Principal Agent Model

Just like a lot of other classmates’ blog posts, I do not think I had a situation like this in my life where I had to be in the triangle situation with two principals. However, I have a friend who is four years older than me and she told me about what makes her feel drastic about her work that I believe fits well into a triangle principals-agent model.

My friend works as the journalist of a top news channel in Taiwan. After graduating from college, she accepted the offer as it was what she was passionate in and was a decent paying job. She wanted to deliver the news on camera of the matters that needed people’s attention to, so that through her, those in need can be helped. Every morning, her team had an internal meeting on the topics that each journalist will do research on and also on the topics that will be broadcasted that evening. Then the manager of the team would have a meeting with the department head with all other managers in the company.

I learned from her that news not only relies on the funding from the country, but also from advertisements that appear before and after the news broadcast. In other words, the boss of the broadcast company would want as many people to watch his or her channel’s news so that the price to advertise can rise and raise the revenue of the company. This meant that the boss wanted a more pungent topic that could lure general public’s attention, such as the face of a criminal or the footage of the agonized victim.

The department head and managers were also journalists who covered stories with passion like my friend. Hence, they understand how badly the new hires want to pose impact on the society and not just the headlines that can lure more views. But as it was a command of the boss, the department head ordered certain managers to dig into topics that were trendy enough and others on the social topics that the news needs to deliver, and rotate the teams so that all the journalists can fulfill their career goal, but in the meantime, meet the boss’s demand.

In a situation like so, the journalists and team managers may not seem like a principal for the agent, department head. But considering the fact that the department head connects with the managers and other journalists and understand the frustration that they may encounter, I believe the agent is trying to negotiate and propose a solution to the problem that the news channel faced.

In a work setting, I believe it is critical to talk about how each person want to contribute for the company and make the communication flow so that every can pose efficiency to the firm. If the department head commanded all the journalists to publish current news that are just merely popular, I believe more viewers may watch the channel, but have a very bad impression that the news cover violent or seemingly important topics when there are social topics that need more attention but that does not sound as interesting. Also, another consequence could have been that the journalists may leave their current job and look for other companies that they can express their enthusiasm. Hence, I believe my friend was satisfied with the agent’s way of resolving the tension and that is why she is still working at the same place for over 8 years now.