【主讲】翁翕 讲师 (北京大学光华管理学院)
【主题】Bidding for Authority
【时间】2013年4月18日 (周四) 15：30-17：00
【地点】上海财经大学经济学院楼801室
【语言】英文
【摘要】Rent-seeking within organizations is a well-documented phenomenon. This paper investigates how rent-seeking affects the optimal allocation of authority within multi-divisional firms, in which non-contractible decisions must be adapted to local conditions but also coordinated with each other. Rent-seeking behavior may arise in centralized organizations since the division managers have incentives to bid for authority from the CEO, who holds the formal decision rights. We model rent-seeking as a multi-object, interdependent value, all-pay auction. If the CEO must sell the decision rights together, the optimal organizational structure in the presence of rent-seeking is non-monotonic in the need for coordination: decentralization becomes dominant when the need for coordination is sufficiently high (so as to prevent bidding for authority) or sufficiently low (so as to enhance effective adaptation). These results are robust when we introduce asymmetries into the environmental volatility or allow reserve price auction. If the CEO can sell the decision rights separately, the optimal organizational structure in the presence of rent-seeking crucially depends on whether the division managers can communicate after auction. Without communication, decentralization always dominates centralization while with communication, centralization becomes dominant only when the need for coordination is sufficiently high (even with rent-seeking).
