How to evaluate the quality of remuneration policy? Evidence from the Polish banking sector

In our paper we use an institutional perspective to define the concept of the quality of remuneration policy. Traditional perspective focuses on pay-per-performance relationship between top executives’ remuneration and companies’ performance. This study is based on the assumption that the acquisition of normatively defined compensation practices and structures is more important for the successful organization than the practices which enhance efficiency defined on the basis of input (compensation) – output (company’s performance) relationship. We examine the relationship between the quality of executive remuneration policy and corporate governance standards in banks with a controlling blockholder. Based on the sample of a hand-collected data on corporate governance characteristics, executive remuneration, and financial results of all public banks in Poland from 2005 to 2015, we find that the effective implementation of sound corporate governance practices should be rooted in the form of obligatory normative acts. Consistent with other studies we find a positive and statistically significant relationship between the corporate governance measures and the quality of remuneration policy. In particular, our study shows the significant role of two institutional factors positively determining the efficiency of incentive contracts: remuneration committees and institutional ownership. We also find that the banks controlled by foreign corporations, especially the US–UK–Ireland financial institutions, have a significantly more effective compensation policy than the banks controlled by domestic investors.