Power Dynamics in Organizations

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Li, Jin; Matouschek, Niko; Powell, Michael
• 署名单位: Northwestern University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MICROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7669
• DOI: 10.1257/mic.20150138
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 217-241
• 关键词: authority; CONTRACTS; COMMUNICATION; COOPERATION; collusion

摘要

We examine an infinitely repeated game between a principal, who has the formal authority to decide on a project, and a biased agent, who is privately informed about what projects are available. The optimal relational contract speaks to how power is earned, lost, and retained. It shows that entrenched power structures are consistent with optimal administration of power. And it provides new perspectives on why similar firms organize differently, even when those organizational differences lead to persistent differences in performance, and why established firms fail to exploit new opportunities, even when they are publicly observable.