In spite of the growing sophistication of the principal-agent (PA) literature, it still contains a remarkably thin view of agent behavior. That is, PA theorists have made surprisingly few direct claims about agents. Almost twenty years after it was written, Williamson's (1985: 30) pithy formulation – that agents are “self-interest seeking with guile” – remains the classic statement, and most current formulations do not go far beyond it. Mainly, the field has focused on what principals can do to control such agents. These controls – including detailed rules, screening and selection, monitoring and reporting requirements, institutional checks, and sanctions, as detailed in the Introduction – give us an indirect picture of agents as seen through the eyes of principals. While the indirect picture reinforces Williamson's original notion of potentially troublesome agents, it also suggests that principals have many tools to control these agents.

Scholars have paid less attention to the strategies that agents use to try to circumvent these controls. Agents often do more than just attempt to hide their information and their actions, as discussed in the Introduction. In fact, as we discuss below, some agent strategies are not very hidden at all. Other strategies are indeed hidden, but agents use different methods to cover their tracks. Though scholars have made great efforts to articulate and describe a range of principal control strategies, as summarized in the Introduction, a parallel effort needs to be made to understand agent strategies.