Recent thinking has emphasized the importance of consistency in a firm?s compensation policy. By starting from Williamson?s ideas about idiosyncratic exchange, this view can be supplied with some theoretical foundation. At the same time, the consistency view can be applied to a number of...

We reconsider Tirole's framework of a three-tier principal-agent problem, in which he has shown that an incentive problem is caused by the possibility of monetary side payments between the agent and the middle -level supervisor. We consider the case where monetary transfers are not possible, but...

Based on results of the different fields of the game theoretic literature on strategic interactions and social dilemmas, gift exchange and procedural utility, we argue that corporate social responsibility and relational skills i) with other firms; ii) between employers and workers iii) among...

Based on results of the different fields of the game theoretic literature on strategic interactions and social dilemmas, gift exchange and procedural utility, we argue that corporate social responsibility and relational skills i) with other firms; ii) between employers and workers iii) among...

Typical contracts assign both coercive and non-coercive means of power to the principal's side, providing the agent with a comparably small range of countervailing anti-power. Initially agents are therefore vulnerable to opportunistic principal behavior and will rationally anticipate this threat...

Early research work theorized franchising to exist because Hybridal Form Benefits (HFB) are achieved by the franchisor. Compared to the full hierarchy, franchising was held to reduce agency costs, to overcome resource scarcity and to enable risk sharing. Lately, the focus has shifted to an...

This work explores the strategic motivation of franchisors to combine franchised and company-owned stores when structuring their distribution networks. In the United States, such plurally organized chains have already outnumbered purely franchised competitors.Based on a review of existing...

In this paper, we examine ownership structures of franchise chains and evaluate their impact on franchisor profit. Specifically we compare pure forms of franchising with those that use both company-owned and franchised outlets within one chain - a phenomenon termed the plural form. Theoretically...

Using manager compensation disclosure and intra-family manager cooperation measures, we create indices of family-level competitive/cooperative incentives. Families that encourage cooperation among their managers are more likely to engage in coordinated behavior (e.g., cross-trading,...