To investigate delegation decisions within organizations, we develop a principal-agent model in which the principal can only informally delegate authority to the agent and the parties openly disagree with each other in the sense of differing prior beliefs about the optimal course of action. Our analysis shows that the degree of disagreement determines what kind of delegation policy the principal can commit to and this, in turn, alters the agent’s effort for information acquisition. Notably, at moderate degrees of disagreement, conditional delegation may arise in equilibrium, whereby the principal credibly commits to allowing the agent to exercise his authority only if he generates additional information about the optimal action. Further, we discuss two extensions in which the principal undertakes an investment that reduces the agent’s cost of acquiring information, and the agent discloses his private information strategically.

为了调查组织内的授权决策，我们开发了一种委托人-代理人模型，在这种模型中，委托人只能将权力非正式地委托给代理人，而各方在就最佳行动方案的先验信念方面存在分歧。我们的分析表明，分歧的程度决定了委托人可以采取哪种委托政策，而这反过来又改变了代理人获取信息的努力。值得注意的是，在适度的分歧程度下，有条件的委派可能会在均衡中出现，从而委托人可信地承诺仅当代理生成有关最佳操作的其他信息时，才允许代理行使其权力。进一步，