The Costs and Benefits of Managerial Incentives and Monitoring in Large U.S. Corporations: When is More not Better?
The Costs and Benefits of Managerial Incentives and Monitoring in Large U.S. Corporations: When is More not Better?
复制标题
美国大型企业管理激励和监控的成本和收益：什么时候不是越多越好？
DOI：
10.1002/smj.4250150909
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发表时间：
1994
影响因子：
1.1
通讯作者：
James D. Westphal
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
E. Zajac;James D. Westphal
最近关于高管薪酬和公司治理的研究和公开讨论表明，越来越多的人一致认为，公司可以而且应该通过增加使用管理激励和董事会监督来加强对高层管理人员的控制。本研究从这一共识出发，提供了一个替代的角度，认为不仅是好处，但也在大公司的激励和监控的成本。这项研究开发和测试的应急成本/效益的角度来看，治理决策资源分配的决定，提出如何以及为什么观察到的管理激励和监测水平可能会有所不同，在不同的组织和不同的时间。具体而言，研究表明：（1）风险越大的公司在对高管人员使用激励性薪酬合同时面临越大的成本，从而降低了这些公司对激励性薪酬使用的预期水平;（2）面临这种低激励性薪酬使用问题的公司可以从更高水平的董事会监督中获得更大的收益，因此可能更依赖董事会监督;（3）公司战略越复杂的公司，使用董事会监督的成本越高，因此越不依赖董事会监督作为控制高层管理者行为的手段。该研究还提出，在这种偶然性的角度下，增加监控和激励可能会减少“行为回报”。这些假设是使用来自400多家美国最大公司的广泛纵向数据进行测试的。支持性的研究结果表明，最大程度的激励和监测不一定是最佳的，一个公司的战略可能不仅有显着的产品/市场的影响，而且公司治理的影响。
Recent research and public discourse on executive compensation and corporate governance suggests a growing consensus that firms can and should increase their control over top managers by increasing the use of managerial incentives and monitoring by boards of directors. This study departs from this consensus by offering an alternative perspective that considers not only the benefits, but also the costs of both incentives and monitoring in large corporations. The study develops and tests a contingency cost/benefit perspective on governance decisions as resource allocation decisions, proposing how and why the observed levels of managerial incentives and monitoring may vary across organizations and across time. Specifically, the study suggests that: (1) firms that are more risky face greater costs when using incentive compensation contracts for top managers, thus reducing the expected level of incentive compensation use for such firms; (2) firms facing this problem of low incentive compensation use can realize greater benefits from higher levels of board monitoring, and thus are likely to rely more on board monitoring; and (3) firms with more complex comporate strategies face higher costs in using board monitoring, and are thus likely to rely less on board monitoring as a source of controlling top management behavior. The study also proposes that within this contingency perspective there may be diminishing ‘behavioral returns’ to increases in monitoring and incentives. These hypotheses are tested using extensive longitudinal data from over 400 of the largest U.S. corporations. The supportive findings suggest that maximal levels of incentives and monitoring are not necessarily optimal, and that a firm's strategy may not only have significant product/market implications, but also corporate governance implications.