Formal and real authority in organizations

Aghion, P., & Tirole, J. (1997). Formal and real authority in organizations. Journal of Political Economy, 105(1), 1-29.

Type

Journal article

Intellectual base

Primary research

Year

1997

Volume

105

Issue

1

Pages

1-29

DOI

10.1086/262063

DOI registrant

University of Chicago Press

Link

https://doi.org/10.1086/262063

Cited from

military_strategic_studies

Cited by

2 citations across 2 artifacts.

Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.

Primes

• Authority Delegation Under Uncertainty
  • The structural problem of pre-positioning decision authority at the operational level for contingencies that cannot be fully specified or anticipated in advance, enabling rapid distributed action without waiting for central coordination or consensus, a tension Aghion and Tirole (1997) formalized as the gap between formal and real authority in organizations.

    This sourceDistinguishes formal authority (right to decide) from real authority (effective control), showing a principal who cannot process every contingency loses real authority to better-informed agents.

Mechanisms

• Entrenchment Audit
  • Six months on, an entrenchment audit — commissioned by the local's independent oversight committee — goes looking for the difference between de jure and de facto control.

    This sourceDistinguishes formal authority—the right to decide—from real authority—the effective control exercised over decisions.

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