IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/84293.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Strategic delegation in procurement

Author

Listed:
  • Alonso-Pauli, Eduard
  • Bru, Lluís

Abstract

In a firm organized into business units, we show when profitability increases if procurement is delegated to the division in charge of production. We highlight that our results are driven by the business unit having a different objective function than Headquarters. The profitability of procurement delegation is affected by the essentiality of production facilities to the activities of the firm, and by strategic distortions in both transfer and input prices. We also look at vertical separation of activities as an alternative to procurement delegation.

Suggested Citation

  • Alonso-Pauli, Eduard & Bru, Lluís, 2018. "Strategic delegation in procurement," MPRA Paper 84293, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:84293
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/84293/1/MPRA_paper_84293.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tim Baldenius & Stefan Reichelstein, 2006. "External and Internal Pricing in Multidivisional Firms," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(1), pages 1-28, March.
    2. Fershtman, Chaim & Kalai, Ehud, 1997. "Unobserved Delegation," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 38(4), pages 763-774, November.
    3. Anil Arya & Brian Mittendorf & Dae-Hee Yoon, 2008. "Friction in Related-Party Trade When a Rival Is Also a Customer," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(11), pages 1850-1860, November.
    4. Michael L. Katz, 1991. "Game-Playing Agents: Unobservable Contracts as Precommitments," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 22(3), pages 307-328, Autumn.
    5. Emanuele Gerratana & Levent Koçkesen, 2015. "Commitment without reputation: renegotiation-proof contracts under asymmetric information," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 19(3), pages 173-209, September.
    6. Marta Troya-Martinez & Liam Wren-Lewis, 2023. "Managing Relational Contracts," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 21(3), pages 941-986.
    7. Fershtman, Chaim & Gneezy, Uri, 2001. "Strategic Delegation: An Experiment," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 32(2), pages 352-368, Summer.
    8. Michael Alles & Srikant Datar, 1998. "Strategic Transfer Pricing," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 44(4), pages 451-461, April.
    9. Jack Hirshleifer, 1956. "On the Economics of Transfer Pricing," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 29, pages 172-172.
    10. Levent Koçkesen & Efe A. Ok, 2004. "Strategic Delegation By Unobservable Incentive Contracts," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(2), pages 397-424.
    11. John R. Hamman & George Loewenstein & Roberto A. Weber, 2010. "Self-Interest through Delegation: An Additional Rationale for the Principal-Agent Relationship," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1826-1846, September.
    12. Borkowski, Susan C., 1996. "An analysis (meta- and otherwise) of multinational transfer pricing research," The International Journal of Accounting, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 39-53.
    13. Gerratana Emanuele & Koçkesen Levent, 2012. "Strategic Effects of Renegotiation-Proof Contracts," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-49, July.
    14. Wouter Dessein & Luis Garicano & Robert Gertner, 2010. "Organizing for Synergies," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 77-114, November.
    15. Anil Arya & Brian Mittendorf, 2008. "Pricing Internal Trade to Get a Leg up on External Rivals," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(3), pages 709-731, September.
    16. Martin L. Weitzman, 1974. "Prices vs. Quantities," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 41(4), pages 477-491.
    17. Chongvilaivan, Aekapol & Hur, Jung & Riyanto, Yohanes E., 2013. "Labor union bargaining and firm organizational structure," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 116-124.
    18. Zhao, Laixun, 2001. "Unionization, vertical markets, and the outsourcing of multinationals," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 187-202, October.
    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. Jung, Se-Youn & Huh, Woonghee Tim & Park, Kun Soo, 2022. "Impact of the arm’s length regulation on a supply chain with asymmetric retailers," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 300(3), pages 865-883.
    2. Choe, Chongwoo & Matsushima, Noriaki, 2013. "The arm's length principle and tacit collusion," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 119-130.
    3. Aristotelis Boukouras, 2015. "Separation of Ownership and Control: Delegation as a Commitment Device," Discussion Papers in Economics 15/02, Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester.
    4. Edward Johnson & Nicole Bastian Johnson & Thomas Pfeiffer, 2016. "Dual transfer pricing with internal and external trade," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 140-164, March.
    5. Ritz, Robert A., 2008. "Strategic incentives for market share," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 586-597, March.
    6. repec:otg:wpaper:1403 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. repec:zbw:rwirep:0270 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Robert A. Ritz, 2014. "On Welfare Losses Due to Imperfect Competition," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(1), pages 167-190, March.
    9. Dutta, Rohan & Ishii, Ryosuke, 2016. "Dynamic commitment games, efficiency and coordination," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 699-727.
    10. Clemens Löffler & Thomas Pfeiffer & Ulf Schiller & Joachim Wagner, 2011. "Zentralisierung, Transferpreise und spezifische Investitionen: Ein selektiver Verfahrensvergleich," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 63(63), pages 1-33, January.
    11. Kenji Matsui, 2012. "Auditing internal transfer prices in multinationals under monopolistic competition," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 19(6), pages 800-818, December.
    12. Emanuele Gerratana & Levent Koçkesen, 2015. "Commitment without reputation: renegotiation-proof contracts under asymmetric information," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 19(3), pages 173-209, September.
    13. Guth, Werner & Muller, Wieland & Spiegel, Yossi, 2006. "Noisy leadership: An experimental approach," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 37-62, October.
    14. Lemus Torres, Ana Belén, 2011. "The non-neutrality of the arm's length principle with imperfect competition," UC3M Working papers. Economics we1134, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    15. Deng, Sijing & Xu, Jiayan & Han, Yonghui, 2023. "A proprietary component manufacturer’s global supply chain design: The impacts of tax and organizational structure," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    16. Lemus, Ana B. & Moreno, Diego, 2020. "Strategic incentives for keeping one set of books under the Arm’s Length Principle," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 78-90.
    17. Ernan Haruvy & Yefim Roth, 2022. "On the Impact of an Intermediary Agent in the Ultimatum Game," Games, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-16, May.
    18. Arijit Mukherjee & Kullapat Suetrong, 2013. "Privatization, Incentive Delegation and Foreign Direct Investment," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 24(4), pages 657-676, September.
    19. Bhaskar, V., 2009. "Games played in a contracting environment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 389-398, November.
    20. Gerratana Emanuele & Koçkesen Levent, 2012. "Strategic Effects of Renegotiation-Proof Contracts," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-49, July.
    21. Pfeiffer, Thomas & Wagner, Joachim, 2007. "Internal markets or hierachies: Transfer prices or budgets?," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 59(3), pages 241-255.
    22. Gawn, Glynis & Innes, Robert, 2019. "Lying through others: Does delegation promote deception?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 59-73.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    strategic delegation; transfer pricing; procurement;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • M11 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Production Management

    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:pra:mprapa:84293. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.