Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization Advance Access published online on September 3, 2007
Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, doi:10.1093/jleo/ewm044
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Relational Contracts, Multitasking, and Job Design
Humboldt-University at Berlin
* School of Business and Economics, Institute for Organization Theory, Humboldt-University at Berlin. Email: schoettner{at}wiwi.hu-berlin.de.
This article analyzes optimal job design in a repeated principal-agent relationship when there is only one contractible and imperfect performance measure for three tasks whose contribution to firm value is nonverifiable. The tasks can be assigned to either one or two agents. Assigning an additional task to an agent strengthens his relational contract. Therefore, broad task assignments are optimal when the performance measure strongly distorts incentives for the two-task job. This is more likely to be the case if these two tasks are substitutes.