We use an agency model to address the benefits and costs of transparency in a hierarchical organization in which the principal employs a manager entrusted with contracting authority and several workers, all under conditions of moral hazard. We define the principal's transparency choices as a decision to allow workers to observe their coworkers’ performances (observability) and as an investment in monitoring worker performance (precision). We find that whereas precision alleviates agency conflicts as expected, observability can exacerbate agency conflicts, especially if the manager's interests are misaligned sufficiently with those of the principal. Our results suggest several testable hypotheses including predictions that opaque performance measurement practices are well suited for small organizational units at lower hierarchical ranks, and in settings where the sensitivity-precision of the available measures is low, workers’ performances are correlated positively, and managerial productivity is modest.

中文翻译：

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层次结构的透明度

我们使用代理模型来解决层级组织中透明度的收益和成本，在该组织中，委托人雇用一名被委托签订合同的经理和几名工人，所有这些都存在道德风险。我们将委托人的透明度选择定义为允许员工观察同事绩效（可观察性）的决定，以及作为监控员工绩效（精确性）的投资。我们发现，虽然精确性如预期那样缓解了代理冲突，但可观察性却会加剧代理冲突，特别是当管理者的利益与委托人的利益严重不一致时。我们的结果提出了几个可检验的假设，包括预测不透明的绩效衡量实践非常适合级别较低的小型组织单位，以及在可用衡量指标的敏感性精度较低、员工绩效与管理生产力呈正相关的环境中是谦虚的。