讲座题目：Hedging Market Uncertainty in Sales Compensation through a Proportional-Prize Contest

讲座时间：3月30日（周一）16:00-17:00

讲座地点：商学院大楼318会议室

主讲人：周文慧（华南理工大学教授）

摘要：Many industries design compensation schemes with sales agents before the sales season, but this practice is challenged by market uncertainty, since volatility in the external environment after contracts are signed can substantially affect demand during the sales period. A commonly used incentive is piece-rate compensation (P-type), which rewards agents based on the volume of sales generated. Under market uncertainty, however, realized sales may not accurately reflect agents’ actual sales efforts. We first introduce that a proportional-prize contest (C-type) serves as an alternative compensation scheme to incentivize agents, in which payments are determined by each agent's proportion of total sales. Unlike traditional piece-rate compensation (P-type) schemes that depend solely on individual sales volume, the C-type links an agent’s payoff to her performance relative to other agents. The objective of our paper is to undertake a theoretical comparison between piece-rate compensation (P-type) and the proportional prize contest (C-type). To this end, we develop a two-stage Stackelberg model with one firm and multiple agents. In the pre-sales stage, the firm designs a compensation structure based on the assessment of market potential and signs with agents. In the sales season, actual market potential is realized, and contracted agents determine their sales effort levels in response to actual market demand. Our findings indicate that the C-type compensation scheme outperforms the P-type scheme when market uncertainty is high. This advantage can be explained by the two main effects under the C-type: a self-adjusting effect and a dilution effect. The self-adjusting effect induces agents to adapt their efforts to the realized market potential, whereas the dilution effect weakens incentives by diluting per-unit compensation as total output increases. When market uncertainty is high, the self-adjusting effect dominates the dilution effect, making the C-type particularly effective at hedging market uncertainty.

个人简介：

周文慧，华南理工大学工商管理学院二级教授、博士生导师。广东省智慧医疗健康服务管理重点实验室主任，广东省质量协会副会长。研究兴趣主要包括排队经济学、医疗服务管理、运营管理、供应链管理等。近年来累计主持承担国家自然科学基金重点项目1项，面上项目4项，其中三项已结题项目分别于2014年、2019年和2022年的项目后评估中获评“特优”。研究成果发表在MS、POM、DS、CER、NRL、Omega、EJOR、《管理科学学报》等国内外知名学术期刊。2012年入选教育部“新世纪优秀人才支持计划”，2017年入选广东省教育厅“珠江学者”特聘教授计划，2019年获得国家杰出青年基金。2023年获批国家自然科学基金创新群体项目。2017年，2025年分别获得广东省哲学社会科学优秀成果奖一等奖，2020年获得第八届高等学校科学研究优秀成果青年奖。2019年主讲的《应用统计分析》入选广东省研究生示范课程。