IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jlabec/doi10.1086-681107.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do Agents Game Their Agents' Behavior? Evidence from Sales Managers

Author

Listed:
  • Alan Benson

Abstract

This paper examines how sales managers, acting as agents of the firm, game the staffing and incentives of their subordinates. Sales managers on a quota's cusp have a unique personal incentive to retain and lower quotas for poor-performing subordinates, allowing one to isolate a manager's interest from the firm's. Using microdata from 244 firms that subscribe to a cloud-based service for processing sales compensation, I estimate that 13%-15% of both quota adjustments and retentions among poor performers are explained by managers' incentives around quotas. Although a minority of poor performers are subsequently terminated or transferred, most are retained indefinitely.

Suggested Citation

  • Alan Benson, 2015. "Do Agents Game Their Agents' Behavior? Evidence from Sales Managers," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(4), pages 863-890.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jlabec:doi:10.1086/681107
    DOI: 10.1086/681107
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/681107
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/681107
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/681107?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul Oyer, 1998. "Fiscal Year Ends and Nonlinear Incentive Contracts: The Effect on Business Seasonality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(1), pages 149-185.
    2. Milgrom, Paul R, 1988. "Employment Contracts, Influence Activities, and Efficient Organization Design," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(1), pages 42-60, February.
    3. Oriana Bandiera & Iwan Barankay & Imran Rasul, 2007. "Incentives for Managers and Inequality among Workers: Evidence from a Firm-Level Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(2), pages 729-773.
    4. Baker, George P, 1992. "Incentive Contracts and Performance Measurement," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(3), pages 598-614, June.
    5. Fabian Herweg & Daniel Muller & Philipp Weinschenk, 2010. "Binary Payment Schemes: Moral Hazard and Loss Aversion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(5), pages 2451-2477, December.
    6. Courty, Pascal & Marschke, Gerald, 1997. "Measuring Government Performance: Lessons from a Federal Job-Training Program," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 383-388, May.
    7. Andrew Hertzberg & Jose Maria Liberti & Daniel Paravisini, 2010. "Information and Incentives Inside the Firm: Evidence from Loan Officer Rotation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(3), pages 795-828, June.
    8. Silke J. Forbes & Mara Lederman & Trevor Tombe, 2015. "Quality Disclosure Programs and Internal Organizational Practices: Evidence from Airline Flight Delays," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(2), pages 1-26, May.
    9. Ian Larkin & Stephen Leider, 2012. "Incentive Schemes, Sorting, and Behavioral Biases of Employees: Experimental Evidence," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 184-214, May.
    10. Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John, 1990. "The Efficiency of Equity in Organizational Decision Processes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(2), pages 154-159, May.
    11. Aboody, David & Kasznik, Ron, 2000. "CEO stock option awards and the timing of corporate voluntary disclosures," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 73-100, February.
    12. Tomasz Obloj & Metin Sengul, 2012. "Incentive Life-cycles: Learning and the Division of Value in Firms," Post-Print hal-00853783, HAL.
    13. Yermack, David, 1997. "Good Timing: CEO Stock Option Awards and Company News Announcements," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(2), pages 449-476, June.
    14. Sendil K. Ethiraj & Daniel Levinthal, 2009. "Hoping for A to Z While Rewarding Only A: Complex Organizations and Multiple Goals," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(1), pages 4-21, February.
    15. Tomasz Obloj & Metin Sengul, 2012. "Incentive Life-cycles: Learning and the Division of Value in Firms," Post-Print hal-00731048, HAL.
    16. Tirole, Jean, 1986. "Hierarchies and Bureaucracies: On the Role of Collusion in Organizations," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 2(2), pages 181-214, Fall.
    17. Nicolai J. Foss, 2003. "Selective Intervention and Internal Hybrids: Interpreting and Learning from the Rise and Decline of the Oticon Spaghetti Organization," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 14(3), pages 331-349, June.
    18. Healy, Paul M., 1985. "The effect of bonus schemes on accounting decisions," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(1-3), pages 85-107, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alan Benson & Danielle Li & Kelly Shue, 2018. "Promotions and the Peter Principle," NBER Working Papers 24343, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Lamar Pierce & Alex Rees-Jones & Charlotte Blank, 2020. "The Negative Consequences of Loss-Framed Performance Incentives," NBER Working Papers 26619, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Kräkel, Matthias, 2018. "Empowerment and the Dark Side of Delegation," IZA Discussion Papers 11289, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Richard B. Freeman & Wei Huang & Teng Li, 2019. "Non-linear Incentives, Worker Productivity, and Firm Profits: Evidence from a Quasi-experiment," NBER Working Papers 25507, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Kräkel, Matthias, 2021. "On the delegation of authority," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 965-981.
    6. Alan Benson & Danielle Li & Kelly Shue, 2019. "Promotions and the Peter Principle," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(4), pages 2085-2134.
    7. Kuhn, Peter J. & Yu, Lizi, 2021. "Kinks as Goals: Accelerating Commissions and the Performance of Sales Teams," IZA Discussion Papers 14115, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tomasz Obloj & Peter Zemsky, 2015. "Value creation and value capture under moral hazard: Exploring the micro-foundations of buyer– supplier relationships," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(8), pages 1146-1163, August.
    2. Douglas H. Frank & Tomasz Obloj, 2014. "Firm‐specific human capital, organizational incentives, and agency costs: Evidence from retail banking," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(9), pages 1279-1301, September.
    3. Carola Frydman & Dirk Jenter, 2010. "CEO Compensation," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 75-102, December.
    4. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2373-2437 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Agnieszka Rusinowska & Vassili Vergopoulos, 2020. "Ingratiation and Favoritism in Organizations," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 176(3), pages 413-445.
    6. Tzioumis, Konstantinos & Gee, Matthew, 2013. "Nonlinear incentives and mortgage officers’ decisions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(2), pages 436-453.
    7. Pascal Courty & Gerald Marschke, 2004. "An Empirical Investigation of Gaming Responses to Explicit Performance Incentives," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(1), pages 23-56, January.
    8. Gerald Marschke & Pascal Courty, 2000. "An Empirical Investigation of Gaming Responses to Performance Incentives," Discussion Papers 00-12, University at Albany, SUNY, Department of Economics.
    9. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2485-2563 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Prendergast, Canice & Topel, Robert H, 1996. "Favoritism in Organizations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(5), pages 958-978, October.
    11. Delfgaauw, Josse & Souverijn, Michiel, 2016. "Biased supervision," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 107-125.
    12. Edward P. Lazear, 1995. "Personnel Economics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262121883, December.
    13. repec:mth:ijafr8:v:8:y:2018:i:2:p:1-25 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. repec:bof:bofrdp:urn:nbn:fi:bof-201508131351 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Josef Schroth, 2018. "Managerial Compensation and Stock Price Manipulation," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(5), pages 1335-1381, December.
    16. Luis Garicano & Luis Rayo, 2016. "Why Organizations Fail: Models and Cases," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(1), pages 137-192, March.
    17. Joshua Blonz, 2019. "The Welfare Costs of Misaligned Incentives: Energy Inefficiency and the Principal-Agent Problem," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2019-071, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    18. Robert Gibbons, 1996. "Incentives and Careers in Organizations," NBER Working Papers 5705, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Timothy Gubler & Ian Larkin & Lamar Pierce, 2016. "Motivational Spillovers from Awards: Crowding Out in a Multitasking Environment," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(2), pages 286-303, April.
    20. Courty, Pascal & Marschke, Gerald, 2004. "A General Test of Gaming," CEPR Discussion Papers 4514, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    21. Karthik Muralidharan & Venkatesh Sundararaman, 2011. "Teacher Performance Pay: Experimental Evidence from India," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(1), pages 39-77.
    22. Frederiksen, Anders & Lange, Fabian & Kriechel, Ben, 2017. "Subjective performance evaluations and employee careers," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 408-429.
    23. Yu Flora Kuang, 2008. "Performance‐vested Stock Options and Earnings Management," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(9‐10), pages 1049-1078, November.
    24. Yu Flora Kuang, 2008. "Performance-vested Stock Options and Earnings Management," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(9-10), pages 1049-1078.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ucp:jlabec:doi:10.1086/681107. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JOLE .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.