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Motivating entrepreneurial activity in a firm

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  • Bernardo, Antonio E.
  • Cai, Hongbin B
  • Luo, Jiang

Abstract

We consider the problem of motivating privately informed managers to engage in entrepreneurial activity to improve the quality of the firm's investment opportunities. The firm's investment and compensation policy must balance the manager's incentives to provide entrepreneurial effort and to report her private information truthfully. The optimal policy is to underinvest (compared to first-best) and provide weak incentive pay in low-quality projects and overinvest (compared to first-best) and provide strong incentive pay in high-quality projects. We also show that, unlike the standard agency model, uncertainty and incentives can be positively related.

Suggested Citation

  • Bernardo, Antonio E. & Cai, Hongbin B & Luo, Jiang, 2005. "Motivating entrepreneurial activity in a firm," University of California at Los Angeles, Anderson Graduate School of Management qt9x19j2jf, Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:anderf:qt9x19j2jf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Orman, Cuneyt, 2015. "Organization of innovation and capital markets," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 94-114.
    2. Krasteva, Silvana & Sharma, Priyanka & Wagman, Liad, 2015. "The 80/20 rule: Corporate support for innovation by employees," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 32-43.
    3. Berchtold, Demian & Dichter, Oliver & Loderer, Claudio & Waelchli, Urs, 2021. "Pension risk and corporate investment distortion," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    4. Szydlowski, Martin, 2019. "Incentives, project choice, and dynamic multitasking," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(3), July.
    5. Thomas Hellmann & Veikko Thiele, 2011. "Incentives and Innovation: A Multitasking Approach," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 78-128, February.
    6. Sandro Brusco & Fausto Panunzi, 2020. "Internal financing, managerial compensation and multiple tasks," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 16(4), pages 501-527, December.
    7. Natarajan Balasubramanian & Mariko Sakakibara, 2021. "Incidence and Performance of Spinouts and Incumbent New Ventures: Role of Selection and Redeployability within Parent Firms," Working Papers 21-27, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    8. Jan Zabojnik, 2016. "Firm Reputation And Employee Startups," Working Paper 1362, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    9. Stanley Baiman & Mirko S. Heinle & Richard Saouma, 2013. "Multistage Capital Budgeting with Delayed Consumption of Slack," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(4), pages 869-881, April.
    10. Kim, Doyoung, 2013. "Delegation of information verification," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 488-500.
    11. Dutta, Sunil & Fan, Qintao, 2012. "Incentives for innovation and centralized versus delegated capital budgeting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 592-611.

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