Symbolic Politics and the Regulation of Executive Compensation

Symbolic Politics and the Regulation of Executive Compensation PDF Author: Sandra L. Suarez
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 54

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Book Description
When politicians feel popular pressure to act, but are unwilling or unable to address the root cause of the problem, they resort to symbolic policymaking. In this paper, I examine excessive executive compensation as an issue that rose to the top of the political agenda during both the Great Depression and the Great Recession. Presidential candidates, members of Congress, the media, and the public alike blamed corporate greed for the economic downturn. In both instances, however, enacted legislation stopped short of changing the way in which executive pay was determined or placing effective, enforceable limits on it. I analyze the nature of the democratic process and contend that public policy scholars need to pay more attention to the occurrence of symbolic policies. The category of symbolic policies offers a more accurate approach to understanding the politics of executive compensation in the US during the two crises and helps explain why, in spite of the recent legislative efforts, it continues to rise.

Symbolic Politics and the Regulation of Executive Compensation

Symbolic Politics and the Regulation of Executive Compensation PDF Author: Sandra L. Suarez
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 54

Get Book Here

Book Description
When politicians feel popular pressure to act, but are unwilling or unable to address the root cause of the problem, they resort to symbolic policymaking. In this paper, I examine excessive executive compensation as an issue that rose to the top of the political agenda during both the Great Depression and the Great Recession. Presidential candidates, members of Congress, the media, and the public alike blamed corporate greed for the economic downturn. In both instances, however, enacted legislation stopped short of changing the way in which executive pay was determined or placing effective, enforceable limits on it. I analyze the nature of the democratic process and contend that public policy scholars need to pay more attention to the occurrence of symbolic policies. The category of symbolic policies offers a more accurate approach to understanding the politics of executive compensation in the US during the two crises and helps explain why, in spite of the recent legislative efforts, it continues to rise.

CEO Compensation Strategies

CEO Compensation Strategies PDF Author: Assaad El Akremi
Publisher:
ISBN: 9782854187410
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 35

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Book Description
The aim of this research is to study compensation strategies for Chief Executive Officers (CEO) from various economic, political and symbolic perspectives. A theoretical model was developed to study the hypothetical influence of several phenomena suggested by theoretical work on executive compensation. An empirical study was carried out in France on a sample of 106 chief executives from firms amongst the top 700 rated by sales. A structural equation model was tested using Lisrel. The results suggest that agency theory offers a priori the most solid explanation of CEO compensation because of the links observed between the control exercised by the Principal, the intensity of short-term incentives and the sensitivity of direct pay to performance. A detailed analysis of the results also seems to provide substantial support for political and symbolic perspectives. The balance of power between board members and top executives seems to be a determining factor in the determination of the structure and management of CEO compensation. The results of the research suggest that the political perspective remains coherent with agency theory by supposing that CEOs can be tempted to make use of their privileged position concerning compensation decisions.

The Politics of Pay

The Politics of Pay PDF Author: Kevin J. Murphy
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 62

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Book Description
The persistent outrage over CEO pay expressed by politicians, the press, media, labor unions, and the general public (but not shareholders) have prompted the imposition of a wide range of disclosure requirements, tax policies, accounting rules, governance reforms, direct legislation, and other rules constraining executive compensation stretching back nearly a century. We analyze the regulations that have substantially damaged the efficacy of CEO pay practices, ranging from the first disclosure rules in the 1930s to the 2018 Trump tax rules. We discuss the political forces behind the regulatory interventions, and assess the continuing unintended consequences of these interventions. Our emerging conclusion is that the best way the government can fix executive compensation is to stop trying to fix it, and by undoing the damage already caused through existing regulations that have, in aggregate, imposed enormous costs on organizations, their shareholders, and social welfare.

Pay Without Performance

Pay Without Performance PDF Author: Lucian A. Bebchuk
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674020634
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
The company is under-performing, its share price is trailing, and the CEO gets...a multi-million-dollar raise. This story is familiar, for good reason: as this book clearly demonstrates, structural flaws in corporate governance have produced widespread distortions in executive pay. Pay without Performance presents a disconcerting portrait of managers' influence over their own pay--and of a governance system that must fundamentally change if firms are to be managed in the interest of shareholders. Lucian Bebchuk and Jesse Fried demonstrate that corporate boards have persistently failed to negotiate at arm's length with the executives they are meant to oversee. They give a richly detailed account of how pay practices--from option plans to retirement benefits--have decoupled compensation from performance and have camouflaged both the amount and performance-insensitivity of pay. Executives' unwonted influence over their compensation has hurt shareholders by increasing pay levels and, even more importantly, by leading to practices that dilute and distort managers' incentives. This book identifies basic problems with our current reliance on boards as guardians of shareholder interests. And the solution, the authors argue, is not merely to make these boards more independent of executives as recent reforms attempt to do. Rather, boards should also be made more dependent on shareholders by eliminating the arrangements that entrench directors and insulate them from their shareholders. A powerful critique of executive compensation and corporate governance, Pay without Performance points the way to restoring corporate integrity and improving corporate performance.

The Unfinished Business of Governance

The Unfinished Business of Governance PDF Author: Alexander Styhre
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1788113144
Category : BUSINESS & ECONOMICS
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
The legal, regulatory and ethical frameworks guiding governance decisions are highly politicised and subject to intense debate. This book discusses governance theory in relation to corporations, universities and markets. Confronting the challenges of governing these three core areas, Alexander Styhre explores the connections between governance and the production of economic value, shareholder value and economic equality. An in-depth overview of recent governance literature in management studies, economics, legal theory and economic sociology, exposes how governance theory affects securities markets, commodities trade, university ranking and credit scoring cases. The author examines how changes in competitive capitalism and the wider social organization of society are recursively both determined by, and actively shaping the underlying governance ideals and practices. Identifying the difficulties involved in balancing freedom and control in governance policy, he highlights the key concerns confronting governments, regulatory agencies and transnational agencies: how to ensure the efficient use of economic resources to avoid economic inequality without undermining the legitimacy of the current market-based economic model. Essential reading for academics and graduates in management and the social sciences, as well as policy makers and management consultants, The Unfinished Business of Governance gives exceptional insight into the challenges facing governance within free markets.

Two Nations, Indivisible

Two Nations, Indivisible PDF Author: Jamie L. Bronstein
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
While examining the arguments made in favor of egalitarianism, this book debunks the notion that the United States is now or has ever been a nation offering equal opportunity to all. In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson famously asserted that "all men are created equal." Likewise, social mobility—the idea that any child can grow up to be president—has been key to the myth of what makes America great. Yet the hard truth is that inequality of both opportunity and resulting condition has been a defining feature of America's story. Written by a comparative labor historian, this book combines economic and social history with intellectual history to reveal the major trends of inequality that have been evident in America from Revolutionary times through the present. The book opens with an introduction to the burgeoning issue of inequality in America. The following chronological chapters describe how inequality was manifest in various periods. Each chapter not only provides a full survey of the secondary literature related to the topic of inequality in the particular time period but also examines prescriptions from thinkers who espoused equality, including Thomas Paine, Thomas Skidmore, Henry George, Jane Addams, Upton Sinclair, and Harry Caudill. By assessing these and other arguments relevant to social change, the work helps readers understand the cases made for and against equality of opportunity and condition throughout U.S. history.

Corporate Governance, The Firm and Investor Capitalism

Corporate Governance, The Firm and Investor Capitalism PDF Author: Alexander Styhre
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1785364022
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
The shift from managerial capitalism to investor capitalism, dominated by the finance industry and finance capital accumulation, is jointly caused by a variety of institutional, legal, political, and ideological changes, beginning with the 1970s’ downturn of the global economy. This book traces how the incorporation of businesses within the realm of the state leads to both certain benefits, characteristic of competitive capitalism, and to the emergence of new corporate governance problems emerges. Contrasting economic, legal, and managerial views of corporate governance practices in contemporary capitalism, the author examines how corporate governance has been understood and advocated differently during the New Deal era, the post-World War II economic boom, and the after 1980 in the era of free market advocacy.

Global Turning Points

Global Turning Points PDF Author: Mauro F. Guillén
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316558843
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
The second edition of this popular book offers an accessible yet sophisticated analysis of the game-changing events and trends that are transforming the world beyond recognition. For the first time in human history, more people live in cities than in the countryside, and greater numbers suffer from obesity than from hunger. During the next few decades, India will become the biggest country in terms of population, China the largest in output, and the United States the richest among the major economies on a per capita income basis. Food and water shortages will likely become humankind's most important challenges. With four new chapters on the rise of the global middle class, the transformative power of technology, institutions and the entrepreneurial spirit, and the trials and tribulations of the financial system, this book provides a thorough introduction to the challenges facing business and society in the twenty-first century.

More Class in Management Research

More Class in Management Research PDF Author: Yanick Kemayou
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3658120630
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
Yanick Kemayou investigates how the socioeconomic background of organizational leaders can explain their management-relevant attitudes. The study provides theory development and first empirical tests of the impact of leaders’ socioeconomic background on their risk propensity, sense of control and justice perceptions. The model integrates sociological and social psychological research on class dynamics and attitudes. Yanick Kemayou uses cross-sectional data from the German Socioeconomic Panel to test the model. The empirical analyses provide robust support for the theoretical ideas. Results show, for instance, that reproduced leaders with a lower social distance toward broader classes exhibit more favorable justice perceptions toward groups such as unskilled workers than distant reproduced leaders. The bottom line for organizations is that leaders are likely to assess situations and persons differently because of their own socioeconomic background.

Leadership Varieties

Leadership Varieties PDF Author: Alexander Styhre
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317377982
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Book Description
In all periods of time, there is a perceived shortage of qualified, credible, and robust leadership skills. At the same time, what is regarded as skilled leadership is contingent on economic, political, institutional, and cultural conditions specific for a period of time or a local setting. Leadership in the era of managerial capitalism was focused on planning and administration, and was seated in large-scale, divisionalized corporations. In the 1970s, this economic model started to wane and leadership was advanced as the solution to a series of economic and social concerns, now being a matter of meaning-making in the face of uncertainty and ambiguity. With the expansion of the finance industry and the deregulation of finance markets in the 1990s and in the new millennium, yet another leadership model increasingly prioritized economic value creation. In parallel to the economic, political and institutional changes, the idea of leadership has been strongly informed by new ideas about individualism and masculinity, adding to the understanding of leadership as what is anchored in widespread social beliefs about for example healthy life styles, the virtues of physical exercise, and novel gender relations. Aimed at scholars, researchers, students and policy makers in the fields of Leadership, Management History and Organizational Theory; Leadership Varieties examines predominant ideas about the qualities and virtues of leadership in a historical and cultural perspective.