创新顾客的最优合同类型——基于公平偏好理论

A Research of the Optimal Contract Types of Innovative Customers Based on Equity Preference

本文从创新顾客参与团队创新活动的角度出发,引入公平偏好理论和相对绩效评估(RPE),构建顾客参与企业新产品开发的激励模型。首先,分析了独立报酬合同、相对绩效合同、团队报酬合同和完美团队报酬合同中,公平偏好程度和激励系数对激励效果的影响;其次,研究了公平偏好程度、最优激励系数与激励效果之间的函数关系,得到个人产出激励系数和相对于其他顾客的个人产出激励系数的最优解范围;最后,采用案例研究法验证模型分析结果的可行性和准确性。本文发现:对于公平偏好程度较高的创新顾客,若其风险规避程度较高,企业应对其设置团队报酬合同;对于公平偏好程度较高的创新顾客,若其风险规避程度较低,企业应对其设置完美团队报酬合同;对于公平偏好程度较低的创新顾客,企业应对其设置相对绩效合同。本文对标准多任务情景中的低能激励理论进行了补充,不仅能解释RPE在企业管理中运用缺乏的原因,还能揭示现实管理实践的激励水平往往比标准道德风险模型预期的激励水平低的原因,对管理实践中有效使用RPE方法有重要启示。

With the rapid development of market competition,technical progress and customer demand diversification make product life cycle increasingly shorter. Enterprises are under intense pressure of new product development,quality improvement,cost reduction and customer relationship management optimization. Despite increasing homogeneity products and alternative products lead the competition among enterprises turn into white-hot stage,the new product can bring enterprises new competitive advantages through the promotion of superficial differentiation and deep core competitiveness.Under this environment,the strategic role of design-driven innovation is being increasingly recognized（ Landoni et al.,2016） and more and more enterprises are actively involving their customers in the new product development process（ Cui and Wu,2017）. The role of customers has fundamental changed. They have learnt to express their needs actively,and become co-developers,co-producers and co-creators of new product development（ Zhang and Yang,2014）. They are called＂innovative customers＂（ Von Hippel,1988; Wang,2011）,whose participation behavior is called＂customer participation＂（ Silpaki and Fisk,1985）. Because customer participation has a positive effect on the value promotion of enterprises＇ products or services（ Zhang et al.,2013）,so it is very important for enterprises to establish effective incentives,which attract customers to express their opinions,convey their ideas and participate actively.According to Bendapudi and Leone（ 2003）,Lovelock and Young（ 1979） and Mills（ 1986） ＇s point of view,customers can be seen as ＂part of employees ＂ by enterprises. But in practice,innovative customers tend to be less spontaneous than formal employees. Compared with formal employees,customers pay more attention to the equity preference in innovation process（ Carr,2007）. Therefore,it has attracted many scholars＇ attention to integrate the theory of equity preference into the incentive mechanism of innovative customers. Moreover,as the influence of equity preference to strategy implementation of modern enterprise incentive becomes more and more important,many scholars have attached importance to the significance of establishing the incentive mechanism of customer participation both in theory and practice.In addition,it should be appropriate to introduce relative performance evaluation（ RPE） mechanism to new product development process to reduce each member＇s moral hazard and risk cost. The relative performance evaluation（ RPE）mechanism is one of the important problems in team incentive theory（ Holmstrom,1982）. In the relative performance evaluation（ RPE）,the income of a team member depends on the relative value of performance. In a sense,the relative performance evaluation（ RPE） introduces competition mechanism in the internal team. Comparing performances with each other can inhibit the moral hazard of team members in the situation where team members face common uncertainty. Such as,Hart and Holmstrom（ 1987） argues that importing relative performance evaluation（ RPE） in the team is similar to creating tournament which can not only prevent the collusion behaviors between team members,but also promote the competition consciousness between the team members. In addition,incentive theory prescribes the use of relative performance evaluation（ RPE） to reduce agents＇ risk costs（ Lazear and Rosen,1981; Holmstrom,1982）. But Chiappori and Salanié（ 2003）conclude that ＂one empirical puzzle in this literature is that firms do not seem to use relative performance evaluation of managers very much＂. Lazear（ 1989） and Itoh（ 1991） explain that the standard arguments against the use of RPE are sabotage and reduced incentives to cooperate. Similarly,Baron and Preps（ 1999） argue that,although the relative performance evaluation（ RPE） is not conducive to the cooperation between team members,it really can drive the team members to follow strict work rules and punish those rate busters.Based on the above discussion,an incentive model of customer participation in new product development is built in this paper based on equity preference theory and relative performance evaluation from the perspective of innovative customers＇ participation in team innovation activities. First of all,this paper attempts to explore the effect of the equity preference and incentive intensity on the incentive effect in all kinds of compensation contracts（ independent compensation contract,relative performance contract,team compensation contract and perfect team compensation contract） through the model solution and analysis. Secondly,it discovers the functional relationship among the degree of equity preferences,optimal incentive intensity and incentive effect,and obtains the range of optimal incentive intensity and optimal contract types for innovative customers. Thirdly,it explains ＂one empirical puzzle in this literature is that firms do not seem to use relative performance evaluation of managers very much＂（ Chiappori and Salanié,2003） and complements Lazear（ 1989） and Itoh（ 1991） ＇s arguments that the standard arguments against the use of RPE are sabotage and reduced incentives to cooperate according to the analysis. Fourthly,this paper provides a behavioral explanation why incentives are often weaker than predicted by standard moral hazard models（ e. g.,Williamson,1985） and complements the standard multi-tasking argument for low-powered incentives（ Holmstrom and Milgrom,1991）. Finally,according to the research findings,the corresponding management recommendations are put forward.