Time as a Factor of Production

Abstract

Goods and services are produced/provided for consumption. It is also said that production ends when the good/ service reaches the final consumer. When goods are produced or services are provided without a final consumer then that business set up is a waste to the society because the available scarce resource in the country are misused by the enterprise. Such unfortunate incidents could stem from many factors which include unwholesome goods/services made available for consumption, cut throat prices, poor market survey and government policies among others. Many inputs are combined before a given product (output) could come out. Such inputs include raw materials, human efforts, machines and management of these inputs for the benefit of society which are popularly styled factors of production. There is no doubt that these factors of production cannot be left out if production is to take place but the researchers have the conviction that there is another important factor called Time which people knowingly or unknowingly forget about when factors of production are mentioned. This study agrees with the proponents of the idea of factors of production but the study aims at adding a factor which is equally important in the production process. The study developed the idea from responses of respondents who were used for a study on the contributions of sole proprietors to the economic development of developing countries using Ghana as a case. It is the hope of the researchers that their observation would be viewed critically and applied accordingly by the powers that be.