This article models how a level of management between workers and the owner of a firm can affect the owner's decision either to internally integrate a function to make inputs or to contract out to buy inputs from an independent supplier. In the model, a self-serving manager can direct her...

This paper draws on two theoretical perspectives — expectation states theory and Goffman's theory of the self and social interaction — to analyze the interactional dynamics by which status hierarchies are maintained. In accounting for the conservative tendencies of social hierarchies, I...

This paper studies the relation between the structure of monitoring hierarchies and corruption, i.e., the expected number of bribed members. The model allows for internal corruption, a form of collusion eliminating accountability (monitoring) in the hierarchy. It is shown that the number of...