Managerial Opportunism, Solutions, and Strategies: Evidencefrom Early Chartered Companies

与16世纪和17世纪欧洲海外贸易的发展不谋而合的是，使用特许公司作为进行贸易的首选手段。这些特许公司实际上都是跨国企业。总部设在欧洲，经理、工厂和贸易地点分布在世界各地--非洲、亚洲和加拿大。由于这些公司的分厂由受薪经理运营，总部立即面临如何确保这些经理为公司工作而不是为自己工作的问题。这是所有现代跨国公司和跨国企业都面临的问题。事实上，正是这个问题的迫切性使得对这些历史更悠久的公司的研究变得重要。这些公司在一个不那么复杂的环境中运营。通信速度较慢，总部一级的所有权和控制权之间不存在分离。因此，所有者和选择的策略之间的联系非常清楚，可以分析选择哪些策略来控制管理者是可行的解决方案，并检查哪些情况允许公司选择这些解决方案。这些信息将帮助我们更好地理解为什么一些美国公司结构是成功的，而另一些则不是在不同的情况和时期。由于特许公司是垂直整合的公司，它们面临着潜在的严重的委托/代理问题。事实上，二手文献几乎一致认为，一家公司的代理人是该公司最大的敌人。尽管有这样的声明，但几乎没有做什么档案工作来检查管理层机会主义的程度。这些公司可能历史悠久，但这并不一定意味着它们在管理实践方面不成熟。这项研究的目的是研究一系列早期的特许公司，并检查在不同的外部市场运营但都具有相同内部结构的公司选择的战略和解决方案。关于这类问题和博弈论的理论文献将本项目的重点放在雇佣合同、纽带关系和监督策略上；所有这些都有助于改善管理者中的道德风险和逆向选择。

Coincidentally with the growth of European overseas trade in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was the use of the chartered company as the preferred means by which trade was carried out. These chartered companies were, for all intent and purposes, multinational firms. The head office was located in Europe and managers, factories, and trading sites were located around the world - in Africa, Asia, Canada. Because these firms operated their branch plants with salaried managers, the head offices were immediately faced with the question of how to ensure that those managers worked for the company and not for themselves. This is a problems which faces all modern multinational and multilocational firms. In fact, it is the very immediacy of the issue that makes the study of these far older companies important. These companies operated in a less complex environment. Communications were slower and a separation between ownership and control at the head office level did not exist. Thus, the links between owners and strategies chosen are very clear, and it is possible to analyze which strategies chosen to control managers were viable solutions and to examine what circumstances allowed firms to choose those solutions. This information will help us to better understand why some American firm structures are successful while others not in different situations and time periods. Because chartered companies were vertically integrated firms, they faced potentially serious principal/agent problems. In fact, the secondary literature is almost unanimous in its verdict that a company's agents were the company's worst enemies. Despite such statements, little archival work has been done to examine the extent of managerial opportunism. These companies may be old, but this does not necessarily mean that they were unsophisticated in managerial practices. The objective of this research is to study a range of early chartered companies and to examine the strategies and solutions chosen by firms operating in different external markets, but all with the same internal structure. The theoretical literature on such problems and on game theory directs the focus of this project towards employment contracts, bonding relations and monitoring strategies; all of which help to ameliorate moral hazard and adverse selection amongst managers.