Incomplete contracts and the internal organisation of firms

Philippe Aghion, John van Reenen and Nicholas Bloom

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: We survey the theoretical and empirical literature on decentralization within firms. We first discuss how the concept of incomplete contracts shapes our views about the organization of decision-making within firms. We then overview the empirical evidence on the determinants of decentralization and on the effects of decentralization on firm performance. A number of factors highlighted in the theory are shown to be important in accounting for delegation, such as heterogeneity and congruence of preferences as proxied by trust. Empirically, competition, human capital and IT also appear to foster decentralization. There are substantial gaps between theoretical and empirical work and we suggest avenues for future research in bridging this gap.

Keywords: uncertainty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36 pages
Date: 2013-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-com, nep-hrm and nep-tid
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/57987/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Incomplete Contracts and the Internal Organization of Firms (2014)
Working Paper: Incomplete contracts and the internal organization of firms (2014)
Working Paper: Incomplete Contracts and the Internal Organisation of Firms (2013)
Working Paper: Incomplete Contracts and the Internal Organization of Firms (2013)
Working Paper: Incomplete Contracts and the Internal Organization of Firms (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:57987

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