We survey the theoretical literature on careers in organizations, focusing on models that address detailed evidence or stylized facts. We begin with what we call building-block models: human-capital acquisition, job assignment, incentive contracting, efficiency wages, and tournaments. We then...

Conventional wisdom suggests that a global increase in monetary rewards should induce agents to exert higher effort. In this paper we demonstrate that this may not hold in team settings. In the context of sequential team production with positive externalities between agents, incentive reversal...

A manager and a worker are in an infinitely repeated relationship in which the manager privately observes her opportunity costs of paying the worker. We show that the optimal relational contract generates periodic conflicts during which effort and expected profits decline gradually but recover...

We analyze a Tullock-type takeover contest between two CEOs. To deter wasteful influence activities in shareholder optimum, the parachute compensates the (potentially) foregone earnings of the contestant whose incentives to invest in such activities are strongest. Therefore, the parachute is...

We study optimal contracting in team settings where agents have many opportunities to shirk, task-level monitoring is needed to provide useful incentives, and it is difficult to write individual performance into formal contracts. Incentives are provided informally, using wasteful sanctions like...

The notion of regular, full-time employment as one of the defining features of the U.S. economy has been called into question in recent years by the apparent growth of alternative or "nonstandard" arrangements - part-time work, temporary help, independent contracting, and other arrangements....

If managers and their subordinates had the same basic qualifications, organizations could benefit from replacing unproductive superiors with more productive subordinates. This threat of being replaced, however, could give rise to strategic recruiting: Unproductive superiors might deliberately...

Die einschlaegige Forschung betrachtet psychologische Vertraege primaer aus einer individualistisch-rationalen Perspektive. Wie alle Vertraege so sind auch psychologische Vertraege jedoch in einen sozio-kulturellen Kontext eingebettet, welcher massgeblichen Einfluss auf die Handlungsmotive und...

Die langfristigen Auswirkungen internationaler Einsaetze von Fuehrungskraeften auf deren Karrieren sind bislang kaum empirisch untersucht worden und die wenigen vorliegenden Ergebnisse sind widerspruechlich. Ziel dieser Studie ist deshalb die empirische Untersuchung der Auswirkungen...

Kritiker des deutschen Flaechentarifvertragssystems fordern eine staerkere Nutzung betrieblicher Verhandlungsloesungen. Die Folgen einer solchen Abkehr vom System der Flaechentarifvertraege (Verbetrieblichung) haetten vor allem die Betriebe und deren Akteure zu tragen. Der vorliegende Beitrag...