This paper endogenizes coordination problems in organizations by allowing for both ex ante coordination of activities, using rules and task guidelines, and ex post coordination, using communication and broad job assignments. It shows that: (i) Task specialization and the division of labor is...

Is firm behavior mainly driven by its environment or rather by the characteristics of its managers? We develop a cognitive theory of manager fixed effects, where the allocation of managerial attention determines firm behavior. We show that in complex environments, the endogenous allocation of...

We analyze a model of hierarchies in organizations where neither decisions themselves nor the delegation of decisions are contractible, and where power-hungry agents derive a private benefit from making decisions. Two distinct agency problems arise and interact: Subordinates take more biased...

We argue that economists have studied the role of management from three perspectives: contingency theory (CT), an organization-centric empirical approach (OC), and a leader-centric empirical approach (LC). To reconcile these three perspectives, we augment a standard dynamic firm model with...

Delegation is a central feature of organizational design that theory suggests should be aligned with the intensity of incentives in performance pay schemes. We explore a specific form of delegation, namely price delegation, whereby firms allow sales people to offer a maximum discount from the...