This paper presents one reason for adopting diverse work assignments, rooted in a desire to match employees' pay with the skills they have cultivated on the job. When on-the-job learning parlays into attractive external opportunities, employees may threaten to seek a different and higher paying...

The seminal "unraveling" result in the disclosure literature posits that discretion inevitably leads to full disclosure, even when such disclosure has detrimental consequences. In this paper, we revisit optimal disclosure of proprietary information when firms compete in multiple markets. The...

There are many circumstances in which manufacturers provide inputs to wholesale customers only to subsequently compete with these wholesale customers in the retail realm. Such dual distribution arrangements commonly suffer from excessive encroachment in that the manufacturer's ex post retail...

This paper considers the desirability of aggregate performance measures in light of the fact that many individuals' performance incentives are driven by a desire to shape external perceptions (and thus future pay). In contrast to the case of explicit incentive contracts, we find that when...

Organizational structure of firms is an important topic that has been widely discussed in virtually all management disciplines. The typical view of firm organization emphasizes enhancing efficiency by fully aligning incentives of all participants to achieve a common objective. Over the years,...

A prevailing view in the disclosure literature is that firms who learn favorable market information are reluctant to disclose it, fearing it will attract new rivals. In this paper, we demonstrate that the presence of dual distribution arrangements, wherein consumers can purchase products either...

The prevalence of intermediaries (middlemen) in supply chains is often seen as a dying remnant of less efficient times. Despite predictions that supply chains will rapidly “cut out the middleman” as technological advances have eased logistics, middlemen have continued to thrive. In this...

Many in the nonprofit sector view accounting-based performance measures to be overly influential and counterproductive in the evaluation of charities and their leaders. The contention is that such measures are imperfect and often biased, leading to dysfunctional rationing of fundraising and...

The common wisdom is that a retailer suffers when its wholesale supplier encroaches on the retailer's operations by selling directly to final consumers. We demonstrate that the retailer can benefit from encroachment even when encroachment admits no synergies and does not facilitate product...