We consider a firm A initially owning a software platform (e.g. operating system) and an application for this platform. The specific knowledge of another firm B is needed to make the platform successful by creating a further application. When B’s application is completed, A has incentives to...

A hierarchically structured rent-seeking contest may be associated with lower equilibrium expenditure than a corresponding flat contest. In this chapter we discuss how this fact may be used to explain the structure of organizations such as firms, including why firms commonly have outside owners.

This paper provides a formal analysis on the investment coordination problem in a vertically separated electricity supply industry, although the analysis may apply also to other network industries. In an electric- ity system, the investment decisions of network and power plants need to be...

We develop a theoretical perspective on how inconsistencies between formal and informal organization arising from reorganization can help create ambidextrous organizations. We argue that under some conditions, the informal organization can compensate for the formal organization by motivating a...

We model a managerial decision environment in which a manager both determines the skill heterogeneity of her workers and determines whether to retain or delegate the ability to allocate tasks. The manager prefers delegating when uncertainty is sufficiently high relative to the incentive conflict...

This is the second part of a comprehensive essay on the Rawlsian view of CSR (corporate social responsibility) seen as a multistakehodler model of corporate governance. I describe the repeated game among the firms and its stakeholders so that several types of reputations, based on the full or...

We consider an entrepreneur that is the sole producer of a cost reducing skill, but the entrepreneur that hires a team to use the skill cannot prevent collusive trade for the innovation-related knowledge between employees and competitors. We show that there are two types of diffusion-avoiding...

This paper addresses the question of delegation in an organisation where there is an initial asymmetry of information between the principal and the agent. We assume that the principal cannot use revelation techniques a la Baron Myerson to elicit agent's superior information and in contrast, we...

This paper reexamines the effect of asset ownership on investment decisions for a joint relationship in the absence of contracts on investment levels. It obtains some results which contradict findings by Grossman, Hart and Moore. In particular, it finds that the loss of ownership of an asset may...

This is the first part of a comprehensive essay on the Rawlsian view of corporate social responsibility (in short CSR). CSR is defined as a multi-stakeholder model of corporate governance and objective function based on the extension of fiduciary duties toward all the firm’s stakeholders. A...