Pay Without Performance

Pay Without Performance
Author: Lucian A. Bebchuk
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2004
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780674020634

The company is under-performing, its share price is trailing, and the CEO gets...a multi-million-dollar raise. This story is familiar, for good reason: as this book clearly demonstrates, structural flaws in corporate governance have produced widespread distortions in executive pay. Pay without Performance presents a disconcerting portrait of managers' influence over their own pay--and of a governance system that must fundamentally change if firms are to be managed in the interest of shareholders. Lucian Bebchuk and Jesse Fried demonstrate that corporate boards have persistently failed to negotiate at arm's length with the executives they are meant to oversee. They give a richly detailed account of how pay practices--from option plans to retirement benefits--have decoupled compensation from performance and have camouflaged both the amount and performance-insensitivity of pay. Executives' unwonted influence over their compensation has hurt shareholders by increasing pay levels and, even more importantly, by leading to practices that dilute and distort managers' incentives. This book identifies basic problems with our current reliance on boards as guardians of shareholder interests. And the solution, the authors argue, is not merely to make these boards more independent of executives as recent reforms attempt to do. Rather, boards should also be made more dependent on shareholders by eliminating the arrangements that entrench directors and insulate them from their shareholders. A powerful critique of executive compensation and corporate governance, Pay without Performance points the way to restoring corporate integrity and improving corporate performance.

Too Much Is Not Enough

Too Much Is Not Enough
Author: Robert W. Kolb
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 428
Release: 2012-08-02
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0199977127

The scholarly literature on executive compensation is vast. As such, this literature provides an unparalleled resource for studying the interaction between the setting of incentives (or the attempted setting of incentives) and the behavior that is actually adduced. From this literature, there are several reasons for believing that one can set incentives in executive compensation with a high rate of success in guiding CEO behavior, and one might expect CEO compensation to be a textbook example of the successful use of incentives. Also, as executive compensation has been studied intensively in the academic literature, we might also expect the success of incentive compensation to be well-documented. Historically, however, this has been very far from the case. In Too Much Is Not Enough, Robert W. Kolb studies the performance of incentives in executive compensation across many dimensions of CEO performance. The book begins with an overview of incentives and unintended consequences. Then it focuses on the theory of incentives as applied to compensation generally, and as applied to executive compensation particularly. Subsequent chapters explore different facets of executive compensation and assess the evidence on how well incentive compensation performs in each arena. The book concludes with a final chapter that provides an overall assessment of the value of incentives in guiding executive behavior. In it, Kolb argues that incentive compensation for executives is so problematic and so prone to error that the social value of giving huge incentive compensation packages is likely to be negative on balance. In focusing on incentives, the book provides a much sought-after resource, for while there are a number of books on executive compensation, none focuses specifically on incentives. Given the recent fervor over executive compensation, this unique but logical perspective will garner much interest. And while the literature being considered and evaluated is technical, the book is written in a non-mathematical way accessible to any college-educated reader.

Executive Compensation and Shareholder Value

Executive Compensation and Shareholder Value
Author: Jennifer Carpenter
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 159
Release: 2013-04-17
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1475751923

Executive compensation has gained widespread public attention in recent years, with the pay of top U.S. executives reaching unprecedented levels compared either with past levels, with the remuneration of top executives in other countries, or with the wages and salaries of typical employees. The extraordinary levels of executive compensation have been achieved at a time when U.S. public companies have realized substantial gains in stock market value. Many have cited this as evidence that U.S. executive compensation works well, rewarding managers who make difficult decisions that lead to higher shareholder values, while others have argued that the overly generous salaries and benefits bear little relation to company performance. Recent conceptual and empirical research permits for the first time a truly rigorous debate on these and related issues, which is the subject of this volume.

An Introduction to Executive Compensation

An Introduction to Executive Compensation
Author: Steven Balsam
Publisher: Academic Press
Total Pages: 410
Release: 2002
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780120771264

General readers have no idea why people should care about what executives are paid and why they are paid the way they are. That's the reason that The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Forbes, and other popular and practitioner publications have regular coverage on them. This book not only proposes a reason - executives need incentives in order to maximize firm value (economists call this agency theory) - it also describes the nature and design of executive compensation practices. Those incentives can take the form of benefits (salary, stock options), or prerquisites (reflecting the status of the executive within the organizational culture.

Glass Half-Broken

Glass Half-Broken
Author: Colleen Ammerman
Publisher: Harvard Business Press
Total Pages: 184
Release: 2021-04-13
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1633695948

Why the gender gap persists and how we can close it. For years women have made up the majority of college-educated workers in the United States. In 2019, the gap between the percentage of women and the percentage of men in the workforce was the smallest on record. But despite these statistics, women remain underrepresented in positions of power and status, with the highest-paying jobs the most gender-imbalanced. Even in fields where the numbers of men and women are roughly equal, or where women actually make up the majority, leadership ranks remain male-dominated. The persistence of these inequalities begs the question: Why haven't we made more progress? In Glass Half-Broken, Colleen Ammerman and Boris Groysberg reveal the pervasive organizational obstacles and managerial actions—limited opportunities for development, lack of role models and sponsors, and bias in hiring, compensation, and promotion—that create gender imbalances. Bringing to light the key findings from the latest research in psychology, sociology, organizational behavior, and economics, Ammerman and Groysberg show that throughout their careers—from entry-level to mid-level to senior-level positions—women get pushed out of the leadership pipeline, each time for different reasons. Presenting organizational and managerial strategies designed to weaken and ultimately break down these barriers, Glass Half-Broken is the authoritative resource that managers and leaders at all levels can use to finally shatter the glass ceiling.

Pay for Results

Pay for Results
Author: Mercer, LLC
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2009-03-17
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 047047811X

The numerous incentive approaches and combinations and their implications can be dizzying even to the compensation professional. Pay for Results provides a road map for developing and implementing executive incentives that drive business needs and strategy. It is filled with specific analytic tools, including tables, exhibits, forms, checklists. In addition, it uncovers myths in performance measurement strategy and design. Timely and thorough, this book expertly shows businesses how to drive their specific needs and strategy. Human resources and compensation officers will discover how to apply performance metrics that align with shareholder investment.

The Handbook of the Economics of Corporate Governance

The Handbook of the Economics of Corporate Governance
Author: Benjamin Hermalin
Publisher: Elsevier
Total Pages: 762
Release: 2017-09-18
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0444635408

The Handbook of the Economics of Corporate Governance, Volume One, covers all issues important to economists. It is organized around fundamental principles, whereas multidisciplinary books on corporate governance often concentrate on specific topics. Specific topics include Relevant Theory and Methods, Organizational Economic Models as They Pertain to Governance, Managerial Career Concerns, Assessment & Monitoring, and Signal Jamming, The Institutions and Practice of Governance, The Law and Economics of Governance, Takeovers, Buyouts, and the Market for Control, Executive Compensation, Dominant Shareholders, and more. Providing excellent overviews and summaries of extant research, this book presents advanced students in graduate programs with details and perspectives that other books overlook. - Concentrates on underlying principles that change little, even as the empirical literature moves on - Helps readers see corporate governance systems as interrelated or even intertwined external (country-level) and internal (firm-level) forces - Reviews the methodological tools of the field (theory and empirical), the most relevant models, and the field's substantive findings, all of which help point the way forward

Executive Stock Options and Stock Appreciation Rights

Executive Stock Options and Stock Appreciation Rights
Author: Herbert Kraus
Publisher: Law Journal Press
Total Pages: 868
Release: 2024-06-28
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9781588520654

Executive Stock Options and Stock Appreciation Rights will guide you through such vital topics as: types of stock options available, including nonqualified and incentive stock options.

Saving Capitalism From Short-Termism: How to Build Long-Term Value and Take Back Our Financial Future

Saving Capitalism From Short-Termism: How to Build Long-Term Value and Take Back Our Financial Future
Author: Alfred Rappaport
Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2011-08-19
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0071736379

Conquering the obession with short-term profits is critical to the future of business, society, and capitalism itself—Alfred Rappaport presents a game plan every business leader should read “As Rappaport keeps on speaking out for the realities surrounding investment and speculation, our society will profit as it builds on his keen insights.” John C. Bogle, founder of The Vanguard Group (from the Foreword) About the Book: Alfred Rappaport, who first introduced the principles and practical application of "shareholder value" in his groundbreaking 1986 classic Creating Shareholder Value, reiterated the basic message in his 2006 Harvard Business Review article: Focusing on Wall Street quarterly earnings expectations rather than on creating long-term value is an invitation to disaster. Rappaport shows how deeply flawed short-term performance incentives for corporate and investment managers were an essential cause of the recent global financial crisis. In Saving Capitalism from Short-Termism, Rappaport examines the causes and consequences of “short-termism” and offers specific recommendations for how publicly traded companies and the investment management community can overcome it. Whether you're a corporate manager, money manager, public policymaker, business-school student, or simply concerned about your financial future, Saving Capitalism from Short-Termism provides valuable insights and practical ideas to change the course of your organization—and contribute to a healthier economy that benefits all.

Employee Stock Option Compensation

Employee Stock Option Compensation
Author: Florian Wolff
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3322818497

Florian Wolff analyses how executives perceive their stock options and how their personal expectations and risk preferences affect the value they assign to them. He shows that stock options may be worth their money because people behave irrationally.