Agency Theory
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2297532 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Susan P Shapiro (American Bar Foundation) |
| Year | 2005 |
| Volume | 31 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 263-284 |
| Publication date | 2005-08-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Annual Review of Sociology (BOOK_SERIES) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0360-0572 • E-ISSN: 1545-2115 |
| Publisher | Annual Reviews (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1146/annurev.soc.31.041304.122159 |
| OpenAlex | W4212899454 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 153 |
| References cited | 33 |
In an agency relationship, one party acts on behalf of another. It is curious that a concept that could not be more profoundly sociological does not have a niche in the sociological literature. This essay begins with the economics paradigm of agency theory, which casts a very long shadow over the social sciences, and then traces how these ideas diffuse to and are transformed (if at all) in the scholarship produced in business schools, political science, law, and sociology. I cut a swathe through the social fabric where agency relationships are especially prevalent and examine some of the institutions, roles, forms of social organization, deviance, and strategies of social control that deliver agency and respond to its vulnerabilities, and I consider their impact. Finally, I suggest how sociology might make better use of and contribute to agency theory
Agency (philosophy · Deviance (statistics · Epistemology · Political science · Politics · Scholarship · Shadow (psychology · Social science · Sociological theory · Sociology · Structure and agency · Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies · Management and Organizational Studies · Psychology · Public Policy and Administration Research · Law
Agency Theory
State-owned Enterprises Around the WORLD as Hybrid Organizations
Normalisation process theory
From Individual Agency to Co-agency
Architects as mediators
How Does Accountability Enhance Local Government Crisis Learning? – A Qualitative Comparative Analysis Based on 57 Serious Safety Accidents in China 2004–2019
The Paper Power Paradox
Managing third-party accountability in human services contracting
Critical factors influencing information disclosure in public organisations
Exploring the impact of customer concentration on stock price crash risk
The treasury single account regime and fiscal regulations in the universities
Causes of organizational failure
Performance-Based Pay and Limited Information Access. An Agent-Based Model of the Hidden Action Problem
Sistema esportivo do Reino Unido
Walking the tightrope
The nonpartisan, the equidistant and the allied
Cultural Nuances of Agency-Wellbeing Relationship
An experimental study on embodiment forms and interaction modes in affective robots for anxiety relief and emotional connection
Children as Participants in Research
Failure to implement a turnaround strategy at South African Airways
Fear in Adland
When Bad Is Good
Marketer Perceptions of Client–Agency Co-Creation
Leviathan as an inventor
Exploring institutional pressures, firm green slack, green product innovation and green new product success
Monopoly and competition
State Structure, Societal Organisation, and Technology Policy
Hidden treasure
Institutionelle Diskriminierung
Institutionelle Diskriminierung
Re-conceptualising learner feedback agency
The Sociology of AI as an Emerging Field
Enacting rural community resilience
Beyond debt and equity
“Groups Are Still a Problem … but a Different One!”
Instrumentalities for the Effectiveness of Measures of Public Accountability in Africa
The Impact of Audit Firm Size on Audit Quality - An Empirical Study of The Vietnamese Stock Market
Transparencia en los municipios españoles
Problemas de agencia en la educación básica en México
Engaging Citizens in Government Contracting
Urban development project goals and the role of professional ignorance
Goldilocks conditions for workplace gamification
Rainwater harvesting for domestic use
Entrepreneurial organizing activities and nascent venture performance
Every Forest Has Its Shadow
Agency, power, modernity
Conceptualizing the above ground factors in shale gas
Glocal Governance
Can pension fund design increase pension savings? Evidence from a conjoint experiment in six European countries
E-government-enabled transparency
The Shareholder Value Principle
Nouveau riche, old guard, established elite
Twenty Years of Principal-Agent Research in EU Politics
Making Money in the State
Agents, Principals, or Something in Between? Bureaucrats and Policy Control in Thailand
Housing developers’ perceived barriers to implementing municipal sustainability requirements in Swedish sustainability-profiled districts
Understanding wellbeing and caregiver commitment after adoption or guardianship from foster care
Identifying families who may be struggling after adoption or guardianship
Toward An Affect Based View of Principal–Agent Dynamics
Career Pressures and Organizational Evil
Bridges and Bonds
Narratives of memory and national identity; analyzing agency in contemporary Holocaust memory initiatives
Two different paths to sustainability? A comparison of a Finnish and a Swedish public pension reserve fund
Managing goal conflict. The case of agency theory in the policy settings for public–private partnerships; A perspective on citizen and government interests
Creencias y actitudes en torno a la transparencia en la función pública
The Use of Social Psychology in Rural Development? Two Readings of Rural Business Owners' Values
A Comparison of Foster Care Reentry After Adoption in Two Large U.S. States
A signalling theory of law enforcement hiring
Supplier–buyer (in)congruence in environmental management accounting for sustainable development in the context of Japan
A “Selection Model” of Political Representation
Negotiating State-Civil Society Relations in Turkey
Governance and efficiency in the Brazilian water utilities
Hiring Education Agents for International Student Recruitment
Conservation Outcomes and Social Relations
Warum die Kontrolle abgeben? Die Delegation von Migrationskontrolle aus der Prinzipal-Agent-Perspektive
How the exercise of the right to information (RTI) affects trust in political institutions
Adventures in Implementation
How Agents Weaken their Principals’ Incentives to Control
Flows, leaks and blockages in informational interventions
Transparency in local government
Agents or stewards in community forestry enterprises? Lessons from the Mayan Biosphere Reserve, Guatemala
The use of social media in Italian local governments
Flipping the principal-agent model to foster host community participation in monitoring and evaluation of volunteer tourism programmes
Deep learning and principal–agent problems of algorithmic governance
Levels of Legibility
Elite cohesion in the American administrative state, 1898–1998
Why do employees choose to retire early? A qualitative exploration of voluntary retirement decisions among banking employees
Under pressure
Small footprint, small payoff
The Influence of Transparency on Municipal Taxation
Exploring Performance-Related Pay as an Anticorruption Tool
Structuring Performance
Violence and the Costs of Honesty
Human resource management as a tool to control corruption
The relational preconditions of trust in collective action fields
Race, ethnicity, and social change
Agency theory and social interactions at work
Contingency and Social Change
Cooperation and Control in the European Union
No wings attached? Civil–military relations and agent intrusion in the procurement of fighter jets
Markets and Hierarchies : analysis and antitrust implications
The Rise of Professionalism
Responsive Regulation
Reactive Risk and Rational Action
Structure and Process, Politics and Policy
Agency Theory
Corruption as a Feature of Governmental Organization
Theory of the firm
Bushwhacking the Ethical High Road
Economic Action and Social Structure
Assessing the Assumptions
Principal-Agent Models
Two Logics of Delegation
The New Economics of Organization
Collaring the Crime, not the Criminal
White-Collar Criminality
War and Bureaucratization in Qin China
The Social Construction of Market Value
Explaining Corporate Environmental Performance
Commensuration as a Social Process
Comparing Varieties of Agency Theory in Economics, Political Science, and Sociology
The Social Control of Impersonal Trust
Institutions of Privacy in the Determination of Police Administrative Practice
Economic theories of organization
| Unique citing works | 153 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 8,05 |
| Citation span | 2007 - 2026 (20) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | Yes |
| Citation types | Neutral: 153 |