Business Commons^™

California Senate Bill 826: Implications On Female Executive Compensation And Representation, Elizabeth Ann Dion

Honors Theses and Capstones

In 2018, the State of California passed Senate Bill 826, requiring that all public companies headquartered within the state have at least one female on the board of directors. Prior literature has identified a significant connection between female board representation and the impact on female executives and their pay. The prominence of female leaders has been shown to enable fellow females to pursue leadership positions. In addition, prior studies have found that female board members have encouraged an increase in female executives, and an increase in female executive pay has been identified due to the role of the board in …

Cfo Compensation And Public Company Audit Fees: A Study Of Relationships And Influence On Audit Pricing, Charles T. Fagan

Doctoral Dissertations (DBA)

From the Introduction:

In corporate America, most executives have multiple forms of compensation ranging from a base salary, which is fixed, to annual and multi-year bonuses, which are normally tied to some performance based metrics; to longer-term incentives such as stock options, stock grants, restricted stock units (RSUs) and other forms of equity-based compensation. Aside from a base salary within normal ranges, all other forms of compensation are normally meant to incentify an executives’ behavior to work in the best interest of the company and its shareholders. At least, that is the theory on incentive-based compensation.

It is quite common …

Executive Portfolio Diversification Through Dividends, Janette Goodridge

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

In recent decades, many managers and executives have received company stock and stock options as a portion of their pay. As the incidence of this phenomenon increased, it became evident that insiders needed a way to diversify their holdings. One way this could be accommodated is through the issuance of dividends. This paper examined how executive stock ownership and managerial power impacted a firm’s dividend policy. Specifically, it examined the power of an executive as measured by the G index. It further took into account the current level of ownership for a particular manager, as well as the value of …

You Can’T Stop What You Can’T See: Complementary Risk Mitigation Through Compensation Disclosure, Matt Reeder

William & Mary Business Law Review

Section 956 of the Dodd-Frank Act requires regulators to help prevent the next financial crisis by monitoring executive compensation arrangements to prevent them from becoming excessive or leading to “material financial loss.” A now-pending rule seeks to do just this. This Article argues that the rule is well-conceived inasmuch as it limits the total portion of compensation that can be based on risk-inducing incentives, ties incentive-based compensation to longer-term performance, places a ceiling on potential incentivebased earnings, provides for downward adjustment and clawbacks, prohibits many hedging behaviors, and institutionalizes governance mechanisms and oversight policies. But, by placing a number of …

Rewards To Meet Market Expectations: Evidence Of Stock Market Sophistication, Weishen Wang, Mark Pyles, Rachel Graefe-Anderson

Business Faculty Research

Very often, firms report earnings that meet or beat market expectation (MBE). In this study, we empirically document that managers are rewarded more cash bonus when their firm MBE more often, and this relation holds same regardless of the extent of managerial entrenchment. We find that stock market reacts positively overall when firms MBE, but it reacts less positively for firms with entrenched managers. The study shows that stock market is more sophisticated in rewarding firms for meeting or beating market expectation than a firm's cash bonus system does.

The Deadweight Loss Of Equity-Based Compensation, Jessica Pence

CMC Senior Theses

In order to maximize shareholder value, firms attempt to align the incentives of the executives with those of the shareholders by giving them equity as a portion of their compensation package. The terms associated with this equity compensation forces the executives to hold undiversified portfolios, resulting in a sizeable deadweight loss. This paper uses the formula developed by Meulbroek (2001)1 to calculate the dollar value of this deadweight loss, in order to quantify the costs associated with equity-based compensation. We find that the 56 executives in our data set have a combined deadweight loss of $70 billion, and that on …

Backdated Stock Options Ownership Impact On The Corporation, Management, & Shareholders, Karen Cascini, Alan Delfavero

WCBT Faculty Publications

In the post-Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOx) world, there has been an unprecedented crackdown on fraudulent activity occurring within corporate America. During recent years, many companies have granted stock options to their executives and employees as part of compensation packages. While the issuance of stock options as a component of compensation is considered to be a legal practice, corruption has taken this corporate resource to unlawful heights. Recently, numerous corporations have been in the news for potentially backdating stock options. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to distinguish between legal and illegal aspects of backdating stock options, and to examine the …