The role of long term incentives, particularly equity holdings, in the decision making of CEOs has long been an area of interest for researchers and practitioners alike, given the potential significance of this relationship in company performance. A recent study of CEOs of US companies examined how a CEOs stock option holdings can affect their preference for short- or long-term strategic projects. The study found that when CEOs have accumulated stock option wealth, their likelihood of investing in the long-term increases, however when they have a large amount of recently granted options CEOs are more likely to prefer short-term projects.
Key Topics: Executive compensation; Stock options; Long term incentives; CEO decision making; Temporal orientation
With pension plans increasingly under the microscope in many companies, a recent 8-year study in the US examined the role of board composition in determining pension policies. The results indicate that outside directors play a valuable role in maintaining the interests of pension beneficiaries, with regards to both pension plan funding levels and asset allocations, and particularly in times of financial distress they help to keep the board on course to meeting its obligations toward pension plan beneficiaries.
Key Topics: Board of directors; Board composition; Outside directors; Pension policies; Defined benefit pension plans
The effect of variable compensation on job performance has been well established, although the examination of incentive plans relating to performance against budget targets has received limited attention. A study of the Australian manufacturing sector examined the role of organizational commitment and trust-in-supervisor in the relationship between budget-based incentive compensation schemes and employee job performance and found that such schemes can lead to greater trust-in-supervisor, which in turn leads to greater subordinate job performance and organizational commitment.
Key Topics: Variable compensation plans; Trust-in-supervisor; Organizational commitment; Job performance
Against the backdrop of the recent global economic crisis, a study by UK researchers sought to examine the impact of such adverse operating conditions on employee rewards offered by small and medium-sized enterprises in the South-Eastern European region and how reward affected organisational performance. The results indicated that rewards generally decreased during the economic crisis, while adverse operating conditions persisted, and interestingly, the results showed that non-financial rewards, such as work-life balance, had the greatest effect on organizational performance under these conditions.
Key Topics: Organizational performance; Total rewards; SMEs; Economic crisis |