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Strategic decisions about the organization of work and the incentivization of employees significantly affect firms’ success. Most firms face the challenge that the employees’ actions and preferences are not observable so that they have to anticipate the employee behavior when making such decisions. The present work comprises four essays containing agency models that examine different decision and incentivization problems with regard to the organization of work within firms. Thereby, the essays consider different kinds of employee behavior and preferences and their impact on the respective strategic decisions. The first essay analyzes self-organized team formation by employees as a way to organize teamwork within firms. It incorporates psychological proximity among the employees as a social factor that is the employees’ private information and affects their actions and decisions. We find that self-organized team formation is strictly beneficial for firms compared to the team formation by the superior, as long as the effect of psychological proximity on the employees is sufficiently strong. The second essay examines how a retention bonus can reduce employees’ voluntary turnover rates after the announcement of a merger of equals. Thereby, one of the decision-makers who staff the merged firm can be biased towards retaining the own employees in the new firm, although, from a rational point of view, they might not always be the best fit. Overall, the optimal retention bonus can effectively decrease the voluntary turnover rate and increases the expected benefit from merging, independent of the presence of a biased decision-maker. In the third essay, we consider unproductive impression management activities by the employees as a consequence of their career concerns. We analyze the impact of team and individual production as well as organizational measures on the level of impression management and the organizational efficiency. Organizational measures that increase the cost, Strategische Entscheidungen bezüglich der Arbeitsorganisation und der Anreizsetzung der Angestellten haben einen signifikanten Einfluss auf den Unternehmenserfolg. Dabei besteht die Herausforderung für Unternehmen darin, dass sie den Arbeitseinsatz und die Präferenzen ihrer Angestellten in der Regel nicht beobachten und das Verhalten der Angestellten lediglich antizipieren können. Die vorliegende Arbeit beinhaltet vier Aufsätze mit Agency-Modellen, die Entscheidungs- und Anreizprobleme mit Bezug zu der Arbeitsorganisation in Unternehmen untersuchen. Dabei wird der Einfluss des Verhaltens und der Präferenzen der Angestellten auf die Entscheidungen berücksichtigt. Der erste Aufsatz analysiert selbstorganisierte Teambildung der Angestellten als Möglichkeit, Teamarbeit in Unternehmen zu gestalten. Dies erfolgt unter Berücksichtigung der psychologischen Nähe zwischen den Angestellten, welche für die Vorgesetzten unbeobachtbar ist. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Unternehmen die selbstorganisierte Teambildung durch die Angestellten der Teambildung durch die Vorgesetzten vorziehen, sofern die psychologische Nähe einen ausreichend großen Einfluss auf die Entscheidungsfindung und das Verhalten der Angestellten hat. Der zweite Aufsatz untersucht, wie Unternehmen eine Halteprämie nutzen können, um die freiwillige Fluktuation der Angestellten nach der Ankündigung einer Fusion unter Gleichen zu reduzieren. Dabei ist einer der Entscheidungsträger bezüglich der Besetzung der Posten in dem neuen Unternehmen potentiell verzerrt, indem er dafür stets die eigenen Angestellten vorzieht. Die optimale Halteprämie kann unabhängig von dem Einfluss verzerrter Entscheidungsfindung die freiwillige Fluktuation der Angestellten verringern und erhöht den erwarteten Erfolg der Fusion. Der dritte Aufsatz befasst sich mit unproduktiven Aktivitäten der Selbstdarstellung von Angestellten als Folge ihrer Karriereanreize. Es wird der Einfluss von Einzel- und Teamarbeit sowie von organisationsbedingten Maßn

Enhancing the firm value is one of the main goals of business strategies. These strategies often include strategic modifications of corporate structures by using the latest findings both from practice and science. Apart from mergers and acquisitions (M&As) as the obvious corporate restructuring, trends regarding changes in the corporate structures evolve every now and then. However, even if these trends are popular, they are not necessarily well fitting for each firm. To use the full potential of these corporate restructurings, the employees' incentives and strategic decision bases have to be considered in an appropriate manner. This cumulative work focuses on strategic interactions and the choice of a value-enhancing change of the corporate structure dependent on different underlying conditions. It is examined under which conditions the trends regarding changes of corporate structures are as beneficial as they are claimed to be. In two of the three papers, non-monetary utility aspects or other issues from behavioral accounting are part of the analysis. In particular, the first essay analyzes whether and if so, under which conditions a self-organized team formation as a part of the 'New Work Style' is beneficial for firms under consideration of psychological proximity among employees. Teams can be formed either by the employer or by the employees, the latter one is representing self-organized team formation. If psychological proximity is considered, it can shape the teams' performances and hence, the team formation decision. The second essay analyzes whether the trend of implementing a Center of Excellence (CoE) is as beneficial as it is claimed to be, in particular with regard to expected profits, effort and compliance issues. A CoE is a centralized business unit which adopts and pools processes that are needed by more than one division. Finally, the third essay examines whether a retention bonus can mitigate the negative effect of a merger announcement on the volu

This report addresses deficiencies in our understanding of service members’ career trajectories. The insights generated will be used to construct more sophisticated and useful models of long run manpower projections, allowing complex simulations to predict the impact of personnel policy changes. This will allow Navy leadership to avoid unanticipated shocks to service member supply and quality. This report proceeds along two lines. First, we collect a dataset of Navy officers and examine their career trajectory, paying particular attention to their educational background and sociodemographic characteristics. Using long-term trend, as well as regression analysis, we find significant retention rate differences over the long run across gender, marital and dependent status, race, and education level. While the long run trends and regression results are illuminating, we should be wary of drawing definite conclusions about the innate ability or desire of officers to stay or separate based on these analyses. Without a formal model to distinguish between correlation and causation, we should recognize that the findings in this study primarily help direct our modeling efforts in subsequent years. Second, we provide an in-depth description of dynamic programming models, demonstrating their usefulness and internal consistency for predicting rational, forward-looking agents making choices that affect their future. We provide a detailed technical description of the model, defining value functions, Bellman’s equations, and other concepts necessary to program, estimate, solve, and simulate a dynamic programming model. We then propose the path forward to examine how service members in different communities may make different career choices., Prepared for: OPNAV N81 Assessment Division, Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

Prepared for: OPNAV N13 Military Personnel Plans and Policy, Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.