IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jjieco/v26y2012i3p369-392.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The choice of organizational form under intrafirm bargaining rules

Author

Listed:
  • Kiyotaki, Fumi
  • Miyakawa, Toshiji

Abstract

This paper studies the choice of organizational form under incomplete contracts. We identify an organizational form with a rule of ex-post bargaining and compare four types of organization: horizontal organizations, inverted pyramidal hierarchies, pyramidal hierarchies and vertical hierarchies. We show that if the human capital investments of all members are perfectly complementary, the horizontal organization is chosen. If the investments of two players including the owner are essential, the inverted pyramidal hierarchy can occur. Pyramidal hierarchies minimize the agency cost if investments are non-firm-specific. The vertical hierarchy emerges when the owner can motivate a player who undertakes firm-specific investment by assigning him to the middle tier. We also examine who should be assigned to the middle tier in a vertical hierarchy.

Suggested Citation

  • Kiyotaki, Fumi & Miyakawa, Toshiji, 2012. "The choice of organizational form under intrafirm bargaining rules," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 369-392.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jjieco:v:26:y:2012:i:3:p:369-392
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jjie.2012.06.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0889158312000329
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jjie.2012.06.002?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. Hart, Oliver & Moore, John, 1990. "Property Rights and the Nature of the Firm," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(6), pages 1119-1158, December.
    2. Baron, David P. & Ferejohn, John A., 1989. "Bargaining in Legislatures," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(4), pages 1181-1206, December.
    3. Raghuram G. Rajan & Luigi Zingales, 2001. "The Firm as a Dedicated Hierarchy: A Theory of the Origins and Growth of Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(3), pages 805-851.
    4. Oliver Hart & John Moore, 2005. "On the Design of Hierarchies: Coordination versus Specialization," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(4), pages 675-702, August.
    5. Aghion, Philippe & Dewatripont, Mathias & Rey, Patrick, 1994. "Renegotiation Design with Unverifiable Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(2), pages 257-282, March.
    6. Aoki, Masahiko, 2010. "Corporations in Evolving Diversity: Cognition, Governance, and Institutions," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199218530.
    7. Kalyan Chatterjee & Bhaskar Dutia & Debraj Ray & Kunal Sengupta, 2013. "A Noncooperative Theory of Coalitional Bargaining," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Bargaining in the Shadow of the Market Selected Papers on Bilateral and Multilateral Bargaining, chapter 5, pages 97-111, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    8. Patrick Bolton & Mathias Dewatripont, 1994. "The Firm as a Communication Network," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(4), pages 809-839.
    9. David P. Baron & David Besanko, 1999. "Informational Alliances," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 66(4), pages 743-768.
    10. Pierre Cahuc & Francois Marque & Etienne Wasmer, 2008. "A Theory Of Wages And Labor Demand With Intra-Firm Bargaining And Matching Frictions," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 49(3), pages 943-972, August.
    11. Gabrielle Demange, 2004. "On Group Stability in Hierarchies and Networks," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(4), pages 754-778, August.
    12. repec:ner:ucllon:http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/17678/ is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Stole, Lars A & Zwiebel, Jeffrey, 1996. "Organizational Design and Technology Choice under Intrafirm Bargaining," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(1), pages 195-222, March.
    14. Debraj Ray & Rajiv Vohra, 1998. "A Theory of Endogenous Coalition Structures," Working Papers 98-1, Brown University, Department of Economics, revised Jan 1998.
    15. Gul, Faruk, 1989. "Bargaining Foundations of Shapley Value," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(1), pages 81-95, January.
    16. Ray, Debraj & Vohra, Rajiv, 1999. "A Theory of Endogenous Coalition Structures," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 286-336, January.
    17. Lars A. Stole & Jeffrey Zwiebel, 1996. "Intra-firm Bargaining under Non-binding Contracts," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 63(3), pages 375-410.
    18. Okada, Akira, 1996. "A Noncooperative Coalitional Bargaining Game with Random Proposers," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 97-108, September.
    19. Raghuram G. Rajan & Luigi Zingales, 1998. "Power in a Theory of the Firm," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(2), pages 387-432.
    20. Heikki Rantakari, 2008. "Governing Adaptation -super-1," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 75(4), pages 1257-1285.
    21. Jean-Jacques Laffont & David Martimort, 1998. "Collusion and Delegation," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 29(2), pages 280-305, Summer.
    22. 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.
    23. Hart, Sergiu & Mas-Colell, Andreu, 1996. "Bargaining and Value," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(2), pages 357-380, March.
    24. Chongwoo Choe & Shingo Ishiguro, 2012. "On the Optimality of Multi-tier Hierarchies: Coordination versus Motivation," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 28(3), pages 486-517, August.
    25. Hart, Oliver D & Moore, John, 1988. "Incomplete Contracts and Renegotiation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(4), pages 755-785, July.
    26. Antoine Faure-Grimaud & Jean-Jacques Laffont & David Martimort, 2003. "Collusion, Delegation and Supervision with Soft Information," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(2), pages 253-279.
    27. James M. Snyder Jr. & Michael M. Ting & Stephen Ansolabehere, 2005. "Legislative Bargaining under Weighted Voting," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 981-1004, September.
    28. Dilip Mookherjee & Masatoshi Tsumagari, 2004. "The Organization of Supplier Networks: Effects of Delegation and Intermediation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(4), pages 1179-1219, July.
    29. Radner, Roy, 1993. "The Organization of Decentralized Information Processing," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(5), pages 1109-1146, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Choe, Chongwoo & Ishiguro, Shingo, 2008. "On the (Sub)optimality of Multi-tier Hierarchies: Coordination versus Motivation," MPRA Paper 13451, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Akira Okada, 2015. "Cooperation and Institution in Games," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 66(1), pages 1-32, March.
    3. Ray, Debraj & Vohra, Rajiv, 2015. "Coalition Formation," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications,, Elsevier.
    4. Choe Chongwoo & Park In-Uck, 2011. "Information, Authority, and Corporate Hierarchies," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 1-39, February.
    5. Vidal-Puga, Juan J., 2008. "Forming coalitions and the Shapley NTU value," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 190(3), pages 659-671, November.
    6. Junichiro Ishida, 2015. "Hierarchies Versus Committees: Communication and Information Acquisition in Organizations," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 66(1), pages 62-88, March.
    7. Toshiji Miyakawa, 2009. "Existence and efficiency of a stationary subgame-perfect equilibrium in coalitional bargaining models with nonsuperadditive payoffs," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 39(2), pages 291-306, May.
    8. Maria Montero, 2023. "Coalition Formation in Games with Externalities," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 13(2), pages 525-548, June.
    9. Jonathan Treussard, 2005. "Life-Cycle Consumption Plans and Portfolio Policies in a Heath-Jarrow-Morton Economy," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series WP2005-033, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    10. Yildirim, Huseyin, 2007. "Proposal power and majority rule in multilateral bargaining with costly recognition," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 136(1), pages 167-196, September.
    11. Roy Chowdhury, Prabal & Sengupta, Kunal, 2012. "Transparency, complementarity and holdout," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 598-612.
    12. Inés Macho-Stadler & David Pérez-Castrillo & Nicol? Porteiro, 2002. "Sequential Formation of Coalitions through Bilateral Agreements," UFAE and IAE Working Papers 515.02, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).
    13. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2016. "Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmström: Contract Theory," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2016-1, Nobel Prize Committee.
    14. Ilya Segal, 2000. "Collusion, Exclusion, and Inclusion in Random-Order Bargaining," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 0738, Econometric Society.
    15. Ilya Segal & Michael D.Whinston, 2012. "Property Rights [The Handbook of Organizational Economics]," Introductory Chapters,, Princeton University Press.
    16. Armando Gomes, "undated". "A Theory of Negotiations and Formation of Coalitions," Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research Working Papers 21-99, Wharton School Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research.
    17. Gomes, Armando, 2015. "Multilateral negotiations and formation of coalitions," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 77-91.
    18. Roy Chowdhury, Prabal & Sengupta, Kunal, 2008. "Multi-person Bargaining With Complementarity: Is There Holdout?," MPRA Paper 11517, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Eduard Marinov, 2016. "The 2016 Nobel Prize in Economics," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 6, pages 97-149.
    20. Armo Gomes, "undated". "A Theory of Negotiation and Formation of Coalition," Penn CARESS Working Papers f0f956747161c96ffb6e79d05, Penn Economics Department.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Organizational form; Firm-specific investment; Incomplete contract; Noncooperative bargaining rule;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L22 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Organization and Market Structure
    • D23 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights
    • C78 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory

    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:eee:jjieco:v:26:y:2012:i:3:p:369-392. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622903 .

    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.