IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejmic/v4y2012i3p171-211.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Employee Initiative and Managerial Control

Author

Listed:
  • Heikki Rantakari

Abstract

I analyze the impact of managerial involvement and the allocation of authority on employee initiative in a setting where both a manager and an employee can originate new ideas for implementation. I show that employee initiative is maximized through the combination of formal authority and limited but positive levels of involvement by the manager, a result which thus qualifies the motivational advantages of both formal delegation and a hands-off management strategy. This result arises through an indirect monitoring role played by managerial involvement that has been absent in previous frameworks, and the implications of which for the optimal organizational arrangement are further analyzed. (JEL D23, M12, M54)

Suggested Citation

  • Heikki Rantakari, 2012. "Employee Initiative and Managerial Control," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 171-211, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejmic:v:4:y:2012:i:3:p:171-211
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/mic.4.3.171
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/mic.4.3.171
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    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. Aghion, Philippe & Tirole, Jean, 1997. "Formal and Real Authority in Organizations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(1), pages 1-29, February.
    2. Baker, George & Gibbons, Robert & Murphy, Kevin J, 1999. "Informal Authority in Organizations," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 56-73, April.
    3. Helmut Bester & Daniel Krähmer, 2008. "Delegation and incentives," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(3), pages 664-682, September.
    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. Timothy Besley & Torsten Persson, 2024. "Organizational dynamics: culture, design, and performance," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 40(2), pages 394-415.
    2. Daniel Habermacher, 2022. "Authority and Specialization under Informational Interdependence," Working Papers 142, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).
    3. Ekinci, Emre & Theodoropoulos, Nikolaos, 2021. "Disagreement and informal delegation in organizations," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    4. Marc Gürtler & Oliver Gürtler, 2015. "The Optimality of Heterogeneous Tournaments," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(4), pages 1007-1042.
    5. Saori Chiba, 2024. "Information Transmission and Countervailing Biases in Organizations," Games, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-25, May.
    6. Li, Jin & Mukherjee, Arijit & Vasconcelos, Luis, 2019. "Rulebooks in Relational Contracts," Working Papers 2019-7, Michigan State University, Department of Economics.
    7. Jin Li & Arijit Mukherjee & Luis Vasconcelos, 2023. "What Makes Agility Fragile? A Dynamic Theory of Organizational Rigidity," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(6), pages 3578-3601, June.
    8. Liu, Shuo & Migrow, Dimitri, 2022. "When does centralization undermine adaptation?," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    9. Nadav Levy, 2014. "Domain knowledge, ability, and the principal's authority relations," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 45(2), pages 370-394, June.
    10. Emre Ekinci & Nikos Theodoropoulos, 2018. "Informal Delegation and Training," University of Cyprus Working Papers in Economics 02-2018, University of Cyprus Department of Economics.
    11. Saori CHIBA & Kaiwen LEONG, 2018. "Information Aggregation and Countervailing Biases in Organizations," Discussion papers e-18-007, Graduate School of Economics , Kyoto University.
    12. Magdalena Dobrajska & Stephan Billinger & Samina Karim, 2015. "Delegation Within Hierarchies: How Information Processing and Knowledge Characteristics Influence the Allocation of Formal and Real Decision Authority," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(3), pages 687-704, June.

    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. Ernst Fehr & Holger Herz & Tom Wilkening, 2013. "The Lure of Authority: Motivation and Incentive Effects of Power," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(4), pages 1325-1359, June.
    2. Ekinci, Emre & Theodoropoulos, Nikolaos, 2021. "Disagreement and informal delegation in organizations," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    3. Christos Bilanakos & John S. Heywood & John G. Sessions & Nikolaos Theodoropoulos, 2018. "Does Delegation Increase Worker Training?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(2), pages 1089-1115, April.
    4. D. Paul Newman & Kirill E. Novoselov, 2009. "Delegation to Encourage Communication of Problems," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(4), pages 911-942, September.
    5. Kräkel, Matthias, 2018. "Empowerment and the Dark Side of Delegation," IZA Discussion Papers 11289, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Tigran Melkonyan, 2014. "Decentralization, Incentive Contracts and the Effect of Distortions in Performance Measures," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 82(6), pages 631-652, December.
    7. Schöttner, Anja & Rohlfing-Bastian, Anna, 2015. "Optimal Allocation of Decision-Making Authority and the Provision of Incentives under Uncertainty," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113200, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    8. Christos Bilanakos & John S. Heywood & John Sessions & Nikolaos Theodoropoulos, 2016. "Delegation and worker training," University of Cyprus Working Papers in Economics 06-2016, University of Cyprus Department of Economics.
    9. Emre Ekinci & Nikos Theodoropoulos, 2018. "Informal Delegation and Training," University of Cyprus Working Papers in Economics 02-2018, University of Cyprus Department of Economics.
    10. Daron Acemoglu & Philippe Aghion & Claire Lelarge & John Van Reenen & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 2007. "Technology, Information, and the Decentralization of the Firm," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(4), pages 1759-1799.
    11. Nicholas Bloom & Luis Garicano & Raffaella Sadun & John Van Reenen, 2014. "The Distinct Effects of Information Technology and Communication Technology on Firm Organization," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(12), pages 2859-2885, December.
    12. Jeremy C. Stein, 2002. "Information Production and Capital Allocation: Decentralized versus Hierarchical Firms," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(5), pages 1891-1921, October.
    13. Nicholas Bloom & Raffaella Sadun, 2012. "The Organization of Firms Across Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(4), pages 1663-1705.
    14. Tatsuo Ushijima, 2016. "Diversification, Organization, and Value of the Firm," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 45(2), pages 467-499, May.
    15. Nicholas Bloom & Raffaella Sadun & John Van Reenen, 2010. "Does Product Market Competition Lead Firms to Decentralize?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(2), pages 434-438, May.
    16. Bryan Hong & Lorenz Kueng & Mu-Jeung Yang, 2015. "Estimating Management Practice Complementarity between Decentralization and Performance Pay," NBER Working Papers 20845, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Yohanes Eko Riyanto, 2000. "Delegation of Authority, Managerial Initiatives, and the Design of Divisional Structure," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 1061, Econometric Society.
    18. Luis Garicano & Richard A. Posner, 2005. "Intelligence Failures: An Organizational Economics Perspective," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(4), pages 151-170, Fall.
    19. Evan Barlow & Gad Allon & Achal Bassamboo, 2021. "The autonomous flexible labor force," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(2), pages 516-527, March.
    20. Chen, Ying & Eraslan, Hulya, 2018. "Learning While Setting Precedents," Working Papers 18-001, Rice University, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D23 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights
    • M12 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Personnel Management; Executives; Executive Compensation
    • M54 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Labor Management

    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:aea:aejmic:v:4:y:2012:i:3:p:171-211. 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    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.