Publications

May 2019
Supplement

Kjell and Company: Motivating Salespeople with Incentive Compensation (C)

By: Doug J. Chung

Kjell & Company was a Swedish retail electronics chain. The company’s products consisted of home electronics and accessories. The company was noted for its excellent customer service and a fair “one-for-all” HR policy. Historically, the salespeople had been compensated... View Details

Keywords: Salesforce Management; Compensation and Benefits; Change Management; Behavior; Electronics Industry; Sweden

May 2011 (Revised March 2013)
Supplement

Marshall & Gordon: Designing an Effective Compensation System (B)

By: Heidi K. Gardner and Kerry Herman

CEO Kelly Browne wrestles with the design and roll-out of a new compensation system to promote the collaboration necessary for supporting her firm's new strategy. Marshall Gordon International, a global public relations (PR) firm, has recently expanded its service... View Details

Keywords: Globalization; Executive Compensation; Management; Organizational Culture; Performance; Groups and Teams; Behavior; Corporate Strategy; System

June 2000 (Revised December 2000)
Case

Compensation and Performance Evaluation at Arrow Electronics

By: Brian J. Hall and Carleen Madigan

Describes a company's struggles in implementing a subjective performance rating system for its employees. In particular, it describes the difficulties faced by the CEO in getting managers to combat "ratings inflation"--that is, to produce numerical ratings that are... View Details

Keywords: Behavior; Performance Evaluation; Compensation and Benefits; Electronics Industry

March 2005
Case

Vignette: Waiting for a CEO

By: G. Felda Hardymon and Ann Leamon

A venture capitalist must decide how to respond to an e-mail from his long-time troubleshooter now installed as interim CEO at a struggling contract manufacturing exchange for the custom car business. The investors have been seeking a full-time CEO but have made little... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Business or Company Management; Investment; Business Ventures; Corporate Governance; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Financial Strategy

2016
Working Paper

An Evaluation of Compensation Benchmarking Peer Groups Based on Mutual Peer-Designating Behaviors

By: Jee Eun Shin

In this paper, I argue that firms mutually recognizing each other as compensation benchmarking peers constitute viable competitors in the same CEO labor market, and that non-mutual peer relationships can serve as a tool to evaluate firms’ executive compensation... View Details

Keywords: Executive Compensation

SSRN

13 Sep 2006
Op-Ed

Rising CEO Pay: What Directors Should Do

Criticisms of CEO pay have two related themes: It is too high, and it not closely related to company performance. These problems persist for complex reasons even as directors worry about them. The most significant reason is that board... View Details

Keywords: by Jay W. Lorsch

March 2022 (Revised October 2022)
Case

Transforming Kimball International, Inc. (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz

Kimball International, Inc. (KII), led by CEO Kristie Juster, and its board of directors, chaired by Kim Ryan, faced critical questions about KII’s future in the spring of 2021. Two years earlier, the board had appointed Juster as the new CEO of KII, a publicly traded,... View Details

01 Aug 2005
What Do You Think?

Is There an “Efficient Market” in CEO Compensation?

Summing Up Paul Jackson sums up the thinking of most respondents to this month's column with the comment, " . . . nothing about CEO compensation seems to be 'efficient.'" Brad Millet adds,... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

14 Nov 2007
Research & Ideas

Growing CEOs from the Inside

them a lame duck. At worst, they may want to avoid leaving. So a board member might ask, "Don't you think we should discuss succession? You might get hit by a truck." And the CEO will say, "I have a successor in mind, and... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Employment

09 Nov 2011
Working Paper Summaries

CEO Bonus Plans: And How to Fix Them

Keywords: by Kevin J. Murphy & Michael C. Jensen

1998
Working Paper

CEO Incentives and Firm Size

By: Brian Hall and George P. Baker

What determines CEO incentives? A confusion exists among both academics and practitioners about how to measure the strength of CEO incentives, and how to reconcile the enormous differences in pay sensitivities between executives in large and small firms. We show that... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Motivation and Incentives; Executive Compensation; Size; Management Systems

Read Now

2011
Working Paper

Do U.S. Market Interactions Affect CEO Pay? Evidence from UK Companies

By: Joseph J. Gerakos, Joseph D. Piotroski and Suraj Srinivasan

This paper examines the extent that interactions with U.S. markets impact the compensation practices of non-U.S. firms. Using a sample of large U.K. companies, we find that the total compensation of U.K. CEOs is positively related to the extent of the firm's... View Details

Keywords: Globalized Markets and Industries; Corporate Governance; Executive Compensation; Management Practices and Processes; Motivation and Incentives; United Kingdom; United States

Read Now

16 Sep 2002
Research & Ideas

The Irrational Quest for Charismatic CEOs

to sitting CEOs with supposedly proven track records? The pool of these marquee names is limited. Such scarcity naturally drives up wages; the compensation of the ten highest paid View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

06 Jun 2023
Cold Call Podcast

The Opioid Crisis, CEO Pay, and Shareholder Activism

Keywords: Re: Suraj Srinivasan; Health; Pharmaceutical; Distribution

2023
Working Paper

The Market for CEOs: Evidence from Private Equity

By: Paul A. Gompers, Steven N. Kaplan and Vladimir Mukharlyamov

Most research on the CEO labor market studies public company CEOs while largely ignoring CEOs in private equity (PE) funded companies. We fill this gap by studying the market for CEOs among U.S. companies purchased by PE firms in large leveraged buyout transactions.... View Details

Keywords: CEOs; Jobs and Positions; Ownership; Recruitment

23 Mar 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Do US Market Interactions Affect CEO Pay? Evidence from UK Companies

Keywords: by Joseph J. Gerakos, Joseph D. Piotroski & Suraj Srinivasan

2007
Other Unpublished Work

Say on Pay Vote and CEO Compensation: Evidence from the UK

By: Fabrizio Ferri and David Maber

In this study, we examine the effect on CEO pay of new legislation introduced in the United Kingdom (UK) at the end of 2002 that requires publicly-traded firms to submit an executive remuneration report to a non-binding shareholder vote ("say on pay") at the annual... View Details

Keywords: Voting; Corporate Governance; Government Legislation; Executive Compensation; Performance Improvement; Business and Shareholder Relations; United Kingdom