Entrepreneurs, Managers, and the Organization of Work

Peter Thompson ()
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Jeffrey I. Bernstein

No 706, Working Papers from Florida International University, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper presents an explicit model of the entrepreneur’s role in organizing the work undertaken by employees. The model assumes that agents vary in their ability to carry out this task, and so in one sense the model is a special case of Lucas’ [Bell Journal of Economics, 9, pp. 508-523, (1978)] span of control framework. However, the model also relates ability to risk. As in Kihlstrom and Laffont [Journal of Political Economy, 87, pp. 719-748 (1979)], the entrepreneur bears all risk. But while Kihlstrom and Laffont assume the entrepreneur bears all risk and show that as a consequence the least risk averse become entrepreneurs, in the present model all agents are risk neutral but entrepreneurs bear all risk as an equilibrium outcome. The model is used to study the consequences of firm growth driven by entrepreneurial learning or by rising demand.

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; small business management; coordination. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: M11 M12 M54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-08
View list of references

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.fiu.edu/orgs/economics/wp2007/07-06.pdf Revised version, 2008 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fiu:wpaper:0706

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Florida International University, Department of Economics
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by Peter Thompson ().