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Teams versus individual accountability: solving multitask problems through job design
Author(s) -
Corts Kenneth S.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
the rand journal of economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.687
H-Index - 108
eISSN - 1756-2171
pISSN - 0741-6261
DOI - 10.1111/j.1756-2171.2007.tb00078.x
Subject(s) - incentive , agency (philosophy) , accountability , compensation (psychology) , computer science , principal–agent problem , microeconomics , knowledge management , business , economics , psychology , social psychology , finance , corporate governance , political science , philosophy , epistemology , law
Many organizations are structured so that workers are jointly accountable for performance, even though there exist alternative organizational structures that align incentive compensation more closely with each worker's tasks. I develop a multitask agency model that demonstrates that such organizations may be optimal when multitask problems are severe or risk considerations are not too important. I also show that, in some circumstances, it may be optimal to share poorly measured tasks among several agents, contrary to the results of the existing multitask literature.