We use a hand-collected sample of 1,628 S&P 1500 firms and more than 12,000 executives to examine how family firms compensate nonfamily executives. Family firms comprise a large percentage of firms around the world, and most of their executives are not members of the founding family. Moreover, the founding family's engagement in the firm alters agency conflicts, which in turn should influence the design of incentive compensation. However, there is no empirical evidence on whether and how the incentive compensation of nonfamily executives differs between family and nonfamily firms. Our study intends to fill this gap in the literature. Consistent with our predictions, nonfamily executives in family firms receive significantly less performance-based pay and equity-based pay. Family monitoring, risk aversion, and a reluctance to dilute family ownership all contribute to the pay differences. Although incentive pay and total pay are lower in family firms, nonfamily executives receive safer pay and enjoy greater job stability. An analysis of executives' moves across firms suggests that ownership structure, not executives' preferences, is more likely the driver of pay differences between family and nonfamily firms. Our findings suggest that researchers should consider founding family's engagement to avoid misleading inferences with regard to the determinants of incentive compensation, and our findings should help compensation consultants better understand and implement pay packages for family firms and nonfamily firms. The results also imply that uniform compensation regulations intended to improve the monitoring of executives in widely held firms may not be as effective in family firms.

中文翻译：

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为外部人员付费：对家族企业中非家族高管的激励性薪酬*

我们使用由 1,628 家标准普尔 1500 指数公司和 12,000 多名高管手工收集的样本来研究家族企业如何补偿非家族高管。家族企业在全球企业中占很大比例，而且它们的大多数高管都不是创始家族的成员。此外，创始家族在公司中的参与改变了代理冲突，这反过来又会影响激励薪酬的设计。然而，没有经验证据表明非家族企业高管的激励薪酬在家族企业和非家族企业之间是否存在差异。我们的研究旨在填补文献中的这一空白。与我们的预测一致，家族企业中的非家族高管获得的绩效薪酬和股权薪酬显着减少。家庭监控，规避风险，不愿淡化家庭所有权都会导致薪酬差异。尽管家族企业的激励薪酬和总薪酬较低，但非家族企业高管的薪酬更安全，工作稳定性更高。对高管在公司间变动的分析表明，家族企业和非家族企业薪酬差异的驱动因素更可能是所有权结构，而不是高管的偏好。我们的研究结果表明，研究人员应该考虑建立家族的参与，以避免在激励薪酬的决定因素方面产生误导性推论，我们的研究结果应该有助于薪酬顾问更好地理解和实施家族企业和非家族企业的薪酬方案。