The agency problems or conflicts are continuously happening between the principal and the agent. It particularly arises when an interest conflict occurs between the principal and the agent. In terms of finance, there are two core agency relationships; managers and stockholders and managers and creditors. To balance the interests and satisfactions between managers and stockholders which helps firm to improve performance, there are a variety of different measures have been generated and implemented by Telstra in order to optimize the bond and monitoring costs.
Bonding Costs
Telstra’s remuneration policy aims to achieve high level performance, reinforce the company's value and culture and motivate and retain highly skilled people.
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To be specific, the two performance measures demonstrated by Telstra in the FY13 LTI Plan are RTSR which account for 50 percent related to share price performance and RCF RIO which also stand for 50 percent relevant to the investment. It may help executives to consider investment for higher return rather than achieving higher customer satisfaction (Telstra Annual Report, 2013. P. 51). However, the majority of large or small enterprises operate business successfully with building strategy and programs based on customers' demands. For example, the mobile manufacturers set wireless and 3G option for smart phones as customers expect to access the internet more conveniently. Thus, understanding the expectations of customer effectively prevents company from losing market share.
In terms of long term incentives, Telstra only offers share bonus for executives that can potentially inducing executives to focus on short term benefits particularly for those are under contract (Telstra Annual Report, 2013. P. 51). On the contrary, cash rewarding may motivate executives more effectively. However, it can brings some potential risks for company if executives decide to participate in high level risk programs to acquire short term benefits which will finally damage company's long term value. Moreover,
Telstra target services are based on customer needs. “A customer needs refer to the needs the product type is able satisfy for the customer” (McGuiggan & Quester, 2007, p.176). These customer needs of Telstra are classified as below (Telstra Annual Report, 2005, p.15):
The scope of this paper is to analyze the kind of agency problems that emerges between The Hershey Company and their stakeholders and shareholders. To answer this, a review of the company`s board structure and ownership structure was made. Thereafter two specific situations that has occurred in recent times was used as case examples to enlighten the agency problems suggested to emerge by the corporate structure.
Compensation systems can take on many forms, all of which have positives and negatives related to it. However, certain components are noted to be determinants of solid compensation plans. One agreement of a solid compensation system is the use of incentives. “Clearly a successful companies set objectives that will provide incentives to increase profitability” (Needles & Powers, 2011). Incentive bonuses should be measures that the company finds important to long-term growth. According to Needles & Powers (2011) the most successful companies long term focused on profitability measures. For large for-profit firms, compensation programs should offer stock options. The interweaving between the market value of a company’s stock and company’s performance both motivate and increase compensation to employees As the market value of the stock goes up, the difference between the option price and the market price grows, which increases the amount of compensation” (Needles & Powers, 2011). Conclusively, a compensation plan should serve all stakeholders, be simple, group employees properly, reflect company culture and values, and be flexible (Davis & Hardy, 1999; The Basics of a Compensation Program).
The future of the telecommunication industry is an exciting future. No longer can these companies depend on telephone service plans to maintain profit. Each company needs to find other avenues, packages and services that can be sold to existing customers while attracting new customers. The companies
Managers and shareholders are the utmost contributors of these conflicts, hence affecting the entire structural organization of a company, its managerial system and eventually to the company's societal responsibility. A corporation is well organized with stipulated division of responsibilities among the arms of the organizational structure, shareholders, directors, managers and corporate officers. However, conflicts between managers in most firms and shareholders have brought about agency problems. Shares and their trade have seen many companies rise to big investments. Shareholders keep the companies running
The right compensation program will depend on the organization’s business strategy and goals. To achieve these, an organization must recruit and select the best possible employees. To attract such employees, there must be an attractive compensation plan. Competitors will be offering different payment options, this may be based on pay rate or special perks, and a company’s stock options. Organizations must be aggressive yet reasonable to compete with competitors. Retaining and encouraging employees to perform at their best may be achieved through an immediate incentive award
After largely dominating the telecommunications market for a century, Telstra’s competition has recently become more widespread. In order to effectively adapt to this changing market, Telstra has employed the use of market segmentation in an attempt to
Most corporate financing decisions in practice reduce to a choice between debt and equity. The finance manager wishing to fund a new project, but reluctant to cut dividends or to make a rights issue, which leads to the decision of borrowing options. The issue with regards to shareholder objectives being met by the management in making financing decisions has come to become a major issue of recent times. This relates to understanding the concept of the agency problem. It deals with the separation of ownership and control of an organisation within a financial context. The financial manager can raise long-term funds internally, from the company’s cash flow, or externally, via the capital market, the market for funds
Having buy-in from key stakeholders is crucial for the success of an incentive pay system. For example, if top management does not support such a program, lower-level managers will place little importance on effectively administering the program. Hence, a lack of top management support often leads to a lack of accountability. (Gordon, Kaswin)
Telstra has a long history in Australia, starting together with Australia Post as an administration division, the Postmaster-General 's Department. Telstra is now completely privatized and has been going through a change to become more client oriented under its late CEO, David Thodey. New CEO Andy Penn is required to expand the attention on development in universal markets. The central government 's National Broadband Network (NBN) is making changes in the business and will see the organization logically offer its copper and HFC systems to NBN Co.
Although research generally confirms that pay-for-performance plans can influence greater outcomes, it is unclear how effective different pay plans are relative to each other (Park, 2012). Like most things in business, compensation is something that requires evaluation, study, assessment, strategy, modeling and integration. Achieving a pay for performance culture does not happen without paying attention to the behaviors, activities, rewards and motivations that have to be linked and reinforced through a well engineered and successfully executed process. Actually if that process does not tie rewards to shareholder financial objectives, employ the proper mix of compensation elements, result in meaningful dollars, embrace performance that employees can impact and are effectively communicated and reinforced, then the results it produces will likely fall short (Vision Link Advisory Group, 2013).
Conflicts between stockholders and creditors Conflict between shareholders and creditors is common for the company which use debt capital to form an optimum capital structure. As mentioned earlier, agency relation exist when one party works as an agent of the principal. In an organization management
It would have been good if this fundamental vision was in place right at the very beginning of the company’s formation. In the end it is the customers that make the company, so it makes sense to work towards satisfying this customer relationship. To become profitable and achieve market share are secondary objective that can be measured on a annual basis and overall company well being targets can be rewarded with incentives that link into the company’s performance as opposed to individual contribution to the company’s success.
Agency problem is a potential conflict between the agent and shareholders in the interest. It is shown that ownership is separated from management. This cause not only is the divergence of ownership and control, but also the information is asymmetrical. When ownership is separated
Economic science teaches us that due to their subjective needs, individuals have subjective preferences, and hence different interest. Occasionally different subjective interests give rise to conflicts of interest between contracting partners. These conflicts of interest may result in turn, in one or both parties undertaking actions that may be against the interest of the other contracting partner. The primary reason for the divergence of objectives between managers and shareholders has been attributed to separation of ownership (shareholders) and control (management) in corporations. As a consequence, agency problems