Abstract
Corporate governance is importantly based on Agency Theory and relies on extrinsic incentives to align the interests of managers, employees and shareholders. This paper argues that in view of recent corporate scandals, private governance can learn from public governance: (1) Goal-oriented intrinsic motivation of agents should be supported by fixed incomes and an extensive selection process of employees; (2) Extrinsic, but non-monetary incentives (e.g. conferring orders and titles) can be used; (3) The power of actors should be restricted by a clear division of power, appropriate rules of succession and institutionalised competition for positions in firms.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Addison J., Schnabel C. and Wagner J. (2004). ‘The Course of Research into the Economic Consequences of German Work Councils.’ British Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 42(2), pp. 255–281.
Beasley M. (1996). ‘An Empirical Analysis of the Relation Between the Board of Director Composition and Financial Statement Fraud.’ The Accounting Review, vol. 71(4), pp. 443–465.
Bebchuk L. (2003). ‘The Case for Shareholder Access to the Ballot.’ The Business Lawyer, vol. 59, pp. 43–66.
Bebchuk L. (2004). ‘The Case for Empowering Shareholders.’ Working Paper, Harvard Law School.
Bebchuk L. and Fried J. (2003). ‘Executive Compensation as an Agency Problem.’ Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 17(3), pp. 71–92.
Becht M., Bolton P. and Röell A. (2002). ‘Corporate Governance and Corporate Control.’ ECGI Working Paper Series in Finance 02/2002. Also in (Constantinides G., Harris M. and Stulz R., eds), Handbook of Finance, Amsterdam: North Holland.
Besley T. and Coate S. (2003). ‘Elected versus Appointed Regulators: Theory and Evidence.’ Journal of the European Economic Association, vol. 1(5), pp. 1176–1205.
Brennan G. and Hamlin A. (2000). Democratic Devices and Desires. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Casella, Alessandra (2002). ’storable Votes.’ NBER Working Paper No. 9189.
Cooter R. (2000). The Strategic Constitution. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Cooter R. (2003). ‘Who Gets on Top in Democracy? Elections as Filters.’ Mimeo, School of Law, University of California at Berkeley.
Cooter R. and Eisenberg M. (2000-2001). ‘Fairness, Character, and Efficiency in Firms.’ University of Pennsylvania Law Review, vol. 149, pp. 1717–1733.
Dahl R. and Lindblom C. (1953). Politics, Economics and Welfare. New York: Harper.
Daily C, Dalton D. and Cannella A. (2003). ‘Corporate Governance: Decades of Dialogue and Data.’ Academy of Management Review, vol. 28(3), pp. 371–382.
Dalton D., Daily C, Ellstrand A. and Johnson J. (1998). ‘Meta-Analytic Reviews of Board Composition, Leadership Structure, and Financial Performance.’ Strategic Management Journal, vol. 19, pp. 269–290.
Davis J., Schoorman D. and Donaldson L. (1997). ‘Toward a Stewardship Theory of Management.’ Academy of Management Review, vol. 22(1), pp. 20–47.
Dechow P., Sloan R. and Sweene A. (1996). ‘Causes and Consequences of Earnings Manipulation: An Analysis of Firms Subject to Enforcement Actions by the SEC.’ Contemporary Accounting Research, vol. 13(1), pp. 1–36.
Deci E. and Ryan R. (1985). Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior. New York: Plenum Press.
Downs A. (1957). An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper and Row.
Easterlin R. (2001). ‘Income and Happiness: Towards an Unified Theory.’ Economic Journal, vol. 111(473), pp. 465–84.
Economist (2004). ‘Half measures: the auditing industry still needs more reform.’ The Economist, vol. 373(8402), November 20, 2004, p. 16.
Efendi J., Srivastava A. and Swanson E. (2004). ‘Why Do Corporate Managers Misstate Financial Statements? The Role of Option Compensation, Corporate Governance, and Other Factors.’ Working Paper, Texas A& M University.
Eisenhardt K. (1989). ‘Agency Theory: An Assessment and Review.’ Academy of Management Review, vol. 14(1), pp. 57–74.
Erickson M., Hanlon M. and Maydew E. (2003). ‘Is There a Link Between Executive Compensation and Accounting Fraud?’ Working Paper, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago.
Fehr E. and Goette L. (2002). ‘Do Workers Work More if Wages Are High? Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment.’ Working Paper No. 125, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics, University of Zurich.
Frank R. (1985). Choosing the Right Pond. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Frank R. (2000). Luxury Fever: Money and Happiness in an Era of Excess. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Frey B. S. (1997a). ‘A Constitution for Knaves Crowds Out Civic Virtues.’ Economic Journal, vol. 107(443), pp. 1043–1053.
Frey B. S. (1997b). Not Just for The Money. An Economic Theory of Personal Motivation. Cheltenham, UK and Brookfield, USA: Edward Elgar.
Frey B. S. (2005). ‘Do You Want To Be a Knight? Towards an Economics of Awards.’ Working Paper, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics, University of Zurich.
Frey B. S. and Benz M. (2003). ‘Business Cycles: Political Business Cycle Approach.’ In (Vane H. and Snowdown B., eds.), An Encyclopaedia of Macroeconomics, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp. 89–92.
Frey B. S. and Osterloh M. (2001). Successful Management by Motivation. Balancing Intrinsic and Extrinsic Incentives. Berlin, New York: Springer.
Frey B. S. and Stutzer A. (2002). Happiness and Economics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Furubotn E. (1988). ‘Co-determination and the Modern Theory of the Firm: A Property-Rights Analysis.’ Journal of Business, vol. 61(2), pp. 165–181.
Gibbons R. (1998). ‘Incentives in Organizations.’ Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 12(4), pp. 115–132.
Gould R. (2002). ‘The Origins of Status Hierarchies: A Formal Theory and Empirical Test.’ American Journal of Sociology, vol. 107(5), pp. 1143–1178.
Grossman S., and Hart O. (1988). ‘One Share/One Vote and the Market for Corporate Control.’ Journal of Financial Economics, vol. 20, pp. 175–202.
Hansmann H. (1996). The Ownership of Enterprise. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Harris E. (1990). ‘Anti-Takeover Measures, Golden Parachutes, and Target Firm Shareholder Welfare.’ RAND Journal of Economics, vol. 21(4), pp. 614–625.
Holmstrom B. and Kaplan S. (2003). ‘The State of U.S. Corporate Governance:What’s Right and What’s Wrong?’ NBER Working Paper No. 9613.
Holmstrom B. and Milgrom P. (1991). ‘Multitask Principal Agent Analyses: Incentive Contracts, Asset Ownership and Job Design.’ Journal of Law, E-conomics and Organization, vol. 7, pp. 24–52.
Holmstrom B. and Milgrom P. (1994). ‘The Firm as an Incentive System.’ American Economic Review, vol. 84, pp. 972–91.
Jensen M. and Meckling W. (1976). ‘Theory of the Firm: Managerial Behavior, Agency Costs and Ownership Structure.’ Journal of Financial Economics, vol. 3, pp. 305–60.
Jensen M., Murphy K. and Wrack E. (2004). ‘Remuneration: Where We’ve Been, How We Got to Here, What Are the Problems, and How to Fix Them.’ ECGI Finance Working Paper No. 44/2004.
Johnson S., Ryan H. and Tian Y. (2003). ‘Executive Compensation and Corporate Fraud.’ Working Paper, Louisiana State University.
Lavy V. (2002). ‘Paying for Performance: The Effect of Teachers Financial Incentives on Students Scholastic Outcomes.’ Mimeo, Hebrew University Jerusalem.
Lazear E. (2000). ‘Performance Pay and Productivity.’ American Economic Review, vol. 90(5), pp. 1346–61.
Milgrom P. and Roberts J. (1988). ‘An Economic Approach to Influence in Organizations.’ American Journal of Sociology, vol. 94, pp. 154–79.
Mueller D. (1978). ‘Voting by Veto.’ Journal of Public Economics, vol. 10, pp. 57–75.
Mueller D. (1996). Constitutional Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mueller D. (1997) (ed). Perspectives on Public Choice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mueller D. (2003). Public Choice III. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Murphy K. (1999). ‘Executive Compensation.’ In (Ashenfelter O. and Card D., eds.), Handbook of Labor Economics, Amsterdam: Elsevier, pp. 2485–2563.
Niskanen W. (1971). Bureaucracy and Representative Government. Chicago and New York: Aldine Atherton.
Osterloh M. and Frey B. S. (2000). ‘Motivation, Knowledge Transfer, and Organizational Form.’ Organization Science, vol. 11, pp. 538–50.
Osterloh M. and Frey B. S. (2005a). ‘Yes, Managers Should Be Paid like Bureaucrats.’ CESifo Working Paper No. 1379.
Osterloh M. and Frey B. S. (2005b). ’shareholders Should Welcome Employees as Directors.’ Working Paper, Institute for Organization and Theories of the Firm, University of Zurich.
Paarsch H. and Shearer B. (1999). ‘The Response of Worker Effort to Piece Rates: Evidence from the British Columbia Tree-Planting Industry.’ Journal of Human Resources, vol. 34(4), pp. 643–667.
Persson T. and Tabellini G. (2002). Political Economics: Explaining Economic Policy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Pollitt C. and Bouckaert G. (2000). Public Management Reform: A Comparative Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Prendergast C. (1993). ‘A Theory of “Yes Men”.’ American Economic Review, vol. 83(4), pp. 757–770.
Prendergast C. (1999). ‘The Provision of Incentives in Firms.’ Journal of Economic Literature, vol. 37(1), pp. 7–63.
Rabin M. (1998). ‘Psychology and Economics.’ Journal of Economic Literature, vol. 36(1), pp. 11–46.
Roberts J. and Van den Steen E. (2000). ’shareholder Interests, Human Capital Investments and Corporate Governance.’ Stanford University, Graduate School of Business Working Paper No. 1631.
Ryan R. and Deci E. (2000). ‘The “What” and “Why” of Goal Pursuits: Human Needs and the Self-determination of Behavior.’ Psychological Inquiry, vol. 11(4), pp. 227–268.
Schelker M. and Eichenberger R. (2003). ’starke Rechnungsprüfungskommissionen: Wichtiger als direkte Demokratie und Föderalismus? Einerster Blick auf die Daten.’ Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, vol. 139(3), pp. 351–373.
Schelker M. and Eichenberger R. (2004). ‘Independent and Competing Institutions: An Effective Way to Control Government.’ Working Paper, University of Fribourg.
Schumpeter J. (1942). Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. 1st ed., New York: Harper.
Securities and Exchange Commission (2003a). Final Rule on Standards Relating to Listed Company Audit Committees, http://www.sec.gov/rules/final/33-8220.htm.
Seligman J. (1986). ‘Equal Protection in Shareholder Voting Rights: The One-Share-One-Vote Controversy.’ George Washington Law Review, vol. 54, pp. 687–724.
Shen W. and Cannella A. (2002). ‘Revisiting the Performance Consequences of CEO Succession: The Impacts of Successor Type, Postsuccession Senior Executive Turnover, and Departing CEO Tenure.’ Academy of Management Journal, vol. 45(4), pp. 717–733.
Shleifer A. and Vishny R. (1997). ‘A Survey of Corporate Governance.’ Journal of Finance, vol. 52(2), pp. 737–783.
Stutzer A. (2004). ‘The Role of Income Aspirations in Individual Happiness.’ Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, vol. 54(1), pp. 89–109.
The Corporate Library (2004). Split CEO/Chairman Roles-March, 2004. http://www.thecorporatelibrary.com/Governance-Research/spotlight-topics/spotlight/boardsanddirectors/SplitChairs2004.html (as of December 2004).
Tirole J. (1992). ‘Collusion and the Theory of Organizations.’ In (Laffont J., ed.), Advances in Economic Theory: Sixth World Congress, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tollison R. and Congleton R. (eds) (1995). The Economic Analysis of Rent Seeking. Aldershot: Edward Elgar.
Tullock G. (1964). Politics of Bureaucracy. Washington D.C.: Public Affairs Press.
Tullock G, Tollison R. and Rowley C. (eds) (1988). The Political Economy of Rent Seeking. Boston: Kluwer.
Uzun H., Szewczyk S. and Varma R. (2004). ‘Board Composition and Corporate Fraud.’ Financial Analysts Journal, vol. 60(3), pp. 33–44.
van den Berg A. (2004). ‘The Contribution of Work Representation to Solving the Governance Structure Problem.’ Journal of Management and Governance, vol. 8(2), pp. 129–148.
Weber M. (1978). Economy and Society: an Outline of Interpretative Sociology. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Weisbrod B. (1998). To Profit or Not to Profit: The Commercial Transformation of the Nonprofit Sector. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Wintrobe R. (1997). ‘Modern Bureaucratic Theory.’ In (Mueller D., ed.), Perspectives in Public Choice: A Handbook, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 429–454.
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2007 Deutscher Universitäts-Verlag | GWV Fachverlage GmbH, Wiesbaden
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Frey, B.S., Benz, M. (2007). Can Private Learn From Public Governance?. In: Helmig, B., Purtschert, R., Schauer, R., Witt, D. (eds) Nonprofit-Organisationen und Märkte. Marktorientiertes Nonprofit-Management. Deutscher Universitätsverlag, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-8350-9384-3_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-8350-9384-3_1
Publisher Name: Deutscher Universitätsverlag, Wiesbaden
Print ISBN: 978-3-8350-0551-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-8350-9384-3
eBook Packages: Business and Economics (German Language)