Most research linking compensation to strategy relies on agency theory economics and focuses on executive pay. We instead focus on the strategic compensation of non-executive employees, arguing that while agency theory provides a useful framework for analyzing compensation, it fails to consider...

This paper investigates the pricing distortions that arise from the use of a common non-linear incentive scheme at a leading enterprise software vendor. The empirical results demonstrate that salespeople are adept at gaming the timing of deal closure to take advantage of the vendor's...

We investigate how the convexity of a firm’s incentives interacts with worker overconfidence to affect sorting decisions and performance. We demonstrate experimentally that overconfident employees are more likely to sort into a non-linear incentive scheme over a linear one, even though this...

This paper argues that conflicting incentives among managers may impede potential knowledge sharing benefits from vertical integration. I study knowledge-based agency costs from vertical integration in car leasing, where manufacturer-owned captive lessors compete with independent lessors. Both...

Behavioral economists have proposed that incentive contracts result in higher productivity when bonuses are “loss framed”—prepaid then clawed back if targets are unmet. We test this claim in a large-scale field experiment. Holding financial incentives fixed, we randomized the pre- or...