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Executive pay and performance: The moderating effect of CEO power and governance structure

Executive pay and performance: The moderating effect of CEO power and governance structure
Executive pay and performance: The moderating effect of CEO power and governance structure
This paper examines the crucial question of whether chief executive officer (CEO) power and corporate governance (CG) structure can moderate the pay-for-performance sensitivity (PPS) using a large up-to-date South African dataset. Our findings are three-fold. First, when direct links between executive pay and performance are examined, we find a positive, but relatively small PPS. Second, our results show that in a context of concentrated ownership and weak board structures; the second-tier agency conflict (director monitoring power and opportunism) is stronger than the first-tier agency problem (CEO power and self-interest). Third, additional analysis suggests that CEO power and CG structure have a moderating effect on the PPS. Specifically, we find that the PPS is higher in firms with more reputable, founding and shareholding CEOs, higher ownership by directors and institutions, and independent nomination and remuneration committees, but lower in firms with larger boards, more powerful, and long-tenured CEOs. Overall, our evidence sheds new important theoretical and empirical insights on explaining the PPS with specific focus on the predictions of the optimal contracting and managerial power hypotheses. The findings are generally robust across a raft of econometric models that control for different types of endogeneities, pay, and performance proxies
executive pay, corporate performance, corporate governance, CEO power, endogeneity, south africa
0958-5192
921-963
Ntim, Collins
1f344edc-8005-4e96-8972-d56c4dade46b
Lindop, Sarah
01326442-043b-4924-90dc-fc43332d778a
Thomas, Dennis A.
094e07cf-9d77-4d26-96f1-89e88be840c7
Abdou, Hussein A.
c5679c57-2de9-452f-8434-1a0452563e0a
Opong, Kwaku K.
d0be5207-8d96-417d-9ef4-144d8056e0f3
Ntim, Collins
1f344edc-8005-4e96-8972-d56c4dade46b
Lindop, Sarah
01326442-043b-4924-90dc-fc43332d778a
Thomas, Dennis A.
094e07cf-9d77-4d26-96f1-89e88be840c7
Abdou, Hussein A.
c5679c57-2de9-452f-8434-1a0452563e0a
Opong, Kwaku K.
d0be5207-8d96-417d-9ef4-144d8056e0f3

Ntim, Collins, Lindop, Sarah, Thomas, Dennis A., Abdou, Hussein A. and Opong, Kwaku K. (2019) Executive pay and performance: The moderating effect of CEO power and governance structure. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 30 (6), 921-963. (doi:10.1080/09585192.2017.1282532).

Record type: Article

Abstract

This paper examines the crucial question of whether chief executive officer (CEO) power and corporate governance (CG) structure can moderate the pay-for-performance sensitivity (PPS) using a large up-to-date South African dataset. Our findings are three-fold. First, when direct links between executive pay and performance are examined, we find a positive, but relatively small PPS. Second, our results show that in a context of concentrated ownership and weak board structures; the second-tier agency conflict (director monitoring power and opportunism) is stronger than the first-tier agency problem (CEO power and self-interest). Third, additional analysis suggests that CEO power and CG structure have a moderating effect on the PPS. Specifically, we find that the PPS is higher in firms with more reputable, founding and shareholding CEOs, higher ownership by directors and institutions, and independent nomination and remuneration committees, but lower in firms with larger boards, more powerful, and long-tenured CEOs. Overall, our evidence sheds new important theoretical and empirical insights on explaining the PPS with specific focus on the predictions of the optimal contracting and managerial power hypotheses. The findings are generally robust across a raft of econometric models that control for different types of endogeneities, pay, and performance proxies

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IJHRM Full Manuscript July 2016 Accepted Version - Accepted Manuscript
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Accepted/In Press date: 17 July 2016
e-pub ahead of print date: 30 January 2017
Published date: 1 April 2019
Keywords: executive pay, corporate performance, corporate governance, CEO power, endogeneity, south africa
Organisations: Centre of Excellence for International Banking, Finance & Accounting

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 400967
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/400967
ISSN: 0958-5192
PURE UUID: bdb1c44a-c863-4c4f-8601-a70397ff2495
ORCID for Collins Ntim: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-1042-4056

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Date deposited: 30 Sep 2016 13:22
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 02:27

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Contributors

Author: Collins Ntim ORCID iD
Author: Sarah Lindop
Author: Dennis A. Thomas
Author: Hussein A. Abdou
Author: Kwaku K. Opong

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