IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lam/wpaper/11-12.html

Managerial incentives under competitive pressure: Experimental investigation

Author

Listed:
  • Ahmed Ennasri
  • Marc Willinger

Abstract

We investigate the effects of competition on managerial incentives and effort in a laboratory experiment. Each owner offers compensation to his manager in two different contexts: monopoly and Cournot duopoly. After accepting the compensation, the manager chooses an effort level to increase the probability of reduced costs of his firm. Theory predicts that the entry of a rival firm in a monopolistic industry affects negatively both the incentive compensation and the effort level. Our experimental findings confirm that the entry of a rival firm reduces the incentive compensation but not the manager’s effort level. However, despite the reduction of the incentive compensation, the manager continues to accept the contract offers and exert the same level of effort.

Suggested Citation

  • Ahmed Ennasri & Marc Willinger, 2011. "Managerial incentives under competitive pressure: Experimental investigation," Working Papers 11-12, LAMETA, Universtiy of Montpellier, revised Jun 2011.
    • Handle: RePEc:lam:wpaper:11-12
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.lameta.univ-montp1.fr/Documents/DR2011-12.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2011
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martin Stephen, 1993. "Endogenous Firm Efficiency in a Cournot Principal-Agent Model," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 445-450, April.
    2. Keser, Claudia & Willinger, Marc, 2007. "Theories of behavior in principal-agent relationships with hidden action," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(6), pages 1514-1533, August.
    3. Brian J. Hall & Jeffrey B. Liebman, 1998. "Are CEOs Really Paid Like Bureaucrats?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(3), pages 653-691.
    4. repec:bla:econom:v:72:y:2005:i:286:p:225-240 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Michael Raith, 2003. "Competition, Risk, and Managerial Incentives," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1425-1436, September.
    6. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    7. Bengt Holmstrom, 1979. "Moral Hazard and Observability," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 10(1), pages 74-91, Spring.
    8. Grossman, Sanford J & Hart, Oliver D, 1983. "An Analysis of the Principal-Agent Problem," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(1), pages 7-45, January.
    9. David Scharfstein, 1988. "Product-Market Competition and Managerial Slack," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 19(1), pages 147-155, Spring.
    10. repec:lmu:muenar:19529 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Januszewski, Silke I. & Koke, Jens & Winter, Joachim K., 2002. "Product market competition, corporate governance and firm performance: an empirical analysis for Germany," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 299-332, September.
    12. Horn, Henrik & Lang, Harald & Lundgren, Stefan, 1994. "Competition, long run contracts and internal inefficiencies in firms," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 213-233, February.
    13. Klaus M. Schmidt, 1997. "Managerial Incentives and Product Market Competition," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 64(2), pages 191-213.
    14. Keser, Claudia, 1993. "Some Results of Experimental Duopoly Markets with Demand Intertia," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(2), pages 133-151, June.
    15. Barry J. Nalebuff & Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1983. "Prices and Incentives: Towards a General Theory of Compensation and Competition," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 14(1), pages 21-43, Spring.
    16. Benjamin E. Hermalin, 1994. "Heterogeneity in Organizational Form: Why Otherwise Identical Firms Choose Different Incentives for Their Managers," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 25(4), pages 518-537, Winter.
    17. Bengt Holmstrom, 1982. "Moral Hazard in Teams," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 13(2), pages 324-340, Autumn.
    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. Ahmed Ennasri, 2011. "An experimental analysis of the existing differences of productivity across genders," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 31(4), pages 3304-3310.

    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. Ahmed Ennasri, 2010. "Incitations Managériales et Concurrence : Synthèse de la Littérature," Studies and Syntheses 10-03, LAMETA, Universtiy of Montpellier, revised Oct 2010.
    2. Ennasri, Ahmed & Willinger, Marc, 2014. "Incentives and managerial effort under competitive pressure: An experiment," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(4), pages 324-337.
    3. Ujjayini Roy & Indrani Chakraborty, 2023. "Market concentration, agency cost and firm performance: a case study on Indian corporate firms," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 56(4), pages 2645-2693, August.
    4. Goergen, Marc & Manjon, Miguel C. & Renneboog, Luc, 2008. "Recent developments in German corporate governance," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 175-193, September.
    5. Dam, Kaniṣka & Robinson-Cortés, Alejandro, 2020. "Executive compensation and competitive pressure in the product market: How does firm entry shape managerial incentives?," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 60-77.
    6. Alejandro Robinson Cortés, 2013. "Eficiencia Interna y Competencia de Mercado en Oligopolio," Undergraduate theses (Spanish) tesl001, CIDE, División de Economía.
    7. Tinaikar, Surjit & Xu, Bo, 2023. "Does competition exacerbate investment inefficiencies? Evidence from Japanese firms," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 35-53.
    8. Jenter, Dirk, 2004. "Executive Compensation, Incentives, and Risk," Working papers 4466-02, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    9. Ormazabal, Gaizka, 2018. "The Role of Stakeholders in Corporate Governance: A View from Accounting Research," CEPR Discussion Papers 12775, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Nickell, Stephen, 1999. "Product markets and labour markets1," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 1-20, March.
    11. Xavier Vives, 2008. "Innovation And Competitive Pressure," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(3), pages 419-469, December.
    12. Ujjayini Roy & Indrani Chakraborty, 2024. "Market concentration, promoter ownership and firm performance: evidence from Indian corporate firms," Indian Economic Review, Springer, vol. 59(1), pages 27-85, June.
    13. Schmidt, Klaus M. & Fey, Lisa & Thoma, Carmen, 2017. "Competition and incentives," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 111-125.
    14. Poltavets Ivan, 2005. "Productivity Differential and Competition: Can an Old Dog be Taught New Tricks?," EERC Working Paper Series 05-09e, EERC Research Network, Russia and CIS.
    15. Koji Ishibashi, 2010. "Effects Of Asymmetric Information Within A Firm On Oligopolistic Market Outcomes," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 61(4), pages 488-506, December.
    16. Tang, Yuehua, 2018. "When does competition mitigate agency problems?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 258-274.
    17. Wright, Donald J., 2003. "Managerial incentives and firm efficiency in the presence of competition for managers," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 419-437, March.
    18. Maria Guadalupe & Francisco Perez-Gonzalez, 2006. "The Impact of Product Market Competition on Private Benefits of Control," Hi-Stat Discussion Paper Series d05-159, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    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. Andergassen, Rainer, 2016. "Managerial compensation, product market competition and fraud," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 1-15.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:lam:wpaper:11-12. 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: Patricia Modat The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Patricia Modat to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lamplfr.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.