Executive Compensation

General readers have no idea why people should care about what executives are paid and why they are paid the way they are. That's the reason that The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Forbes, and other popular and practitioner publications have regular coverage on them. This book not only proposes a reason - executives need incentives in order to maximize firm value (economists call this agency theory) - it also describes the nature and design of executive compensation practices. Those incentives can take the form of benefits (salary, stock options), or prerquisites (reflecting the status of the executive within the organizational culture.

The definitive guide for anyone involved in designing and approving executive salaries—revised for new laws and attitudes about salaries and performance The Complete Guide to Executive Compensation, Third Edition, helps you evaluate your company’s culture, organization, and strategy to create the best compensation package for the organization’s interest. It contains new strategies based on recent changes regarding venture capitalism, boards of director’s core responsibilities, changes in director’s pay, shifts in stakeholder power, and laws like the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and healthcare reform. Bruce R. Ellig served at Pfizer Inc. for over 35 years, and spent his last 25 years as secretary of the Board of Directors' Executive Compensation Committee. He has received the Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Society of Human Resource Management and WorldatWork. Ellig was elected to the National Academy of Human Resources in 1993 and served as a fellow of the Employee Benefit Research Institute and the Wharton Aresty Institute.

ïBased on extensive interviews with those directly involved in the executive pay setting process _ executives themselves, remuneration committee members, remuneration consultants, and institutional investors _ this excellent study finally explains how, despite repeated regulation over the past twenty years in both the UK and Australia, limits on the amount executives get paid, and a clear relationship between pay and performance remain as elusive as ever. Dr. SheehanÍs study suggests that by targeting the pay setting process rather than pay itself, regulation may have contributed, albeit unintentionally, to the endless upward ratcheting of absolute levels of executive pay.Í _ John Roberts, University of Sydney, Australia ïFor those that believe executive remuneration in the UK and Australia is too high and poorly aligned with company performance, this book provides an excellent analytical framework and strong arguments in favor of greater shareholder oversight of remuneration practices and pay levels. It is well-written, carefully argued and persuasive in its treatment of the subject. I wholeheartedly recommend it.Í _ Randall S. Thomas, Vanderbilt University Law School, US In this timely book, Kym Sheehan examines the regulatory technique known as ïsay on payÍ _ where shareholders vote on executive compensation in an annual, advisory vote on the remuneration report. Using the model of the regulated remuneration cycle, and drawing upon evidence of its operation from interviews, voting data and remuneration reports from UK and Australian companies, the book demonstrates whether say on pay can operate successfully to both constrain executive greed and ensure accountability exists for company performance and decision-making. The Regulation of Executive Compensation is essential reading for corporate governance academics, remuneration consultants, company directors, regulators, pension and superannuation fund trustees and unions. Politicians and their policy advisers, lawyers, accountants and anyone concerned about the corporate governance of listed companies will find much to interest them in this detailed study.

This important book discusses the issue of executive compensation in Anglo-American financial markets following the financial crisis. The book begins by contextualizing the problem facing financial institutions in the US and the UK and argues that appr

Executive Compensation Best Practices demystifies the topic of executive compensation, with a hands-on guide providing comprehensive compensation guidance for all members of the board. Essential reading for board members, CEOs, and senior human resources leaders from companies of every size, this book is the most authoritative reference on executive compensation.

The scholarly literature on executive compensation is vast. As such, this literature provides an unparalleled resource for studying the interaction between the setting of incentives (or the attempted setting of incentives) and the behavior that is actually adduced. From this literature, there are several reasons for believing that one can set incentives in executive compensation with a high rate of success in guiding CEO behavior, and one might expect CEO compensation to be a textbook example of the successful use of incentives. Also, as executive compensation has been studied intensively in the academic literature, we might also expect the success of incentive compensation to be well-documented. Historically, however, this has been very far from the case. In Too Much Is Not Enough, Robert W. Kolb studies the performance of incentives in executive compensation across many dimensions of CEO performance. The book begins with an overview of incentives and unintended consequences. Then it focuses on the theory of incentives as applied to compensation generally, and as applied to executive compensation particularly. Subsequent chapters explore different facets of executive compensation and assess the evidence on how well incentive compensation performs in each arena. The book concludes with a final chapter that provides an overall assessment of the value of incentives in guiding executive behavior. In it, Kolb argues that incentive compensation for executives is so problematic and so prone to error that the social value of giving huge incentive compensation packages is likely to be negative on balance. In focusing on incentives, the book provides a much sought-after resource, for while there are a number of books on executive compensation, none focuses specifically on incentives. Given the recent fervor over executive compensation, this unique but logical perspective will garner much interest. And while the literature being considered and evaluated is technical, the book is written in a non-mathematical way accessible to any college-educated reader.

ANSWERS TO EXCESSIVE EXECUTIVE PAY Charges of excessive executive compensation have filled the business press for a number of years, yet few understand why pay plans trigger such results.This desktop reference book is an easy-to-access, invaluable guide to structuring appropriate executive pay plans. Properly used, it will help avoid excessive executive pay resulting from poorly designed plans. Written by renowned compensation expert Bruce Ellig, this book is a must read for the designers, approvers, and recipients of executive compensation, as well as those who write about the subject. Consultants and in-house pay designers will find detailed examples (supplemented with over 400 figures and tables) to trigger their own creativity. Compensation committees and other approvers of executive pay plans will value the definitions and descriptions of various pay plans and the conditions under which they would be appropriate. Executives themselves will find the book useful. Not only in better understanding their own plans, but learning more about other plans, both those they may only have heard about, as well as many that have not yet caught their attention. And those who write about the subject will be able to put their comments in a better perspective.. The Complete Guide to Executive Compensation takes an in-depth look at each of the executive pay elements: salary, executive benefits and incentives (both short and long term). This review also includes the role of the board of directors (and its compensation committee) along with the influence of the major stakeholders (most notably the shareholder). And a complete chapter is devoted to various measurements of executive performance. This book also contains a compendium of selected key information on executive compensation, including laws, Internal Revenue Code sections, IRS revenue rulings, accounting interpretations, and SEC actions. No other book has such a complete resource section. In addition, it includes both a historical review of key developments and a look ahead, as well as a glossary with more than 2,000 definitions.

Offering guidance to board members and company executives; this book provides in-depth coverage of current issues and trends in designing and administering executive compensation packages that are strategically; economically; and culturally sound. --