Agency Costs and Financial Decision-Making

An agency relationship is a fiduciary relationship that is created with a written contract or oral agreement.

Agency Problem: “The difficulties that arise when a principal hires an agent and cannot fully monitor the agent’s actions.” (Cornett, Adair, & Nofsinger, 2016, p. 15).

The scope of this paper is to analyze the kind of agency problems that emerges between The Hershey Company and their stakeholders and shareholders. To answer this, a review of the company`s board structure and ownership structure was made. Thereafter two specific situations that has occurred in recent times was used as case examples to enlighten the agency problems suggested to emerge by the corporate structure.

Corporate governance can address agency problems, they are the rules that dictate the company’s behavior towards it’s directors, managers, employees, shareholders, creditors, competitors and community.

An agency relationship is fiduciary [good faith] in nature, and the actions and words of an agent exchanged with a third party legally bind the principal.

Managers and shareholders are the utmost contributors of these conflicts, hence affecting the entire structural organization of a company, its managerial system and eventually to the company's societal responsibility. A corporation is well organized with stipulated division of responsibilities among the arms of the organizational structure, shareholders, directors, managers and corporate officers. However, conflicts between managers in most firms and shareholders have brought about agency problems. Shares and their trade have seen many companies rise to big investments. Shareholders keep the companies running

This situation can lead to negative consequences for a business when its executives or management direct the organization to act in the best interest of themselves instead of the best interest of its owners or shareholders. Stockholders of the enterprise can keep this problem from arises by attempting to align the interest of management with that of themselves. This normally occurs through incentive pay, stock compensation, or other similar incentive packages that now cause the managers financial success to be tied to that of the company (Garcia, Rodriguez-Sanchez, & Fdez-Valdivia, 2015; Cui, Zhao, & Tang, 2007; Bruhl, 2003; Carols & Nicholas,

“Agency relationships can only be created by the mutual consent of the parties. Thus the creation of the agency relationships essentially involves two steps: (1) manifestation by the principal and (2) consent by the agent” (Sharp, Moorman and Claussen, 2014). Len Bias and Advantage International Inc., entered into an agreement near the end of his career at Maryland. The relationship between a

Most corporate financing decisions in practice reduce to a choice between debt and equity. The finance manager wishing to fund a new project, but reluctant to cut dividends or to make a rights issue, which leads to the decision of borrowing options. The issue with regards to shareholder objectives being met by the management in making financing decisions has come to become a major issue of recent times. This relates to understanding the concept of the agency problem. It deals with the separation of ownership and control of an organisation within a financial context. The financial manager can raise long-term funds internally, from the company’s cash flow, or externally, via the capital market, the market for funds

Agency Conflicts: An agency relationship arises whenever someone, called a principal, hires someone else called an agent, to perform some service, and the principal delegated decisions making authority to the agent.

Agency relationship refers to a consensual relationship between two parties, where one person or entity authorizes the other to act on his, her or its behalf, and they exist as mutual agreements between individuals, small firms and large organizations. Managerial opportunism is when managers use employer information for personal gain, this creates a conflict of interest, with self-serving managers making decisions that benefit them rather than the company owners or shareholders. Corporate governance problem deals with

Agency problem is a potential conflict between the agent and shareholders in the interest. It is shown that ownership is separated from management. This cause not only is the divergence of ownership and control, but also the information is asymmetrical. When ownership is separated

Economic science teaches us that due to their subjective needs, individuals have subjective preferences, and hence different interest. Occasionally different subjective interests give rise to conflicts of interest between contracting partners. These conflicts of interest may result in turn, in one or both parties undertaking actions that may be against the interest of the other contracting partner. The primary reason for the divergence of objectives between managers and shareholders has been attributed to separation of ownership (shareholders) and control (management) in corporations. As a consequence, agency problems

Agency Theory is tied up with analyzing and resolving any current issues that exist between their management team and owners. In Agency theory, way of think may

As explained by Schelker (2013), the agency problem between the owners and the management of a firm is at the heart of the corporate governance literature. Hence, there is a need for a