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Essays on economics of information and organization
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Aboutalebi, Zeinab (2019) Essays on economics of information and organization. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.
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Official URL: http://webcat.warwick.ac.uk/record=b3492866~S15
Abstract
This thesis consists of two essays on economics of information and organization. In general it studies the optimal strategies of acquisition and disclosure of information in different types of relationships within an organization. Information asymmetry shapes the strategic interactions between agents within an organization. Therefore the essays help in obtaining a broader understanding of the role of information in the organizations and the inefficiencies created by its asymmetry in organizations. In chapter One we look at feedback in organizations and study the supervisor’s problem. Supervisors face the following tradeoff: while honest feedback encourages employees to discard bad ideas, it can also be demotivating. We obtain three main results. First, the supervisor only gives honest feedback to high self-opinion agents. Second, receiving honest feedback leads high self-opinion agents to exert more effort. Third, overconfidence is potentially welfare improving. In the second chapter, I look at how the incentives to discriminate within an organization induces the managers to manipulate information about subordinates and cause failure in projects. I study a principal manager career concern relationship where manager and principal may not have identical bias toward diversity. In such a setting the misaligned manager faces the following trade off: while hiring from minorities will reduce his utility, not hiring them might cost him his career. I show that when success of employees depends on their ability and manager’s effort, positive bias of the principal induces sabotage of minority groups. If the principal has no bias toward diversity, diversity marginally improves. But if the principal has a positive bias toward diversity, the misaligned manager improves reputation by hiring more from minority groups but sabotages them. This forms the diversity paradox, if there is no positive bias toward diversity, diversity does not improve much. But if there is, the diversity improves at the cost of increased sabotage. We show minorities in low productivity jobs are more likely to be sabotaged.
Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) | ||||
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Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor H Social Sciences > HF Commerce |
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Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Knowledge economy, Feedback (Psychology), Supervisors, Management, Diversity in the workplace, Minorities -- Employment | ||||
Official Date: | September 2019 | ||||
Dates: |
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Institution: | University of Warwick | ||||
Theses Department: | Department of Economics | ||||
Thesis Type: | PhD | ||||
Publication Status: | Unpublished | ||||
Supervisor(s)/Advisor: | Perry, Motty ; Kremer, Ilan ; Glazer, Jacob | ||||
Sponsors: | University of Warwick. Department of Economics ; Economic and Social Research Council (Great Britain) | ||||
Format of File: | |||||
Extent: | vii, 95, 3 leaves : illustrations | ||||
Language: | eng |
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