟件專業(yè)人士和優(yōu)秀的經(jīng)理是一種稀缺資源。另外，面臨著更誘人的選擇（如移民海外），那些很有天賦的工程師和經(jīng)理也在尋找更高的回報率和更專業(yè)化的工作環(huán)境。因此，這引出了我們接下來對各種組織結(jié)構(gòu)轉(zhuǎn)變的討論。 Ⅲ-8