IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/dpr/wpaper/0863.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Formal Behavioral Model of Firm Boundaries: Why Does Authority Relation Mitigate Ex Post Adaptation Problems?

Author

Listed:
  • Yusuke Mori

Abstract

We explore why authority within firms helps trading parties immediately settle ex post adaptation problems despite the possibility of a subordinate's disobedience to the orders of his boss. By employing three crucial behavioral assumptions (reference-dependent preference, self-serving bias, and shading), we point out that the choice of governance structure affects trading parties' expectations about outcome of ex post adaptations and show that a subordinate is likely to obey orders of his boss because he is expected to do so. Nevertheless, our study also points out that such a positive aspect of authority comes with subordinate's psychological disutility.

Suggested Citation

  • Yusuke Mori, 2013. "A Formal Behavioral Model of Firm Boundaries: Why Does Authority Relation Mitigate Ex Post Adaptation Problems?," ISER Discussion Paper 0863, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.
    • Handle: RePEc:dpr:wpaper:0863
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.iser.osaka-u.ac.jp/library/dp/2013/DP0863.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    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. Fabian Herweg & Klaus Schmidt, 2012. "Loss Aversion and Ex Post Inefficient Renegotiation," CESifo Working Paper Series 4031, CESifo.
    3. Oliver Hart, 2009. "Hold-up, Asset Ownership, and Reference Points," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(1), pages 267-300.
    4. Oliver Hart & John Moore, 2008. "Contracts as Reference Points," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(1), pages 1-48.
    5. Francine Lafontaine & Margaret Slade, 2007. "Vertical Integration and Firm Boundaries: The Evidence," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 45(3), pages 629-685, September.
    6. Bolton Gary E. & Zwick Rami, 1995. "Anonymity versus Punishment in Ultimatum Bargaining," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 95-121, July.
    7. W. Bentley MacLeod, 2007. "Can Contract Theory Explain Social Preferences?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(2), pages 187-192, May.
    8. Kirk Monteverde & David J. Teece, 1982. "Supplier Switching Costs and Vertical Integration in the Automobile Industry," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 13(1), pages 206-213, Spring.
    9. Eric Van den Steen, 2010. "Interpersonal Authority in a Theory of the Firm," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(1), pages 466-490, March.
    10. Hart, Oliver, 1995. "Firms, Contracts, and Financial Structure," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198288817.
    11. Andrea Gallice, 2009. "Self-serving biased reference points," Department of Economic Policy, Finance and Development (DEPFID) University of Siena 0909, Department of Economic Policy, Finance and Development (DEPFID), University of Siena.
    12. William M. Dugger, 1996. "The Mechanisms of Governance," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(4), pages 1212-1216, December.
    13. Masten, Scott E, 1984. "The Organization of Production: Evidence from the Aerospace Industry," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 27(2), pages 403-417, October.
    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. Husnain Fateh Ahmad, 2020. "Self serving reference points in k−double auctions," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(1), pages 77-85, January.

    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. Yusuke Mori, 2013. "A Formal Theory of Firm Boundaries: A Trade-Off between Rent Seeking and Bargaining Costs," Discussion Paper Series DP2013-20, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University.
    2. Oliver Hart, 2013. "Noncontractible Investments and Reference Points," Games, MDPI, vol. 4(3), pages 1-20, August.
    3. Hart, Oliver D., 2013. "Noncontractible Investments and Reference Points," Scholarly Articles 29058539, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    4. Timothy Bresnahan & Jonathan Levin, 2012. "Vertical Integration and Market Structure [The Handbook of Organizational Economics]," Introductory Chapters,, Princeton University Press.
    5. Dessein, Wouter, 2012. "Incomplete Contracts and Firm Boundaries: New Directions," CEPR Discussion Papers 9019, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Paul Walker, 2013. "The ‘Reference Point’ Approach To The Theory Of The Firm: An Introduction," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(4), pages 670-695, September.
    7. Maloney, Michael T., 2017. "Alchian remembrances," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 561-582.
    8. Mathias Erlei & Wiebke Roß, 2013. "Bounded Rationality as an Essential Component of the Holdup Problem," TUC Working Papers in Economics 0009, Abteilung für Volkswirtschaftslehre, Technische Universität Clausthal (Department of Economics, Technical University Clausthal).
    9. Daniel P. Miller, 2014. "Subcontracting and competitive bidding on incomplete procurement contracts," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 45(4), pages 705-746, December.
    10. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2016. "Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmström: Contract Theory," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2016-1, Nobel Prize Committee.
    11. Gine,Xavier & Jacoby,Hanan G. & Gine,Xavier & Jacoby,Hanan G., 2016. "Markets, contracts, and uncertainty in a groundwater economy," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7694, The World Bank.
    12. Eduard Marinov, 2016. "The 2016 Nobel Prize in Economics," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 6, pages 97-149.
    13. Mori, Yusuke & 森, 祐介, 2012. "How Can Integration Reduce Inefficiencies Due to Ex Post Adaptation?," Working Paper Series 142, Center for Japanese Business Studies (HJBS), Graduate School of Commerce and Management Hitotsubashi University.
    14. Valeria Gattai & Piergiovanna Natale, 2017. "A New Cinderella Story: Joint Ventures And The Property Rights Theory Of The Firm," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 281-302, February.
    15. Gibbons, Robert, 2005. "Four forma(lizable) theories of the firm?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 200-245, October.
    16. Sharon Novak & Scott Stern, 2009. "Complementarity Among Vertical Integration Decisions: Evidence from Automobile Product Development," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(2), pages 311-332, February.
    17. Daron Acemoglu & Philippe Aghion & Rachel Griffith & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 2010. "Vertical Integration and Technology: Theory and Evidence," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 8(5), pages 989-1033, September.
    18. Gonzalez-Diaz, Manuel & Arrunada, Benito & Fernandez, Alberto, 2000. "Causes of subcontracting: evidence from panel data on construction firms," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 167-187, June.
    19. Wang, Sen & Bogle, Tim & van Kooten, G. Cornelis, 2012. "Forestry and the New Institutional Economics," Working Papers 130818, University of Victoria, Resource Economics and Policy.
    20. Charlie Joyez, 2017. "Firm heterogeneity and the integration trilemma: The utility of Joint ventures in integration versus outsourcing models," Working Papers DT/2017/09, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).

    More about this item

    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:dpr:wpaper:0863. 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: Librarian (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/isosujp.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.