Executive Compensation For The Top Five Highest Paid Managers

In “The Overpaid CEO” Susan Homberg and Mark Schmitt bring to attention how CEO pay in America is ridiculous in numbers as opposed to other parts of the world. Looking back, in the nineteen hundreds CEO pay was relativity average. As businesses and companies began to expand there was a demand for higher pay. Between 1978-2012 CEO pay increased by 875%! Many rules and regulations were put in to place to limit the pay of a CEO, such as the Securities Exchange Act that I will explain later on, regardless CEO pay kept getting higher and higher as many loopholes were found. Bonuses pay a large part in the salaries of CEOS’, as an effect CEOS’ tend to partake in risky behavior in order to score those big paychecks.

Generally, under-performing companies are the prime targets of hostile takeovers, so it makes sense that aligning shareholder and executive goals is a major way to avoid that. One popular way of aligning these goals is through the use of elaborate, structured compensation plans for executives which directly tie an executive’s salary to the performance of the company, usually and specifically its stock price (Megginson & Smart, 2009). These compensation plans have become the norm for American corporations, and their effectiveness in solving the agency problem is debatable. On one hand, it should drive an executive to strive to maximize the shareholder wealth, and it also helps companies to attract and retain the best available managers. On the other hand, it serves to sometimes wildly inflate the compensation paid to these executives, either by corporations trying to stay competitive for the best talent, or through easily achievable goals and uncapped maximums. The structured plans, if done correctly, are an effective way to help insure the goal of wealth maximization, but they are also by definition agency costs. Hence, agency problems are inherent to our American corporate system.

It was reasonable for a CEO’s compensation to increase as the company expanded and became a larger entity, and the newly-granted shares and increasing stock options further aligned the CEO’s personal interests with those of the company and shareholders. In this sense, the second compensation package was also well-structured and not excessive. Seeing Sunbeam’s revenue rising and stock price climbing steeply upwards, Sunbeam’s shareholders and directors were fully convinced by Dunlap’s leadership, so they might perceive the increase in compensation amount necessary to retain and better motivate Dunlap to enhance the company’s value. Nonetheless, they neglected the fact that the increased portion of the equity-based compensation also further motivated the CEO’s dangerous behaviors pertaining to improper earnings management.

7. Option compensation will continue to be a critical component of compensation for executives as it simplistically aligns the executives’ pay to shareholder value in its simplest sense. I don’t believe that options compensation is the primary driver of behavior when things shift from the legal to the illegal. As with most senior executives in industry, ego is a huge driver in individual behavior. Compensation is important, but the recognition of your performance is sometimes even more important. We have created a performance driven culture without the necessary control framework for people to operate within. One minute you are doing a great job, the next you have crossed an imaginary line. The frameworks don’t do enough to quantify behavior as legal and illegal leaving inconsistent rules for organizations to operate within. How does Enron compare to the subprime mortgage debacle, or to Steve Jobs backdating options. There remains too much room for interpretation.

Executive Compensation. I’m in agreement with Thomas Piketty that the one cause of rising inequality in the United States “the rise of supersalaries” for top executives (Piketty & Goldhammer, 2014, p. 298). The average American estimates CEO to worker pay ratio at about 30-to-1, which is more than 4 times what they believe to be ideal. The career review site Glassdoor reported from 2014 data that the average pay ratio of CEO to median worker was 204-to-1 and that at the top of the list, four CEOs earn more than 1,000 times the salary of their median worker with the very top pay ratio of 1,951-to-1. In some cases a CEO makes in one-hour what it takes the average employee six-months to earn. In comparison, the Washington Post reported for the

This report explores the issue of the pay that top executives make, and the reasons why they do. It also suggests improvements that can be made to make the system better. High Pay Seems Small When Compared To Company Profits Many companies pull in profits that are extremely high. When an employee of such a companies salary is compared to the amount of profit that the company earns, it starts to seem reasonable. It only makes sense that if the employee is directly responsible for the success of their company, then they deserve to get their payback. It seems ironic, but many salaries even look small once compared with a companies profits. Top Executives Are Under A Lot Of Pressure Being the CEO of a

The rise of the stock option is one aspect in which Handy places blame. Thirty years ago, only 2% of executives’ pay was tied to stock options and has grown to over 60% today (Handy, 2002, p. 50). The reason for stock option popularity is because it allows executives to reap financial gains sooner rather than waiting on future generations. Handy (2002) also reveals that another aspect that fuels corporate distrust is that of executive wages sometimes being 400 times that of their lowest-paid workers (p.

See, Bob Reich isn't the just a single to notice disparity. Indeed, even most corporate chiefs are worried that soaring CEO compensations are askew with corporate benefit, and also normal worker wage. As working mom Nancy Rasmussen says, it just doesn't seem right. "I took a pay cut of $12 an hour. My benefits have gone down," Rasmussen says. Her voice cracking with emotion, she asks, "If you have millions of dollars, why do you need that little bit that I have?" We see it all around us: A CEO gets a huge bonus the same year he lays off hundreds of

Excessive top executive pay is viewed by the public as a direct linkage to economic inequality or disparity. Many opinions state that over the top pay stemmed from compensation trends and indicates corporate Board of Directors as business people earning similar salaries as top executives. Pozen and Kothari (2017) reported “More than 95% of the time, shareholders overwhelmingly approve the pay recommendations.” (Decoding CEO pay, para 2). Excessive pay distorts the views of the public and injures the trust of American workers. According to Pozen and Kothari (2017), companies, legislation, compensation committees, and stakeholders need to clearly articulate the basis of their decisions for setting excessive compensation.

The AFL-CIO released data shows that American CEOs in 2013 earned an average of $11.7 million which 331 times the average worker’s $35,293. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kathryndill/2014/04/15/report-ceos-earn-331-times-as-much-as-average-workers-774-times-as-much-as-minimum-wage-earners/#1c6e03b78ef3 . Based on the observation of the data in this site(http://www.aflcio.org/ ), the most explanatory power regarding our political and economic situation is the power elite model because easily see that the power reflect most of the time the need of the elite a theory started first by Carl mark and elaborated later by Wright Mills (1956)’’book’’ .

This paper will discuss the reasons why CEOs are not being overpaid. It will apply the utilitarian ethical principle to many a few aspects to CEO compensation and whether or not it is justifiable for such pay. The paper will look at whether or not their performance is justifiable for the pay because they play such a big role in the livelihood of the company along with the principle agency theory and how it is being addressed for the benefit of the shareholders and others involved with the company, the supply and demand of the CEOs, and the paper will describe the comparison of other professions to help link the idea of CEOs being fairly compensated.

The practice over overpaying company CEOs in contrast to the general employee population is not considered a valid reward distribution system. As reported in the “The State of Working America”, the ratio between CEO salaries and average company wages was approximately 19.2 to 1 in 1965. In 2011, this ratio was nearly 220.2 to 1 (Mishel, Bivens, Gould, and Shierholz, 2012). Per Mishel, Bivens, Gould, and Shierholz (2012), this ratio has experienced a 177.15-point decrease from the year 2000, when the

Economic theory of executive pay has focused on the design of optimal compensation schemes to align the interests of hired managers and shareholders. Agency theory has identified several factors by which these interests may differ; including the level of effort exerted by the manager and problems resulting from the unobservabilty of the agent’s relevant skills. The design of optimal compensation contracts essentially

In theory, an optimal executive compensation scheme overcomes the principal-agent problem by aligning the interests of executives and shareholders, and subsequently providing executives an incentive to maximise shareholder value. Furthermore, an executive compensation scheme must be sufficient to attract and retain the appropriate executive. According to Bognanno (2014), restricted stocks and stock options are the most common forms of equity-based compensation schemes, with stock options accounting for almost half of US CEO compensation in 2000. Since economic agents respond to incentives, the intuition behind equity-based compensation schemes is that providing executives with a form of compensation that is tied with the performance of the company, will provide an incentive for the executive to maximise shareholder value. For instance, assume an executive is provided with a stock option of 100 stocks with a strike price of $10, the executive will only receive a payoff if the stock price is above $10 (see Figure 1). If the stock price is above the strike price, the executive is able to exercise the option by purchasing the stock at $10 and selling the stock on the spot market. Since the executive has an incentive to maximise his or her payoff, the executive’s interests are in theory, aligned with shareholders and the executive is expected undertake activities which maximises shareholder value.

While there is heterogeneity in the payment practices between companies, executive compensation plans must include four basic components: base salary, annual bonus tied to accounting performance or another agreed indicator between the parties, stock options and incentive plans long term (including restricted stock plans and performance plans based on accounting more exercise). Under the crossfire of public opinion, the bonus word became almost word, synonymous with unbridled greed, something to be fought. But despite all the weeping and gnashing of teeth the last two years, the variable compensation was off the list of fatal victims of the crisis. Capitalism still could not invent better way than the bonuses to reward those who deliver the