【正文】 g agents and a principal, provided they did not bee collusive themselves! It is here that the dilemma for the principal bees apparent. When trying to determine the appropriate cost of rent from agents the use of the third party may be less efficient than merely accepting the conditions of dealings with colluding parties and their side contracting, much like monitoring agents in order to identify if a supervisor is truthful defeats the purpose of the supervisor. Securing a collusion proof arrangement for principalagent relationships is often, and for all intensive purposes should be, a goal of principal organisations when contracting out tasks or extracting rent. “The design of the organization can possibly be used to increase the transaction costs of sidecontracting, to improve both individual and group incentives and by the same token to increase the firm39。 falling short of price fixing or developing an informal cartel, agents can collude with one another for mutual benefit and extract maximum payment for minimal rent. This is a value chain inefficiency。 What defines an action as ideal? Critical Theory focussing on questions of identity and dissonance between those identities (relevant for the juxtaposition of individual informational referents in exchange utility evaluation), and Realism seeks ontological scientific truth (relevant for the identification of ‘ideal courses of action’).In recognising the incongruity of this direction of thought I have bee inspired to introduce an affirmative postmodern approach, rejecting the absolute applicability of any one particular methodological paradigm – instead favouring the notion of sceptical rejection and contributing adaptation (Rosenau, 1992 and 1993). Further investigation is obviously required.MethodSome of the literature I have encountered has adopted case study (qualitative) approaches to identifying tendencies of collusive occurrences. I found these studies to be more useful for my own conceptual understanding as they are relevantly structured as they tended to relate a greater deal of environmental issues in the behavioural explanations. In terms of accessing relevant and timely results built within an observable social structure – the utilization of case study research methods, in conjunction with extensive literature reviews, seems to be the ideal form of research in this instance.ConclusionThe research into ‘Developing a framework for identifying a Principals’ ideal course of action in an environment rich in agent collusion’ is both justifiable and viable. The results will likely contribute to the marketplace as a whole by helping to secure a reliable reference for principals weary of agent collusion. ReferencesBolton, Gary E. (1991). A Comparative Model of Bargaining: Theory and Evidence. The American Economic Review, vol. 81, No. 5 (Dec): 10961136Bond, Eric W. and Gresik, Thomas A. (2003). Efficient Delegation by an Informed Principal.~tgresik/ Carter, Craog R. (2001). Precursors of Unethical Behavior in Global Supplier Management. Journal of Supply Chain Management. Che, YeonKoo and Kim, Jinwoo, (2004). CollusionProof Implementation of Optimal Mechanisms. ~yche/ Cramton, Peter C. and J. Gregory Dees, (1993). Promoting Honesty in Negotiation: an Exercise in Practical Ethics. Business Ethics Quarterly, Vol. 3, Issue 4.Emmanuel, Clive. and Gray, Rob. (2003). Preparing a research proposal for a studentresearch dissertation: a pedagogic note. Accounting Education, 12 (1): 1–10FaureGrimaud, Antoine. Laffont, JeanJacques. and Martimort, David. (2001). Transaction Costs of Collusion and Organizational Design. Unspecified.Grossman, Sanford J., and Oliver D. Hart (1983). An analysis of the principalagent problem. Econometrica, Vol. 51: 746. Harris, M. and A. Raviv (1978). Some results on incentive contacts with applications to education and employment, health insurance, and law enforcement. American Economic Review 68: 2030. Kahneman, Daniel and Tversky, Amos, (1979). Prospect theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk. *.pdf Panova, Elena. and Rangel, Luiz. (2002). Benefits and Costs of Shared Information. Unspecified.Quesada, Lucia, (2002). Modelling Collusion as an informed Principal Problem. *.pdf ftp://Quesada, Lucia (2004), ‘A Continuous Type Model of Collusion in Mechanisms’. University of WisconsinMadison, Department of Economics.Ress, R. (1985). The theory of principal and agent. Bulletin of Economic Research,Vol. 37,. Roos. Nicolas de, (2003). A Model of Collusion Timing. Journal of Economic Literature, classification codes: L11, L41, C73.Ross, Steven, (1973). The economic theory of agency: The principal39。 Where it is headed. De Economist, 146, No. 1