IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hbs/wpaper/16-019.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Through the Grapevine: Network Effects on the Design of Executive Compensation Contracts

Author

Listed:
  • Susanna Gallani

    (Harvard Business School, Accounting and Management Unit)

Abstract

Effective design of executive compensation contracts involves choosing and weighting performance measures, as well as defining the mix between fixed and incentive-based pay components, with a view to fostering talent retention and goal congruence. The variability in compensation design observed in practice is significantly lower than it would be predicted by contracting theory. This is likely due to indirect constraining pressures, which cannot be completely explained by industry affiliation or peer group membership. I posit that network connections involving corporate boards operate as a conduit for these pressures. Using information disclosed in proxy statements of publicly traded companies, and a vectorial approach to measure compensation similarity, I predict and find that firms that are connected by board interlocks, hiring the same compensation consulting firm, or sharing a blockholder, exhibit a higher degree of similarity in the design of executive compensation contracts than what would be predicted by similarities in organizational characteristics. The relative prominence of the connectors within the respective networks moderates the network effects on the degree of compensation similarity. Finally, I show that the market responds positively to compensation similarity, although it is associated with excess CEO compensation.

Suggested Citation

  • Susanna Gallani, 2015. "Through the Grapevine: Network Effects on the Design of Executive Compensation Contracts," Harvard Business School Working Papers 16-019, Harvard Business School, revised Dec 2016.
  • Handle: RePEc:hbs:wpaper:16-019
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/pages/download.aspx?name=16-019.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David F. Larcker & Allan L. McCall & Gaizka Ormazabal, 2015. "Outsourcing Shareholder Voting to Proxy Advisory Firms," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 58(1), pages 173-204.
    2. Sidney Finkelstein & Donald C. Hambrick, 1988. "Chief executive compensation: A synthesis and reconciliation," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(6), pages 543-558, November.
    3. Bebchuk, Lucian Arye & Fried, Jesse & Walker, David I, 2002. "Managerial Power and Rent Extraction in the Design of Executive Compensation," CEPR Discussion Papers 3558, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Murphy, Kevin J. & Sandino, Tatiana, 2010. "Executive pay and "independent" compensation consultants," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 247-262, April.
    5. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1997. "A Survey of Corporate Governance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(2), pages 737-783, June.
    6. Bizjak, John & Lemmon, Michael & Nguyen, Thanh, 2011. "Are all CEOs above average? An empirical analysis of compensation peer groups and pay design," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(3), pages 538-555, June.
    7. Peer C. Fiss & Mark T. Kennedy & Gerald F. Davis, 2012. "How Golden Parachutes Unfolded: Diffusion and Variation of a Controversial Practice," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(4), pages 1077-1099, August.
    8. William Simpson, 2001. "The Quadratic Assignment Procedure (QAP)," North American Stata Users' Group Meetings 2001 1.2, Stata Users Group.
    9. Benjamin Golub & Matthew O. Jackson, 2012. "Network Structure and the Speed of Learning Measuring Homophily Based on its Consequences," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 107-108, pages 33-48.
    10. Mitchell A. Petersen, 2009. "Estimating Standard Errors in Finance Panel Data Sets: Comparing Approaches," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(1), pages 435-480, January.
    11. Murphy, Kevin J., 1985. "Corporate performance and managerial remuneration : An empirical analysis," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(1-3), pages 11-42, April.
    12. Mark C. Anderson & Rajiv D. Banker & Sury Ravindran, 2000. "Executive Compensation in the Information Technology Industry," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(4), pages 530-547, April.
    13. Lucian Bebchuk & Jesse Fried, 2002. "Power, rent extraction, and executive compensation," CESifo Forum, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 3(03), pages 23-28, October.
    14. Gerhart, B. & Trevor, C. & Graham, M., 1995. "New Direction in Compensation Research: Synergies, Risk, and Survival," Papers 95-27, Cornell - Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies.
    15. Core, John E. & Holthausen, Robert W. & Larcker, David F., 1999. "Corporate governance, chief executive officer compensation, and firm performance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 371-406, March.
    16. Cadman, Brian & Carter, Mary Ellen & Hillegeist, Stephen, 2010. "The incentives of compensation consultants and CEO pay," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 263-280, April.
    17. Jensen, Michael C & Murphy, Kevin J, 1990. "Performance Pay and Top-Management Incentives," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(2), pages 225-264, April.
    18. Cosma Rohilla Shalizi & Andrew C. Thomas, 2011. "Homophily and Contagion Are Generically Confounded in Observational Social Network Studies," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 40(2), pages 211-239, May.
    19. Gerald F. Davis, 1996. "The Significance of Board Interlocks for Corporate Governance," Corporate Governance: An International Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 4(3), pages 154-159, July.
    20. John Bizjak & Michael Lemmon & Ryan Whitby, 2009. "Option Backdating and Board Interlocks," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(11), pages 4821-4847, November.
    21. Lucian A. Bebchuk & Jesse M. Fried, 2005. "Pay Without Performance: Overview of the Issues," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 17(4), pages 8-23, September.
    22. repec:adr:anecst:y:2012:i:107-108:p:2 is not listed on IDEAS
    23. David Dekker & David Krackhardt & Tom Snijders, 2007. "Sensitivity of MRQAP Tests to Collinearity and Autocorrelation Conditions," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 72(4), pages 563-581, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Melvin Jameson & Tao‐Hsien Dolly King & Andrew Prevost, 2021. "Top management incentives and financial flexibility: The case of make‐whole call provisions," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(1-2), pages 374-404, January.
    2. Christie Hayne & Marshall Vance, 2019. "Information Intermediary or De Facto Standard Setter? Field Evidence on the Indirect and Direct Influence of Proxy Advisors," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(4), pages 969-1011, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Humphery-Jenner, M., 2011. "Internal and External Discipline Following Securities Class Actions," Discussion Paper 2011-044, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    2. Chen, Chao-Jung & Hsu, Chung-Yuan & Chen, Yu-Lin, 2014. "The impact of family control on the top management compensation mix and incentive orientation," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 29-46.
    3. Otten, J.A. & Heugens, P.P.M.A.R., 2007. "Extending the Managerial Power Theory of Executive Pay: A Cross National Test," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2007-090-ORG, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    4. Yaowen Shan & Terry Walter, 2016. "Towards a Set of Design Principles for Executive Compensation Contracts," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 52(4), pages 619-684, December.
    5. Hsu, Audrey Wen-hsin & Shyu, Yi-Ru & Wang, Victoria Shao-Pin, 2014. "Non-compensation-related consultant service and CEO compensation," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 59-75.
    6. Christian Engelen, 2015. "The effects of managerial discretion on moral hazard related behaviour: German evidence on agency costs," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 19(4), pages 927-960, November.
    7. Humphery-Jenner, M., 2011. "Internal and External Discipline Following Securities Class Actions," Other publications TiSEM 072318eb-d214-4c7a-ac7a-d, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    8. Humphery-Jenner, M., 2011. "Internal and External Discipline Following Securities Class Actions," Other publications TiSEM 9bcb5c91-4bab-431f-9891-1, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    9. Lee, Janet, 2009. "Executive performance-based remuneration, performance change and board structures," The International Journal of Accounting, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 138-162, June.
    10. Stacey Beaumont & Raluca Ratiu & David Reeb & Glenn Boyle & Philip Brown & Alexander Szimayer & Raymond Silva Rosa & David Hillier & Patrick McColgan & Athanasios Tsekeris & Bryan Howieson & Zoltan Ma, 2016. "Comments on Shan and Walter: ‘Towards a Set of Design Principles for Executive Compensation Contracts’," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 52(4), pages 685-771, December.
    11. Canil, Jean & Karpavičius, Sigitas, 2020. "Compensation consultants: Does reputation matter?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    12. Ann-Christine Schulz & Miriam Flickinger, 2020. "Does CEO (over)compensation influence corporate reputation?," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 903-927, August.
    13. Lucian Arye Bebchuk & Jesse M. Fried, 2003. "Executive Compensation as an Agency Problem," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 71-92, Summer.
    14. Rui Albuquerque & Jianjun Miao, 2013. "CEO Power, Compensation, and Governance," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 14(2), pages 443-479, November.
    15. Bereskin, Frederick L. & Cicero, David C., 2013. "CEO compensation contagion: Evidence from an exogenous shock," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(2), pages 477-493.
    16. Andres, Christian & Fernau, Erik & Theissen, Erik, 2014. "Should I stay or should I go? Former CEOs as monitors," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 26-47.
    17. Uygur, Ozge, 2019. "Income inequality in S&P 500 companies," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 52-64.
    18. Loureiro, Gilberto & Makhija, Anil K. & Zhang, Dan, 2020. "One dollar CEOs," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 425-439.
    19. Ravi Dharwadkar & Maria Goranova & Pamela Brandes & Raihan Khan, 2008. "Institutional Ownership and Monitoring Effectiveness: It's Not Just How Much but What Else You Own," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 19(3), pages 419-440, June.
    20. Matthew Grosse & Nelson Ma & Tom Scott, 2020. "Evidence on compensation consultant fees and CEO pay," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 45(1), pages 15-44, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Compensation design; Board interlocks; Compensation consultants; Blockholders; Network centrality.;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hbs:wpaper:16-019. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: HBS (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/harbsus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.