Control in organizations can be defined as expectational equilibrium, or correspondence between how the members of an organization behave, and how they are expected to behave by others. Using contract model of organizations as the base, we build a theory of control with the help of human...

Control in organizations can be defined as expectational equilibrium, or correspondence between how the members of an organization behave and how others expect them to behave. Using a contract model of organizations as the base, we use human expectations, common knowledge, and culture to propose...

We consider a principal-agent model where the agent is hired to take an action on behalf of the principal. The agent can exert costly effort to learn the true state of the world. If he fails to discover the state, he can end an inquiry to the principal who then can exert (additional) costly...

Action learning programs do not always seem to lead to organizational growth. Two of the reasons why this may happen, differences in perspectives and hold-up situations, are therefore contained in a flexible mathematical model that serves descriptive purposes. Studying this model brings us to...

We posit that the value of a manager's human capital depends on the firm's business strategy. The resulting interaction between business strategy and managerial incentives affects the organization of business activities. We illustrate the impact of this interaction on firm boundaries in a...

Agents may propose bad projects because they unwittingly rely on defective prior knowledge. Concern about these honest mistakes encourages principals to examine track records of the agents' use of the same prior knowledge. But, such track records cannot exist for novel projects (or routine...

Globalization places greater emphasis on the development of transnational alliances. The greatest benefits from alliances are derived from high-level information sharing, but risk escalates with information sharing. This study examines risk in transnational alliances based on a conceptual model...

For those concerned with nature and role of the business firm in economy and society, these are challenging times. Past and ongoing financial crises and scandals have focused attention on the system of regulation, governance and disclosure in a way many may never have imagined and few welcomed....

We examine how the threat of litigation affects an entrepreneur's reporting behavior when the entrepreneur (i) can misrepresent his privately observed information, (ii) pays legal damages out of his own pocket, and (iii) is optimistic about the firm's prospects relative to investors. We find...

Putting an end to the “earnings game” requires that CEOs reclaim the initiative by avoiding earnings guidance and managing expectations in such a way that their stocks trade reasonably close to their intrinsic value. In place of earnings forecasts, management should provide information about...