【正文】 l‘Developing a framework for identifying a Principals’ ideal course of action in an environment rich in agent collusion’Key terms:Collusion, PrincipalAgentRelationships, Rent Extraction, Transaction cost, Effort, Incentive, Power of Collusion, Information Powerbase and Transfer, Perceived (heuristic relative) benefit, Joint Utility, Exploitation, Symmetrical and asymmetrical Information, Stake dependence, Sidecontracting, Organisational design (contracting structure and monitoring), Game theory, Nashequilibrium, Utility, Hard/True InformationAbstractQuite simply, market places rely heavily on principal(employer)agent(employee) relationships in order to get ‘stuff’ done. The relationships involved rely on informational exchanges in order for the appropriate value of the agents’ services to be realised. The advantage in the evaluative process lies with whoever has the information powerbase. Multiple conditions exist within market places where agents can collude to get more from the principal (or the principal can collude with agents to get more from secondary agents). Unfortunately the actions identified to stop this collusive behaviour (which can have a negative effect on petitive advantage) can end up costing the principal more than letting the collusive behaviour continue! What the principal needs is a frame work from which to work from to identify what courses of action are the most suitable in a variety of dynamic marketplace situations so as to ensure and maintain petitive advantage by maximising the rent extracted from agents. This document is a proposal for the research into ‘Developing a framework for identifying a Principals’ ideal course of action in an environment rich in agent collusion’IntroductionA framework is probably best described using an analogy。 it is a skeletal structure from which one can gain stability for the construction of action. With relation to the proposed topic ‘Developing a framework for identifying a Principals’ ideal course of action in an environment rich in agent collusion’ we could draw the conclusion that the framework, that would ideally result from engagement in this research, would be the skeletal structure that a principal could use to evaluate the appropriate theoretical action that they can then translate, or construct, into practical action. The objective of such a framework is to fill a void in the mercial segment on regarding collusive action and the disutility of effort – identifying the resultant effect on petitive advantage and offering conceptual unity and direction for action (particularly for risk averse principals). In other words。 greater information and capabilities, or it is just uneconomical (or the opportunity cost is too great) for the principal to acplish the allocated tasks themselves.Agents exert greater effort when offered incentives (Ress, 1985。 the principal may conceal discoveries that production was greater than expected (or similar rewarding result) and the Agent may wish to conceal a disappointing result. Either way it is the monitoringintermediary (supervising) agent that is subject to the bribery/collusion. It should be clear now that collusive action can be by the principal against agents just like it can be by the agents against the principal. As a solution both the principal and agent need incentives (from each other) to share information for maximum efficiency. Although the weakness of the principalsupervisoragent hierarchy is identified it must be noted that its use allows the principal to extract truth from the agents without having to offer additional rent costs to each individual party. This is referred to as the informationeffect of delegation (Vafai, 2005). Chart 1 illustrates the principalsupervisoragent organisational structure. Vafai offers the concluding statement “the possibility of collusion may set a limit to the size of organizations.” (2005. p1)Chart 1.PrincipalSupervisorAgentAgentAgentAlternatively, although not strictly beneficial, the use of third party risk neutral agents can offer informed insight into ‘multiple agent contractual arrangement’ collusion. Additionally they can organise collusive situations that offer seemingly optimal rent to the principal with content collusive partners (supposing that all agents accept the ‘grand mechanism’ [Che and Kim, 2004]). The third party can act to maximise the joint utility of side payments between colluding parties. Although the risk free third party will need to be rewarded (paid) they will be free from collusive influence as the rejection of any bribery offered would likely have to be part of their standardised business practice (Che and Kim, 2004). This risk neutral third party would be of use to both colludin