Abstract

While CEO compensation is seen as influencing firm performance, the intervening mechanisms that govern this influence have remained largely unexplored. Using the agency and expectancy theories, this paper attempts to open the “black box” between CEO compensation and firm performance and empirically tests the intervening effect of CEO risk-taking behavior on this relationship. Specifically, we hypothesize that CEO compensation indirectly influences firm performance through its direct effects on CEO risk-taking behavior. Results based on data collected from 204 U.S. manufacturing firms revealed a strong, positive relationship between CEO option pay and a firm’s strategic risk, stock returns risk, and income stream risk. Results also showed that firm strategic risk, measured by R&D expenditure, mediates the CEO option pay-firm performance relationship, sometimes fully and sometimes partially, depending on which type of performance is being examined.

摘要

尽管CEO薪酬被认为会影响公司的业绩，但控制这种影响的干预机制仍未得到充分探索。本文使用代理理论和期望理论，试图揭开CEO薪酬与公司绩效之间的“黑匣子”，并通过经验检验CEO冒险行为对这种关系的干预作用。具体而言，我们假设首席执行官薪酬通过对首席执行官冒险行为的直接影响而间接影响公司绩效。根据从204家美国制造公司收集的数据得出的结果表明，CEO期权薪酬与公司的战略风险，股票收益风险和收入流风险之间存在牢固的正相关关系。结果还表明，以研发支出衡量的公司战略风险，