Notes on ambiguity and executive compensation

Executive compensation schemes are lotteries with very favorable expected returns, thus incentives for the ambitious to enter managerial careers. In addition, such schemes generally seek to provide greater rewards for those managers whose presence has been associated with measured organizational success. Ambiguity makes discriminating reliably among managers on the basis of organizational outcomes quite problematic, particularly at the top. As a result, executive compensation schemes that emphasize discrimination among executives on the basis of performance are likely to stimulate the management of accounts and reputations, rather than organizations. At the same time, they help sustain myths of managerial importance.     

Countermove: how CEOs respond to post-acquisition compensation adjustments

Following poorly performing acquisitions, the board of directors often redesigns the CEO’s annual compensation package to include less risk-encouraging stock options and more risk-discouraging restricted stock. This study explores the emerging area of post-acquisition compensation management and proposes that CEOs can indirectly, but effectively, defend against compensation rebalancing. Specifically, we find that CEOs may counteract the effects of compensation rebalancing by delaying the exercise of existing stock option holdings. Fortunately, this insight also offers valuable implications including the ability of the board to limit the CEO’s defense by adjusting stock option exercise windows.     

Narcissistic leadership

Narcissism—a personality trait encompassing grandiosity, arrogance, self-absorption, entitlement, fragile self-esteem, and hostility—is an attribute of many powerful leaders. Narcissistic leaders have grandiose belief systems and leadership styles, and are generally motivated by their needs for power and admiration rather than empathetic concern for the constituents and institutions they lead. However, narcissists also possess the charisma and grand vision that are vital to effective leadership. We review and critically assess the theoretical and research literature on narcissistic leaders in order to understand the potential positive and negative consequences of their leadership, the trajectories of their leadership, and the relationship of narcissism to established models of leadership. We conclude that the study of narcissistic leaders is inherently limited in scope, and propose a new definition of narcissistic leadership in order to reframe the discussion and better incorporate the topic of narcissism into the field of leadership studies.     

New perspectives on the governance of executive compensation: an examination of the role and effect of compensation consultants

We develop a multi-theoretic approach, drawing on economic, institutional, managerial power and social comparison literatures to explain the role of the external compensation consultant in the top management pay setting institutional field. Taking advantage of recent disclosure requirements in the UK, we collect data on compensation consultant use in 232 large companies. We show that consultants are a prevalent part of the CEO pay setting scene, and document evidence of all advisor use. Our econometric results show that consultant use is associated with firm size and the equity pay mix. We also show that CEO pay is positively associated with peer firms that share consultants, with higher board and consultant interlocks, and some evidence that where firms supply other business services to the firm, CEO pay is greater.     

Agency conflicts,executive compensation regulations and CEO pay-performance sensitivity: evidence from Sweden

Based on a unique country set up with concentrated ownership of firms, strong representation of major shareholders on boards and one of the highest percentages of firms with dual-class shares worldwide I study CEO pay-performance sensitivity in Swedish listed firms in the years 2001–2013. Focusing on Type II agency conflict, I find that that pay-performance sensitivity in family-controlled firms with family CEOs is significantly lower than in other types of firms, and that dual-class firms have significantly lower sensitivity of pay to accounting performance than non-dual-class firms. The results suggest that in firms with type II agency conflicts compensation practices may be driven either by family ties or by the power preferences of the controlling shareholder that uses compensation to align CEO’s interest with his/her will rather than with financial performance. The study also documents that the link between CEO pay and performance disappears in the 2010–2013 period following the implementation of the European Recommendations regarding executive compensation. This finding is in contrast to the stipulated goal of the European Commission, ‘to ensure pay for performance’ (European Commission 2009).     

中美两国上市公司高管薪酬决定因素比较研究

选取中国深沪两市1999年到2003年4 430家上市公司和美国纽约交易所1999到2002年6 907家上市公司进行实证比较,在确定了中国上市公司高管薪酬的主要决定因素的基础上,与美国上市公司高管薪酬进行比较.结果表明,公司规模、公司绩效、股权特征是决定高管薪酬的主要因素;它们对于两国上市公司高管薪酬的影响是有区别的;探究了造成这种差异的原因并提出了对于中国上市公司高管薪酬政策设计的指导性建议和以后研究的方向.     

Idiosyncratic volatility,executive compensation and corporate governance: examination of the direct and moderate effects

Entrenchment of private benefits by the CEO or dominant owners can lead corporations to avoid riskier but more private benefits resulting in greater idiosyncratic volatility and information flow trading. Using a unique database of 806 listed firms, we investigate the impact of CEO compensation and corporate governance on idiosyncratic volatility and information flow trading. We find strong and robust evidence that equity-based (fixed income) CEO compensation is negatively (positively) related to volatility and information trading. Incorporating an agent principal–principal perspective into our models of managerial discretion provides us with an accurate prediction of how the proportion of CEO compensation and the degree of entrenchment will influence risk-taking decisions as well as how equity-based compensation interacts with related-party transaction and ownership dispersion to influence stock volatility. Finally, we find that idiosyncratic volatility and information flow trading are also affected by CEO compensation and corporate governance, which act as instrumental variables, while subject to environmental variants and the jointly determined.     

Friend or Foe? CEO gender,political ideology,and gender-pay disparities in executive compensation

Do female CEOs reduce gender-pay disparities in top management teams (TMTs)? Some scholars draw on social identity theory to argue that, as individuals tend to identify with and support their in-groups, appointing a female corporate leader (i.e., CEO) will mitigate the gender-pay gap among executives. Yet, others draw on the queen-bee syndrome to postulate that some female CEOs may rather strengthen gender-pay disparities in upper echelons – by favoring out-groups (male) more than their in-groups (female). We bring together these opposing theoretical arguments to develop a ‘beyond CEO gender’ perspective, arguing that the effects of CEO gender on TMT gender-pay disparities should be considered in conjunction with the corporate leaders' values – as reflected by their political ideology. Our research demonstrates that conservative-female CEOs compensate female (versus male) executives lower compared to all other CEO gender-ideology categories (i.e., female-liberal CEOs, male-liberal CEOs, and male-conservative CEOs). Overall, our work contributes to theory on the CEO-TMT interface by highlighting the role of the CEO as the ‘architect’ of executive remuneration.     

中国古代十大CEO

三千年历史苍茫,10位在史海中沉浮,头脑聪明、敛财有方的古人,必将启示今生渴望生财的世人。为其冠以CEO似乎不太严谨,然而在“重农抑商”根深蒂固的封建社会,这些夹缝中生存的商人却浓墨重彩地留下惊艳身影,其丰采穿越三千年仍旧清晰。     

高管政治背景对其离职—业绩敏感性的影响

政治背景作为高管的社会资源,会对公司的内部治理效率产生影响。通过对2004-2011年中国A股民营上市公司的1330个样本进行实证分析,本文研究了高管政治背景对其离职—业绩敏感性的影响。研究发现,总体而言,公司高管离职的可能性与业绩水平显著负相关;在考虑政治关联因素的影响后,政治关联能够显著地弱化高管离职的可能性与业绩水平的负相关关系,亦即高管的政治背景能够降低其离职—业绩敏感性。     

Hedging and accounting-based RPE contracts for powerful CEOs

Several firms prohibit their CEOs from trading in the stock of peer firms. This is puzzling since hedging by the CEO through private trading in the capital market can reduce the CEO’s exposure to systematic compensation risk. When the CEO’s incentive contract comprises relative performance evaluation, we find that the firm might want to disallow private hedging even though there are no technological interdependencies or strategic interactions to peer firms. In the analysis, we highlight two frequently observed characteristics of incentive contracts. First, the use of accounting benchmarks is widespread in compensation contracts for CEOs. Second, empirical and anecdotal evidence suggests that powerful CEOs have influence on the process of designing their own compensation. We find that in the presence of a powerful CEO, the firm can benefit from disallowing private hedging. In particular, the firm’s decision to allow or to disallow private hedging depends on the characteristics of the accounting benchmarks and the characteristics of the peer firms.     

Investor response to appointment of female CEOs and CFOs

We study the impact of appointing women to top executive positions from an investor perspective. We analyze whether shareholders value announcement of appointment of women to top positions differently than they do appointment of men. This study uses an international sample of 100 announcements of top executive appointments of women who replace men and investigates how shareholders respond to such appointments. This research combines an event study with a matched pair analysis to compare the response from investors regarding appointment of female versus male CEOs and CFOs. We establish that investors do not seem to value appointment of women significantly differently from that of men. This finding suggests that, from the investor perspective, there appears to be no business case for a particular gender when it comes to appointing a CEO or CFO.     

Health reform bridging gaps between physician executives and CEOs

Recently, Hospitals & Health Networks reported the results of a study it conducted, in conjunction with Premier Health Alliance, Inc., and among hospital CEOs and COOs to gauge their preparedness and level of concern about various health care reform issues. Because administrators and physician executives are not always in agreement, we wondered how physician executives would rate the same issues. To find out, the American College of Physician Executives polled some members and posed the original survey questions. The results and subsequent interviews revealed that health care reform appears to be a catalyst in bringing the two factions closer in their thinking.     

Spirituality and the physician executive

The "s" word can now be spoken without flinching in health care organizations. Spirituality is becoming a common topic in management conferences around the world. Many U.S. corporations are recognizing the role of spirituality in creating a new humanistic capitalism that manages beyond the bottom line. Spirituality refers to a broad set of principles that transcend all religions. It is the relationship between yourself and something larger, such as the good of your patient or the welfare of the community. Spirituality means being in right relationship to all that is and understanding the mutual interdependence of all living beings. Physician executives should be primary proponents of spirituality in their organizations by: Modeling the power of spirituality in their own lives; integrating spiritual methodologies into clinical practice; fostering an integrative approach to patient care; encouraging the organization to tithe its profits for unmet community health needs; supporting collaborative efforts to improve the health of the community; and creating healing environments.     

Silence and the physician executive

Silence can be an indication that things are running smoothly; on the other hand it can be an ominous sign that there is dissent among your staff.     

盛名难副: 明星 CEO 与负面信息隐藏

以 2009 年 ～ 2016 年间 A 股上市公司为研究样本,采用双重差分法研究明星 CEO 成名后负面信息的披露策略． 以 CEO 是否登上媒体发布的榜单作为明星 CEO 的代理变量,研究结果表明: 明星 CEO 上榜将显著增加隐藏负面信息的可能性,验证了“名声俘获假说”; 明星CEO上榜后发生财务重述的概率显著增加,而一旦退出榜单其隐藏负面信息的可能性则显著降低,验证了名声的负面效应． 机制检验表明明星 CEO 通过管理层权力抑制负面信息披露． 另 外,上榜前盈余质量较低、代理问题较严重的公司,其明星 CEO 隐藏负面信息的可能性更高．文章丰富了 CEO 个人特质对信息披露行为的影响及其经济后果的研究,对于资本市场的健康发展具有一定的启示意义．