The choice of organizational form under intrafirm bargaining rules

This paper studies the choice of organizational form under incomplete contracts. We identify an organizational form with a rule of ex-post bargaining and compare four types of organization: horizontal organizations, inverted pyramidal hierarchies, pyramidal hierarchies and vertical hierarchies. We show that if the human capital investments of all members are perfectly complementary, the horizontal organization is chosen. If the investments of two players including the owner are essential, the inverted pyramidal hierarchy can occur. Pyramidal hierarchies minimize the agency cost if investments are non-firm-specific. The vertical hierarchy emerges when the owner can motivate a player who undertakes firm-specific investment by assigning him to the middle tier. We also examine who should be assigned to the middle tier in a vertical hierarchy.