Job design with conflicting tasks reconsidered

Patrick Schmitz

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: A principal wants two sequential tasks to be performed by wealth-constrained agents. When the tasks are conflicting (i.e., when a first-stage success makes second-stage effort less effective), the principal's profit-maximizing way to induce high efforts is to hire one agent to perform both tasks. In this case, the prospect to get a larger second-stage rent after a first-stage success motivates the agent to work hard in the first stage. In contrast, when the tasks are synergistic, the principal prefers to hire two different agents for the two tasks. These results are in contrast to previous studies that consider simultaneous tasks.

Keywords: moral hazard; limited liability; conflicting tasks; synergies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D23 D86 L23 M12 M54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cta and nep-hrm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/36914/1/MPRA_paper_36914.pdf original version (application/pdf)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/42394/4/MPRA_paper_42394.pdf revised version (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Job design with conflicting tasks reconsidered (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:36914

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