Research On The Agent Problem In KOL Income Distribution Of Influencer Marketing Agency

KOL(key opinion leader),as an important employee of the influencer marketing agency,is the main source of influencer marketing agency 's economy.Its income distribution mode not only affects its work enthusiasm,but also directly affects the enterprise's performance.In the past,most of the research on influencer marketing agency focused on its business model,marketing strategy and other aspects,but less on the agency problem in income distribution.Besides the research on income distribution in agency theory focuses on the design of executive compensation system and the interests of shareholders.It is rare to apply agency theory to the research on core employee compensation.Based on this,this paper conducts a case study on Ruhnn Holding Co.,Ltd.,the first shares of China influencer marketing agency,analyzes the agency problem between its Top-tier KOL ZhangDayi and shareholders' earnings.It enriches the research in related fields and provides a reference for the agency problems encountered by related influencer marketing agency in the process of income distribution.In this paper,Resource-based View,Labor Theory of Value,Principal-agent Theory and Incomplete Contracting Theory are applied to explain the problems of income distribution of core employees in influencer marketing agency and some optimization suggestions are put forward according to Optimal Salary Contract Theory.According to the Resource-based View,the core strategic resources of an enterprise constitute the main competitiveness of the enterprise,and KOL who contributes the most to the enterprise's income is undoubtedly the strategic resources of influencer marketing agency.According to the resource dependence theory,the one who invests important resources should obtain greater control and higher expected resource return in the organization.However,the control right of influencer marketing agency is in the hands of shareholders and the profit distribution is also dominated by shareholders.For example,the top KOL ZhangDayi in the case enterprise,as an important employee and two shareholders of Ruhnn,has supported half of Ruhnn's income.However,due to Ruhnn's loss for three consecutive years,ZhangDayi has less distributable income in shareholders' equity.The Labor Theory of Value distribution explains that the important resources such as marketing ability invested by KOL should get its expected resource rent.If KOL only gets the maintenance cost of human resources,there is no return of its unique human capital,it is unfair to KOL.According to the Incomplete Contracting Theory,the control right is divided into two parts: legal control right and residual control right.The residual control right refers to the corporate control right that is not clearly defined in the contract.Without the legal control right based on equity,the core employees will inevitably use their substantive control right and influence based on important resources to seek rent.KOL may achieve the purpose of self-interest by increasing the marketing cost and training cost of the enterprise,it will increase the agency cost of the enterprise and infringing the shareholders' rights and interests.From the perspective of consequences,it will inevitably affect the basis of profit distribution of shareholders.Therefore,there is a certain agency contradiction between core employees and shareholders' interests in the aspect of income distribution.The Optimal Salary Contract Theory points out that the control right of the enterprise should be allocated to the one who contribute a lot to the enterprise,which provides a KOL profit allocation scheme of minimizing the agency cost for the red net enterprise.KOL can improve personal income through more cost compensation,which is disadvantageous to shareholders.It can design a reasonable salary incentive mechanism for employees to coordinate the conflict of interest between KOL and shareholders through the optimal contract theory,which can mobilize KOLs' work enthusiasm and show the role of incentive and constraint.Through the research on the agency problem in the KOL income distribution of the influencer marketing agency,this paper comprehensively understands the differences in the resource allocation under the complexity of the influencer marketing agency management and has a pioneering significance for the research on the agency problem in revenue distribution of the influencer marketing agency.Besides,it provides a basis for the influencer marketing agency to optimize its own governance structure and improve its own governance system,and also provides a basis for the related influencer marketing agency in the process of income distribution the reference is provided when encountering agent problems.