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External Recruitment as an Incentive Device

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Author Info
Kong-Pin Chen

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Abstract

External recruitment has often been viewed as a necessary evil in that it trades off the need for outside talents with the incentives of inside workers. This paper, however, shows that even from an incentive viewpoint, external recruitment has its positive role to play. Specifically, if promotion is based on relative performance, then negative activities in the form of sabotage are a valuable instrument to compete. This results in inefficiency of the workers' efforts and performance of the firm. External recruitment, by reducing the marginal return of negative activity relative to that of productive activity, can restore the incentives of the workers to engage in productive activity and enhances the firm's performance. We also show that even when negative activities are not a concern, external recruitment can sometimes avoid the shirking equilibrium, or prevents collusion of the workers

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Paper provided by Econometric Society in its series Econometric Society 2004 Far Eastern Meetings with number 514.

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Date of creation: 11 Aug 2004
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Handle: RePEc:ecm:feam04:514

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Related research
Keywords: external recruitment; promotion tournament; relative performance;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Chan, William, 1996. "External Recruitment versus Internal Promotion," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 14(4), pages 555-70, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Jonathan Levin, 2003. "Relational Incentive Contracts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 835-857, June. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Eriksson, Tor, 1999. "Executive Compensation and Tournament Theory: Empirical Tests on Danish Data," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(2), pages 262-80, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Bull, Clive, 1987. "The Existence of Self-Enforcing Implicit Contracts," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 102(1), pages 147-59, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Lazear, Edward P, 1989. "Pay Equality and Industrial Politics," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(3), pages 561-80, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Baker, George & Gibbs, Michael & Holmstrom, Bengt, 1994. "The Internal Economics of the Firm: Evidence from Personnel Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 109(4), pages 881-919, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Edward P. Lazear & Sherwin Rosen, 1981. "Rank-Order Tournaments as Optimum Labor Contracts," NBER Working Papers 0401, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  8. Rosen, Sherwin, 1986. "Prizes and Incentives in Elimination Tournaments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(4), pages 701-15, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Kong-Pin Chen, 2003. "Sabotage in Promotion Tournaments," Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 19(1), pages 119-140, April.
  10. Zabojnik, Jan & Bernhardt, Dan, 2001. "Corporate Tournaments, Human Capital Acquisition, and the Firm Size-Wage Relation," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 68(3), pages 693-716, July.
  11. Hans K. Hvide, 2002. "Tournament Rewards and Risk Taking," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 20(4), pages 877-898, October. [Downloadable!]
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  12. Leonardo Felli & J. Miguel Villas-Boas, 2000. "Renegotiation and Collusion in Organizations," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 9(4), pages 453-483, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Guido Friebel & Michael Raith, 2004. "Abuse of Authority and Hierarchical Communication," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 35(2), pages 224-244, Summer.
  14. Bognanno, Michael L, 2001. "Corporate Tournaments," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 19(2), pages 290-315, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. Tirole, Jean, 1991. "Collusion and the Theory of Organizations," IDEI Working Papers 9, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse.
  16. Muller, Holger M & Warneryd, Karl, 2001. "Inside versus Outside Ownership: A Political Theory of the Firm," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 32(3), pages 527-41, Autumn.
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. René Kirkegaard, 2007. "Comparative Statics and Welfare in Heterogeneous Contests: Bribes, Caps, and Performance Thresholds," Working Papers 0702, Brock University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  2. Johannes Münster, 2006. "Selection Tournaments, Sabotage, and Participation," Discussion Papers 118, SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich. [Downloadable!]
  3. Pedro Martins & Francisco Lima, 2006. "External recruitments and firm performance," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 13(14), pages 911-915, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Oliver Gürtler & Johannes Münster, 2009. "Sabotage in dynamic tournaments," Discussion Papers 266, SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich. [Downloadable!]
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