Instructions and Incentives in Organizations
提出指令在组织中具有激励作用，通过指令引导代理人行动，解释了为何企业不愿雇佣能力过高的员工、工人风险厌恶的价值以及指令与激励薪酬并存的原因。
We propose a different perspective on organizations, emphasizing the role of instructions in providing incentives. In our framework, there is a conflict of interest between a principal and an agent over the course of action. When preferences are aligned over executing a course, the principal can selectively instruct the agent on a preferred course to steer the agent toward it. Because less able (less confident) agents are more responsive to instructions, hiring these types of agents can be beneficial. This steering role of instructions toward a course of action helps us understand why and when firms are reluctant to hire overqualified (high-ability) workers, how worker risk aversion can be valuable to an organization, why instructions, although more likely to be used, are less intense, in more uncertain environments, and why instruction-giving and incentive pay go hand-in-hand. This paper was accepted by Joshua Gans, business strategy.