It is generally accepted in the operations literature that a firm should strive to maximize its expected profit. However, in practice it is not uncommon for a firm to offer a bonus to managers for achieving some pre-established target profit, possibly yielding managerial actions that differ from the profit-maximizing approach (given a profit target, we assume managers will maximize the probability of reaching that target). We use the Newsvendor framework to illustrate how the firm's shareholders (e.g., through its board of directors) can align these two seemingly different decision approaches: maximizing expected profit versus maximizing the probability of reaching a target profit. Alignment is achieved by setting what we call an “aligned profit target” (APT) – a target profit that yields the same managerial action namely, the same stocking quantity, across both decision approaches. We find that the APT should typically be an aggressive profit target, one that is significantly higher than the maximum expected profit, with a corresponding low probability of achievement – this result is consistent across demand distributions with light tails (uniform), moderate tails (normal) and heavy tails (lognormal). Notably, the aggressive APT target should be distinguished from any target that the firm might set to signal future profit expectations to financial analysts.

运营文献中普遍接受企业应努力实现其预期利润的最大化。但是，在实践中，为实现某些预先设定的目标利润而向经理人提供奖金的公司并不少见，这可能会产生不同于利润最大化方法的管理行为（给定利润目标，我们假设经理人将使利润最大化）。达到该目标的可能性）。我们使用Newsvendor框架来说明公司的股东（例如，通过其董事会）如何协调这两种看似不同的决策方法：最大化预期利润与最大化实现目标利润的可能性。通过设定我们称为“统一利润目标”（APT）的方式来实现协调一致-产生相同管理行为的目标利润，即 在两种决策方法中，相同的库存数量。我们发现，APT通常应该是一个积极的利润目标，一个明显高于最大预期利润的目标，并且实现概率相对较低–此结果在轻尾（均匀），中尾（正常）的需求分布中是一致的）和沉重的尾巴（对数正态）。值得注意的是，积极的APT目标应与公司可能设定的向金融分析师传达未来利润预期的任何目标区分开。中度尾巴（正常）和重尾巴（对数正常）。值得注意的是，积极的APT目标应与公司可能设定的向金融分析师传达未来利润预期的任何目标区分开。中度尾巴（正常）和重尾巴（对数正常）。值得注意的是，积极的APT目标应与公司可能设定的向金融分析师传达未来利润预期的任何目标区分开。