In most firms, if not all, workers are divided asymmetrically in terms of authority and Responsibility. In this paper, we view the asymmetric allocations of authority and responsibility as essential features of hierarchy and examine why hierarchies often prevail in organizations From that...

This paper considers a model of strategic information transmission with an imperfectly informed receiver and provides a simple logic by which the receiver's prior knowledge becomes an impediment to efficient communication. We show that the extent of communication is severely limited as the...

In most firms, if not all, workers are divided asymmetrically in terms of authority and responsibility. In this paper, we view the asymmetric allocations of authority and responsibility as essential features of hierarchy and examine why hierarchies often prevail in organizations from that...