Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: The widespread adoption of hybrid work models necessitates a reevaluation of the economic concepts governing intra-firm contracts and job design. This study examines the impact of job ambiguity on organizational productivity using a conceptual framework that integrates personnel economics, principal-agent theory, imperfect contract theory, and decision-making under uncertainty. Four principal mechanisms clarify the impact of task ambiguity on productivity: information search expenses, decision-making delays, ex-post renegotiation expenses, and effective effort expenditures. The analysis used a revised multi-task principal-agent model developed by Bengt Holmström and Paul Milgrom, integrating a parameter for task uncertainty. The findings indicate that task uncertainty acts as an additional risk factor by increasing the effective noise level to σ²(1+τ), reducing the effort allocated to unobservable activities, and undermining the effectiveness of incentive-based compensation systems. Numerical simulations demonstrate that increased task ambiguity non-linearly reduces the equilibrium effort level, with effort declining by around 83% as the τ parameter rises from 0 to 2. The study argues that inadequate employment contracts in the Turkish labor market intensify these effects and proposes a three-tiered regulatory framework for intra-firm contract development.
Author: Ersel Ertürk
Institution: İstanbul Esenyurt Üniversitesi
Language: Turkish
Subfield: Economics and Econometrics
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7208764816