The most influential theory of corporate governance, principal agency theory, does not take into consideration that the key task of modern corporations is to generate and transfer firm-specific knowledge. It proposes that, in order to overcome the widespread corporate scandals, the interests of...

The purpose of this article is to develop an ordonomic conceptualization of corporate citizenshipand new governance that (a) provides a framework for positively explaining thepolitical participation of companies in new governance processes and (b) does not weakenbut instead strengthens the...

This paper argues that the perspective of ordonomic—a rational-choice based analysis of (interdependencies between) social structure and semantics—can provide new insights into the changing role of business in society. We claim (a) that the proper role of business is societal value creation,...

We argue that job performance appraisal is an agency problem with asymmetric transfer values: an employee is paid in proportion to the rating received from his line manager, who only partially internalizes the resultant payroll cost. This asymmetry in rating valuations is based on evidence that...

The presence of workers who reciprocate higher wages with greater effort can have important consequences for labor markets. Knowledge about the determinants of reciprocal effort choices is, however, incomplete. We investigate the role of fairness perceptions and social preferences in workers’...

Despite the social importance of awards, they have been largely disregarded by academic research in economics. This paper investigates whether a specific, yet important, award in economics, the John Bates Clark Medal, raises recipients’ subsequent research activity and status compared to a...

Are monetary and non-monetary incentives used as substitutes in motivating effort? I address this question in a laboratory experiment in which the choice of the job charac- teristics (i.e., the mission) is part of the compensation package that principals can use to influence agents' effort....

Empirical evidence shows that workers care about the mission of their job in addition to their wage. This suggests that employers can use the job mission to incentivize and screen their workers. I study a model in which a principal selects an agent to develop a project and influences the agent's...

In der öffentlichen Diskussion werden die Bezüge von Führungskräften mit der Semantikder Leistungsgerechtigkeit bewertet. Allerdings zeigt eine detaillierte Analysevon Prinzipal-Agent-Problemen in der modernen Wirtschaft, dass eine leistungsgerechteEntlohnung oft nicht das beste Ergebnis...

Awards—widespread in the corporate sector and elsewhere—are motivators that derive their value from non-pecuniary concerns such as status and self-image. Quasi-experimental panel data from the call center of a large international bank allow us to estimate the causal impact on effort when...