The Market Provision of Management Services, Information Asymmetries and Service Quality—Some Market Solutions: an Empirical Example
研究管理服务市场中因无形性和易逝性导致的信息不对称问题，分析逆向选择和道德风险如何影响市场，并以高管招聘行业为例说明市场内置机制如何缓解这些问题。
SUMMARY This article examines the problems of information asymmetry associated with the market provision of managerial services. Such problems are heightened by those characteristics which differentiate services from goods. Two unique, and central, characteristics of services, are intangibility and perishability. These create special problems for the market provision of services. In particular they make for difficulties in assessing quality; whereas the producer may know product quality, the buyer often does not. The asymmetry between sellers and buyers is of two types: Adverse selection and moral hazard. Adverse selection occurs when the buyer cannot observe the relevant characteristics of the seller or the conditions under which they work. The problem of moral hazard is the buyer's inability to observe the action taken by the sellers. If these difficulties are not overcome, the market could collapse as companies withdraw and internalize service provision. However, each market has a number of in‐built mechanisms which remedy the harmful effects associated with information‐related problems. The institutional arrangements which predominate in particular markets are dependent upon the trust‐producing mechanisms within those markets. Consequently, market responses to information asymmetries are far from uniform. The argument is illustrated using the example of the executive recruitment industry. In this respect the paper is a highly focused study of those mechanisms which overcome information asymmetries in one service market.