Authority, Incentives, and Performance: Evidence from a Chinese Newspaper

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Wu, Yanhui
• 署名单位: University of Southern California
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6535
• DOI: 10.1162/REST_a_00557
• 发表日期: 2017-03
• 页码: 16-31
• 关键词: corporate hierarchies; flattening firm; media bias; ORGANIZATIONS; INFORMATION; DELEGATION

摘要

This paper examines how the allocation of authority within an organization affects workers' incentives and performance, using personnel data from a Chinese newspaper. Relying on an authority change that transferred the right of making editorial decisions from midlevel editors to top editors in four of the eight divisions in the newspaper, I find that the authority change improves reporters' performance while reducing their activities for private gain and decreases midlevel editors' journalistic initiative. To reconcile these findings, a synthesis of two theories on authority and incentivesthe vertical and the horizontal allocation of authorityis needed.