IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ratsoc/v17y2005i1p35-79.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Leadership and Bureaucracy

Author

Listed:
  • Barbara Koremenos

    (UCLA, koremeno@polisci.ucla.edu)

Abstract

In the midst of state budget cuts, Director Victor Wirth transformed the Illinois Department on Aging (IDOA) from a demoralized agency drowning in the paperwork of a massive compliance system into a cooperative organization devoted to service quality. I develop and apply a game-theoretic model of IDOA that shows how and why the management strategies pursued by Wirth brought about this transformation. Combining the model with detailed empirical evidence, I identify the key factors that allowed Wirth to lead the agency to a new equilibrium. His detailed knowledge of the strategic structure of IDOA allowed him to choose a new equilibrium. His desire and ability to communicate with every level involved in the implementation of the CCP as well as his considerable autonomy from the governor enabled him to create, articulate, and implement the strategies necessary to change the equilibrium. And finally his reputation in the aging field served as a bond that allowed him to enforce the new agency equilibrium, thereby overcoming problems of renegotiation proofness. This article also provides an empirical illustration of the folk theorem.

Suggested Citation

  • Barbara Koremenos, 2005. "Leadership and Bureaucracy," Rationality and Society, , vol. 17(1), pages 35-79, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ratsoc:v:17:y:2005:i:1:p:35-79
    DOI: 10.1177/1043463105046696
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1043463105046696
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1043463105046696?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James W. Friedman, 1971. "A Non-cooperative Equilibrium for Supergames," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 38(1), pages 1-12.
    2. Aumann, Robert J, 1987. "Correlated Equilibrium as an Expression of Bayesian Rationality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(1), pages 1-18, January.
    3. Holmstrom, Bengt & Milgrom, Paul, 1991. "Multitask Principal-Agent Analyses: Incentive Contracts, Asset Ownership, and Job Design," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(0), pages 24-52, Special I.
    4. Mukesh Eswaran & Ashok Kotwal, 1984. "The Moral Hazard of Budget-Breaking," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 15(4), pages 578-581, Winter.
    5. North, Douglass C. & Weingast, Barry R., 1989. "Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(4), pages 803-832, December.
    6. Bengt Holmstrom, 1982. "Moral Hazard in Teams," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 13(2), pages 324-340, Autumn.
    7. Martin J. Osborne & Ariel Rubinstein, 1994. "A Course in Game Theory," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262650401, December.
    8. Hammond, Thomas H & Thomas, Paul A, 1989. "The Impossibility of a Neutral Hierarchy," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 5(1), pages 155-184, Spring.
    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. Carmen Bevia & Luis Corchon, "undated". "Rational Sabotage in Cooperative Production," UFAE and IAE Working Papers 541.02, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).
    2. Dow, Gregory K., 2000. "On the Neutrality of Asset Ownership for Work Incentives," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 581-605, September.
    3. Dragon, Robert & Garvey, Gerald T. & Turnbull, Geoffrey K., 1996. "A collective tournament," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 223-227, February.
    4. Dow,Gregory K., 2019. "The Labor-Managed Firm," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107589650, January.
    5. Dow, Gregory K. & Putterman, Louis, 2000. "Why capital suppliers (usually) hire workers: what we know and what we need to know," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 319-336, November.
    6. Andrew B. Whitford, 2002. "Decentralization and Political Control of the Bureaucracy," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 14(2), pages 167-193, April.
    7. Dino Falaschetti & Gary Miller, 2001. "Constraining Leviathan," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 13(4), pages 389-411, October.
    8. Roussey, Ludivine & Soubeyran, Raphael, 2018. "Overburdened judges," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 21-32.
    9. van der Heijden, Eline & Potters, Jan & Sefton, Martin, 2009. "Hierarchy and opportunism in teams," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 39-50, January.
    10. Brice Corgnet, 2010. "Team Formation and Self‐serving Biases," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(1), pages 117-135, March.
    11. Theilen Bernd, 2009. "Market Competition and Lower Tier Incentives," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 9(1), pages 1-29, June.
    12. Oyer, Paul & Schaefer, Scott, 2011. "Personnel Economics: Hiring and Incentives," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 20, pages 1769-1823, Elsevier.
    13. Edward P. Lazear, 1995. "Personnel Economics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262121883, December.
    14. Fuhai Hong & Dong Zhang, 2023. "Bureaucratic beliefs and law enforcement," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 196(3), pages 357-379, September.
    15. Kerstin Puschke, 2009. "Task assignment and organizational form," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 96(2), pages 149-168, March.
    16. Eric Maskin & Yingyi Qian & Chenggang Xu, 1997. "Incentives," CEP Discussion Papers dp0371, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    17. Meyer, Margaret A. & Olsen, Trond E. & Torsvik, Gaute, 1996. "Limited intertemporal commitment and job design," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 401-417, December.
    18. Thijssen, J.J.J., 2003. "Investment under uncertainty, market evolution and coalition spillovers in a game theoretic perspective," Other publications TiSEM 672073a6-492e-4621-8d4a-0, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    19. Kerstin Puschke, "undated". "Optimal Hierarchies with Diverse Decision-Makers," Papers 034, Departmental Working Papers.
    20. Cédric Wanko, 2008. "Approche Conceptuelle et Algorithmique des Equilibres de Nash Robustes Incitatifs," Working Papers 08-03, LAMETA, Universtiy of Montpellier, revised Feb 2008.

    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:sae:ratsoc:v:17:y:2005:i:1:p:35-79. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.