Understanding high-powered incentives in organizations

I study how the compensation structure of top managers from US public companies changes in recent years and the effect of these incentives on firm performance. I first explore the trend of executive compensation structure and performance metrics used in executive compensation over the years. I also examine systematic differences across industries and different firm sizes. Then I analyze the relationship between compensation structure and firm performance. My results suggest that a higher level of incentive-based compensation correlates with higher growth in total shareholder return; particularly for small firms, a higher level of incentive-based compensation correlates with significantly higher total asset growth, sales growth and employment growth as well. To explore whether the level of incentive-based compensation has influence on firm performance, I use propensity score matching to reduce selection bias. My results suggest that the level of incentive-based compensation has no significant influence on firm performance.

Department dc:contributor.department

Sloan School of Management.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2018

Author dc:creator

• Zheng, Shuo, S.M. Sloan School of management

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Egor Matveyev.

• Sloan School of Management.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/117918

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/117918