As companies continue to strive to fill jobs with the best talent, their search often ends with hiring candidates sourced from outside of the company. A 5-year study of executives at US hi-tech manufacturing companies examined the role that the external labour market plays in gender pay differences. While female executives were found to have higher compensation than comparable men, the results indicate that women hired externally receive less than those hired internally, and as such may be disadvantaged by the external labour market.
Key Topics: Gender pay gap; External labour market; Executive compensation; Promotions; External recruitment
Gender pay gaps continue to persist in many countries, despite direct intervention by governments, regulators, and companies alike. So why does this apparent gender pay inequality continue? A recent German study examined some of the underlying mechanisms relating to perceptions of fair pay and found that both men and women held the belief that lower pay for women was fair. These beliefs appear to be formed and ‘legitimized’ based on people’s experiences of pay inequality in their own occupations and experiencing more value placed on the input of men in the workplace.
Key Topics: Gender pay gap; Fair compensation; Performance evaluation; Pay inequality
In many countries, the pay gap between senior management and employees is on the rise, as is the research interest in this topic. A study of Chinese publicly traded companies examined whether a pay gap serves to motivate employees to increase their performance or whether effort is reduced due to aversion to inequity. The results of the study indicate that there is an inverted-U relationship between a company’s pay gap and their productivity, meaning that depending on a company’s proximity to the optimal pay gap level a pay gap can have positive or negative company performance implications.
Key Topics: Executive compensation; Pay gap; Employee performance; China
CEO compensation packages are becoming increasingly standardized, for various reasons, including the growing influence of external bodies on company boards of directors. A study of US CEOs over a 7-year period, which examined the relationship between CEO compensation effectiveness and their tenure, found that the motivation inducing effects of different compensation components differed depending on how long CEOs had been in their role. The results suggest that standardization of CEO compensation is not an optimal compensation strategy for companies to follow.
Key Topics: CEO tenure; CEO compensation; Shareholder returns; Performance-based compensation
The prevalence of employee ownership in companies has been on the rise in recent years, with companies increasingly using long term incentives and employee stock ownership plans in the belief that it will increase company performance. A comprehensive study across 14 countries looked to examine the validity of this apparent positive link between employee ownership and company performance. The results did indeed find a significant relationship between these two factors, and this positive relationship held across both publicly and privately held companies.
Key Topics: Employee ownership; Long term incentives; Company performance
In many countries, gender diversity in the workplace is a hot topic and the role of women on corporate boards and compensation committees has come under scrutiny from regulators and legislators. A recent study of US companies examined the effect of compensation committee gender diversity on CEO compensation. Unsurprisingly, women were found to be underrepresented on compensation committees, however of the female members that there were, they were found to be younger and less experienced that their male counterparts. Additionally, greater gender diversity on compensation committees was not found to significantly influence the determination of CEO compensation.
Key Topics: Compensation committee; Gender diversity; Executive compensation; CEO compensation |
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