He demands 12 hour days, and he gets more efficiency than other contractors; definitely different than the view that there's some optimum level of work <=40 hours/week after which returns diminish so much as to not be worth it. Maybe the game industry's perpetual crunch time isn't as insane from a strictly financial perspective as it seems at first blush?
My only cite is indirect: Angus Calder "the people's war" but I would be surprised if this isn't well documented in the real literature.
Also, some of the outcomes very quickly become externalities: nobody notices the bodge job until 5+ years later, and people die young of non-specific stress related diseases which don't get attributed to work.
It's entirely possible for construction-type work where specialized workers have to take turns (backhoe guy digs a hole, workers prep with hand tools, concrete is poured from cement mixer and then smoothed out with hand tools, lather, rinse, repeat), that there's enough built-in downtime / break time between steps that workers can handle longer shifts without reduced productivity.
In the mining industry it's referred to as 'mine time'. The majority of your 12-hour day is spent waiting for other necessary things (competing work, isolations, hazard analysis, approvals) to happen so a 20-minute job can take three hours.
I still recommend reading Calder, but I would take what I said with a pinch of salt.
https://books.google.com.au/books?id=aCRuuAXx-WkC&pg=PA397&l...
Contracts with $200,000/day early completion bonuses are not handed out to everyone. While they may be "hard bid" by dozens of contractors, preferential treatment is accorded to those with relationships.
If you're that guy AND you landed the contract, your decision to raid manpower from other local players is as straightforward as they come.
For construction and manufacturing work, the longer the hours, the more work will get done. There is an argument to be made for diminishing returns, but it's a lot less than for office jobs.