Managerial Intervention, Employee Motivation, and Collaboration

The economic literature on delegation focuses on the subordinate’s improved motivation when liberated from managerial intervention in decision making. However, many managers motivate employees while proactively intervening in the decision-making process. We build a principal-agent model to analyze when managerial intervention is, and is not, motivational to the agent. Although managerial intervention may demotivate the agent when leading to actions that waste employee effort, managerial interven