Of opinionated bosses and yes men

This paper develops a theory of opinionated bosses – this is where a boss reveals her opinions to a worker who is tasked with gathering information. When the worker gathers information across multiple tasks, which he views as substitutes, the boss may selectively reveal her opinions to the worker on a well known task to redirect his effort to the task that is less well known. The benefit is a broader expertise across activities in the organization when rewards across these activities are implicitly determined. The cost is that the worker becomes a yes man. Being opinionated can, i) go hand in hand with weaker opinions, ii) lead to excessive levels of conformity and initiative, and finally, iii) improve the tradeoff between insurance and explicit incentives when a worker is risk averse.