What can managers learn from Wikipedia about authority?

When managers use their power to take decisions on behalf of their staff, they risk setting back employees and making them detach from the firm. This danger is particularly salient whenever highly motivated teams of staff autonomously work on corporate problems and are used to governing themselves. Here is what we can learn from Wikipedia.

Helge Klapper is an assistant professor at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. He joined RSM in 2017 after completing his PhD at the University of Vienna, Austria. His research interests include organizational decision making and novel forms of organizing and innovating. More specifically, his work examines information exchange in organizations as part of the strategic decision making process and how authority affects coordination and cooperation conflicts.
Markus Reitzig is Professor for Strategic Management at the University of Vienna, and he has served as Subject Area Chair since the group’s establishment in 2012. In 2014 and 2017, he was a Visiting Professor of Strategy at INSEAD and Keio University/Tokyo, respectively. Prior to his permanent appointment in Vienna, Dr. Reitzig worked as full-time faculty at Copenhagen Business School in Denmark (2002-2006) and London Business School in England (2006-2012). He studied chemistry, law and business economics in Germany, Italy, and the United States. Dr. Reitzig’s research has been centered on the strategic management of innovative business models and new technologies.