Principal-Agent Problem with Managing Sororities During COVID

When we discussed principal-agent issues this past week in class, I realized that I constantly find myself dealing with this problem being the Vice President of my sorority. In this situation, I am the agent, helping to act on behalf of two principals, the members of the sorority and “Nationals,” the national sorority organization. Due to COVID, this year has been especially difficult when trying to assist our President and other executive leaders in managing the sorority. I constantly find myself facing conflicting interests and incentives between Nationals, friends in my sorority that are not on the executive board, and myself. 

As a VP, I try to please and fulfill the wants and needs of Nationals, as well as all the members, myself included. Everyone wanted our dues to be significantly less this year due the lack of in-person activities and benefits we would be receiving from the organization because of COVID-19. Many other organizations at other universities cut back on semester and yearly dues too, but a lot of the conflicting interests lie in how significant these reductions in dues should be. Of course, I wanted the same as most members in my sorority and thought the only logical answer was to significantly decrease dues during this pandemic and economic crisis. Yet, Nationals made this incredibly difficult, as they have their own economic interests quite different from ours. Additionally, I am able to shirk with Nationals without many consequences. Nationals does not have any control over our elections, instead our own members elect our own executive board members, so this has made me inclined to focus on the incentives of the members more so than National’s incentives. These are the people who elected me, not Nationals. That being said, I am not running for reelection once my term ends in the Spring since I am graduating, so I have the option to shirk with my fellow members too, but I have not wanted to do this that much thus far. The executive board has worked hard to bring the dues down for everyone as much as possible, and I have made my friends interests a priority quite a lot. I have been frustrated with Nationals, as I think they need to be more understanding about the current situation, and therefore have found that my amount of slack has increased and that my incentives as an agent are not directly aligned with those of the other principal in this situation, “Nationals.”