The Firm as a Dedicated Hierarchy: A Theory of the Origins and Growth of Firms
研究企业家如何通过设计内部结构（如层级陡峭度、晋升政策）来防止员工窃取组织租金，并解释不同资本密集型行业中企业规模与成长路径的差异。
In the formative stages of their businesses, entrepreneurs have to provide incentives for employees to protect, rather than steal, the source of organizational rents. We study how the entrepreneur's response to this problem determines the organization's internal structure, growth, and its eventual size. Large, steep hierarchies will predominate in physical-capital-intensive industries, and will have seniority-based promotion policies. By contrast, flat hierarchies will prevail in human-capital-intensive industries and will have up-or-out promotion systems. Furthermore, flat hierarchies will have more distinctive technologies or cultures than steep hierarchies. The model points to some essential differences between organized hierarchies and markets.