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Supervision in Firms

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Abstract

To control, evaluate, and motivate their agents, firms employ supervisors. As shown by empirical investigations, biased evaluation by supervisors linked to collusion is a persistent feature of firms. This paper studies how deceptive supervision affects agency relationships. We consider a three-level firm where a supervisor is in charge of producing a verifiable report on an agent's output. Depending on the output he has observed, the supervisor may either collude with the agent or with the principal, and make an uniformative report. We show that the proliferation of collusive activities in firms: modifies the configuration of the optimal preventive policy, may increase the expected cost of preventing each type collusion, is beneficial to the supervisor and detrimental to the agent, and is not always harmful

Suggested Citation

  • Kouroche Vafaï, 2012. "Supervision in Firms," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 12084, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    • Handle: RePEc:mse:cesdoc:12084
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    File URL: http://mse.univ-paris1.fr/pub/mse/CES2012/12084.pdf
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Firm; group decision; control; biased supervision;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D20 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - General
    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
    • L20 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - General
    • M50 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - General

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