Leadership and Information

摘要

Researchers in management and political science believe that leadership is important, but economists rarely study it. When they do, economists tend to focus on how the leader leads. In particular, Hermalin (1998) and subsequent researchers ask how a leader with private information about the return to effort can convince her followers that she is not misleading them. But there is a prior question: why should there be a leader who has exclusive access to information? Why not bypass the leader and simply make information available to everyone in the organization? Much of the recent management literature, indeed, argues against the leader's privileged access to information and in favor of maximizing transparency.