Authority versus Persuasion

Eric Van den Steen

No 09-085, Harvard Business School Working Papers from Harvard Business School

Abstract: This paper studies a principal's trade-off between using persuasion versus using interpersonal authority to get the agent to 'do the right thing' from the principal's perspective (when the principal and agent openly disagree on the right course of action). It shows that persuasion and authority are complements at low levels of effectiveness but substitutes at high levels. Furthermore, the principal will rely more on persuasion when agent motivation is more important for the execution of the project, when the agent has strong intrinsic or extrinsic incentives, and, for a wide range of settings, when the principal is more confident about the right course of action.

Pages: 22 pages
Date: 2009-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-cbe, nep-cta and nep-ppm
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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Journal Article: Authority versus Persuasion (2009)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hbs:wpaper:09-085

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