External Recruitment as an Incentive Device

25 Pages Posted: 12 Dec 2002

See all articles by Kong-Pin Chen

Kong-Pin Chen

Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica; National Taiwan University - Department of Economics

Date Written: November 5, 2003

Abstract

External recruitment has often been viewed as a necessary evil in that it trades off the need for outside talent with incentives of inside workers. This paper, however, shows that even from an incentive viewpoint, external recruitment has its positive role to play. Specifically, if promotion is based on relative performance, then negative activities in the form of sabotage are a valuable instrument to compete. This results in inefficiency of the workers' efforts. External recruitment, by reducing the marginal return of negative activity, can restore the incentives of the workers to engage in productive activity and enhances the firm's performance. We also show that even when negative activities are not a concern, external recruitment can sometimes avoid the shirking equilibrium, or prevents collusion of workers.

Keywords: External recruitment, Sabotage, promotion, relative performance, collusion

JEL Classification: J2, J3, D2

Suggested Citation

Chen, Kong-Pin, External Recruitment as an Incentive Device (November 5, 2003). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=298679 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.298679

Kong-Pin Chen (Contact Author)

Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica ( email )

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Taipei, 11529
Taiwan

HOME PAGE: http://idv.sinica.edu.tw/kongpin

National Taiwan University - Department of Economics

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