IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/14339.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Leadership, Coordination and Mission-Driven Management

Author

Listed:
  • Patrick Bolton
  • Markus K. Brunnermeier
  • Laura Veldkamp

Abstract

What makes a good leader? A good leader is able to coordinate his followers around a credible mission statement, which communicates the future course of action of the organization. In practice, leaders learn about the best course of action for the organization over time. While learning helps improve the organization's goals it also creates a time-consistency problem. Leader resoluteness is a valuable attribute in such a setting, since it slows down the leader's learning and thus improves the credibility of the mission statement. But resolute leaders also inhibit communication with followers and leader resoluteness is costly when followers have sufficiently valuable signals.

Suggested Citation

  • Patrick Bolton & Markus K. Brunnermeier & Laura Veldkamp, 2008. "Leadership, Coordination and Mission-Driven Management," NBER Working Papers 14339, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14339
    Note: CF
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w14339.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dewan, Torun & Myatt, David P., 2008. "The Qualities of Leadership: Direction, Communication, and Obfuscation," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 102(3), pages 351-368, August.
    2. Julio Rotemberg & Garth Saloner, 2000. "Visionaries, Managers, and Strategic Direction," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 31(4), pages 693-716, Winter.
    3. Sharun Mukand & Sumon Majumdar, 2007. "The Leader As Catalyst: On Leadership And The Mechanics Of Institutional Change," Working Paper 1128, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    4. Daniel Ferreira & Marcelo Rezende, 2007. "Corporate strategy and information disclosure," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(1), pages 164-184, March.
    5. Jordi Blanes I Vidal & Marc Möller, 2007. "When Should Leaders Share Information with Their Subordinates?," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(2), pages 251-283, June.
    6. Prendergast, Canice & Stole, Lars, 1996. "Impetuous Youngsters and Jaded Old-Timers: Acquiring a Reputation for Learning," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(6), pages 1105-1134, December.
    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. Koukoumelis, Anastasios & Levati, M. Vittoria & Weisser, Johannes, 2012. "Leading by words: A voluntary contribution experiment with one-way communication," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 379-390.
    2. Sergei Guriev & Anton Suvorov, 2010. "Why Less Informed Managers May Be Better Leaders," Working Papers w0142, Center for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR).
    3. Kathy Yuan & Emre Ozdenoren & Itay Goldstein, 2008. "Learning and Complementarities: Implications for Speculative Attacks," 2008 Meeting Papers 276, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    4. Kaplan, Steven N. & Klebanov, Mark M. & Rauh, Joshua, 2008. "Which CEO Characteristics and Abilities Matter?," Working Papers 230, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    5. Steven N. Kaplan & Mark M. Klebanov & Morten Sorensen, 2008. "Which CEO Characteristics and Abilities Matter?," NBER Working Papers 14195, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Florian Englmaier & Stefan Grimm & Dominik Grothe & David Schindler & Simeon Schudy, 2021. "The Value of Leadership: Evidence from a Large-Scale Field Experiment," CESifo Working Paper Series 9273, CESifo.
    7. Florian Englmaier, 2010. "Managerial optimism and investment choice," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(4), pages 303-310.
    8. Steven N. Kaplan & Mark M. Klebanov & Morten Sorensen, 2012. "Which CEO Characteristics and Abilities Matter?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(3), pages 973-1007, June.
    9. Mohan, Nancy, 2014. "A review of the gender effect on pay, corporate performance and entry into top management," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 41-51.
    10. Gürerk, Özgür & Irlenbusch, Bernd & Rockenbach, Bettina, 2009. "Motivating teammates: The leader's choice between positive and negative incentives," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 591-607, August.
    11. Zhou, Junjie, 2016. "Economics of leadership and hierarchy," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 88-106.
    12. Spagnolo, Giancarlo & Decarolis, Francesco & Iossa, Elisabetta & Mollisi, Vincenzo & Giuffrida, Leonardo, 2016. "Buyer Quality and Procurement Outcomes: Explorative Evidence From the US," SITE Working Paper Series 41, Stockholm School of Economics, Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics.

    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. Gürerk, Özgür & Irlenbusch, Bernd & Rockenbach, Bettina, 2009. "Motivating teammates: The leader's choice between positive and negative incentives," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 591-607, August.
    2. Andres Espitia, 2024. "Confidence and Organizations," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2024_521, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    3. Goodall, Amanda H. & Kahn, Lawrence M. & Oswald, Andrew J., 2011. "Why do leaders matter? A study of expert knowledge in a superstar setting," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 77(3), pages 265-284, March.
    4. Goodall, Amanda H. & Kahn, Lawrence M. & Oswald, Andrew J., 2008. "Why Do Leaders Matter? The Role of Expert Knowledge," IZA Discussion Papers 3583, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Torun Dewan & David P Myatt, 2012. "On the rhetorical strategies of leaders: Speaking clearly, standing back, and stepping down," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 24(4), pages 431-460, October.
    6. Daniel Ferreira & Thomas Kittsteiner, 2016. "When Does Competition Foster Commitment?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(11), pages 3199-3212, November.
    7. Tomoya Tajika, 2021. "Persistent and snap decision‐making," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 203-227, February.
    8. Bhalla, Manaswini & Chatterjee, Kalyan & Dutta, Souvik, 2021. "Social reform as a path to political leadership: A dynamic model," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 982-1010.
    9. Lourdes Rojas Rubio, 2022. "Leader influence on Politics," THEMA Working Papers 2022-16, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    10. Eric Van den Steen, 2018. "Strategy and the Strategist: How It Matters Who Develops the Strategy," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(10), pages 4533-4551, October.
    11. Qiang Fu & Ming Li & Xue Qiao, 2022. "On the paradox of mediocracy," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(2), pages 492-521, April.
    12. Sergei Guriev & Anton Suvorov, 2010. "Why Less Informed Managers May Be Better Leaders," Working Papers w0142, Center for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR).
    13. Daniel Ferreira & Marcelo Rezende, 2007. "Corporate strategy and information disclosure," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(1), pages 164-184, March.
    14. Renée B. Adams & Daniel Ferreira, 2009. "Strong Managers, Weak Boards?," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 55(3-4), pages 482-514.
    15. Goodall, Amanda H., 2009. "Highly cited leaders and the performance of research universities," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(7), pages 1079-1092, September.
    16. Eric Van den Steen, 2017. "A Formal Theory of Strategy," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(8), pages 2616-2636, August.
    17. Blanes i Vidal, Jordi & Möller, Marc, 2013. "Decision-making and implementation in teams," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 51544, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Junichiro Ishida, 2010. "Vision and Flexibility in a Model of Cognitive Dissonance," ISER Discussion Paper 0771, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.
    19. Josse Delfgaauw & Otto H. Swank, 2016. "Task‐Specific Human Capital and Organizational Inertia," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(3), pages 608-626, September.
    20. Junichiro Ishida & Takashi Shimizu, 2012. "Asking One Too Many? Why Leaders Need to Be Decisive," ISER Discussion Paper 0857, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory
    • D23 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights
    • D7 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making

    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:nbr:nberwo:14339. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.