Poor decisions and conflicts of interest by members of company boards of directors have been a factor in the dramatic rise in chief executive officer (CEO) compensation, resulting in a lower return on equity (ROE) for shareholders. The purpose of this correlational study was to examine the relationship between CEO compensation, CEO duality, and ROE after controlling for CEO age, CEO tenure, and firm size, as measured by total assets. Agency theory was the theoretical framework for this study. The study examined whether a statistically significant relationship existed between CEO compensation, CEO duality, and ROE, after controlling for CEO age, CEO tenure, and firm size. Archival data were collected and analyzed from a sample of publicly traded firms in the United States listed on the 2016 Standard & Poor's 500 Index. Hierarchical multiple regression techniques were used to test the relationship between variables. The results indicated that there was not a statistically significant relationship between CEO compensation, CEO duality, and ROE after controlling for CEO age, CEO tenure, and firm size. The study may contribute to positive social change by increasing the potential for board of directors' members to implement best practices, contributing to reduced shareholder conflicts, less litigation, higher ROE, and enhanced investor confidence benefiting emerging economies and local communities.

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This study examines marathon successions, which I define as instances where a permanent successor is not chosen at the time of a CEO departure. Marathons have become increasingly prevalent over the last ten years and represent the majority of succession decisions surrounding forced turnovers from 1995-2005. Firms implementing marathon successions around forced turnovers have strong internal governance structures, as measured by board size, director ownership, percentage of outside directors, and dual Chairman/CEO appointments. In addition, I find little evidence supporting the argument that extending the succession process through the use of a marathon leads to increases in uncertainty and/or agency costs in the form of horizon problems. Lastly, I find positive and significant announcement returns for forced marathon successions. These results provide insight into the succession process and the role of strong internal corporate governance in evaluating and implementing succession decisions.

Recent theory predicts that two factors influencing the CEO’s view of risk, overconfidence and debt-like compensation, have implications for CEO forced turnover and firm equity value, respectively. We test each of these predictions using large samples of CEOs from S and P 1500 firms, with statistical methods such as Cox proportional semi-parametric hazard models and Ordinary Least Squares regressions. Section 2 tests the theoretical prediction that CEOs with excessively low or excessively high overconfidence face a higher likelihood of forced turnover. We find empirical support for this prediction: excessively overconfident (diffident) CEOs have forced turnover hazard rates approximately 67 percent (97 percent) higher than moderately overconfident CEOs. To the extent that boards terminate non-value-maximizing CEOs, the results are broadly consistent with the view that there is an interior optimum level of managerial overconfidence that maximizes firm value. Section 3 tests the theoretical prediction that debt or debt-like compensation can be used as a part of optimal executive compensation, leading to an increase in the value of equity. We find weak evidence of positive abnormal returns in response to decreases in the deviation from optimal CEO debt-to-equity when the CEO’s debt-to-equity was less than the firm’s or when then firm had low institutional ownership. The results suggest that the optimal use of debt compensation can in fact be beneficial to equity holders.

Abstract There are more than 140,000 Small-Medium Business in Taiwan, especially the CEO is always the decision-maker of the entire enterprise. This research is major through the model of ¡uTheory of Planned Behavior, TPB¡v to study the CEO¡¦s intention to e-business in Small-Medium Business. On the other hand, to understand CEO¡¦s intention to e-business is meant to understand the reason of e-business for Small-Medium Business. This research method is in accordance with an exploratory case study, then investigate by verifiable questionnaires. Through 3 internal variables and external variables of TPB model, such as ¡uAttitude toward the Internet-Adoption Behavior¡v,¡uSubjective Norms concerning the Internet-Adoption Behavior¡v , and ¡uPerceived Behavior Control concerning the Internet-Adoption Behavior¡v to understand CEO¡¦s intention to use Internet. Because of the connection between behavioral intention and actual behavior is very closed, it is to use behavioral intention in place of actual behavior to measure actual behavior in TPB model. According to the result of this study, the 3 external variables ¡uImproving Internal Information Sharer¡v,¡uPromoting the Relation with Customers¡v, and ¡uthe Past Successful Experiences¡vis the most important variables to influence¡uAttitude toward the Internet-Adoption Behavior¡v, and the most substantial is¡uthe Past Successful Experiences¡v. Furthermore, the 3 internal variables also connect with ¡uIntention toward the Internet-Adoption Behavior¡v, and the most influence among these variables is ¡uSubjective Norms concerning the Internet-Adoption Behavior¡v. Meanwhile, among 7 significant others, the major connection is between the staff of CEO and ¡uIntention toward the Internet-Adoption Behavior¡v, secondary is customer. Through the conclusion of this research, we expect to offer this data for Small-Medium Business to consult and help them to accomplish in e-business.

This study examines the matching of CEOs to firms and the compensation earned by such managers in a competitive labor market. I first develop a simple competitive equilibrium model and derive predictions regarding the change in wages when an inelastic supply of CEO labor cannot match an increase in demand. The model predicts that the CEO pay-size elasticity increases when more firms compete for a fixed supply of managers. I then empirically test this prediction using industry-level IPO waves as a proxy for increased competition among firms for CEOs. Consistent with the model, I find that pay-size elasticity increases with an increase in an industry's IPO activity. I also find that increased IPO activity leads to a greater likelihood of executive transitions between firms. Overall, the findings point to the substantial role market forces play in the determination of pay in the CEO labor market. I then use a structural model to examine the distortionary effects of frictions in the CEO labor market. I estimate the switching cost to be 20% of the median firm's annual earnings. While reduced-form estimates of the switching cost serve as a lower bound on the reduction in firm value, they underestimate the overall effect which also includes the resulting inefficient firm-CEO matches. Using counterfactual analysis, the switching cost is estimated to decrease the median firm's value by 4.8%, four times larger than the reduced-form estimate. / text

acase@tulane.edu / This work adopts an attention-based view to study boards of directors’ attention and its effect on CEOs’ attentional patterns from two perspectives: how the aggregate attention of directors relating to other firms may influence the attention of focal firms’ CEOs over time; and how this dynamic may be influenced by social, power and cognitive factors or dynamics. In so doing, it considers the influence of status and power differences between board members and CEOs, the number of reciprocal interlocks present in each boardroom, and boards members’ imported attentional homogeneity. General linear models analysis is carried out to test the hypotheses, measuring board and CEO attention through previously-validated, computer-assisted content analysis of letters to the shareholders of large companies. In broad terms, this study develops a novel construct, board imported attention, to present partial evidence that suggests a process by which CEOs’ attention is affected by the prior attentional focus of board members, resulting from their board or executive roles in other firms, and that this process may be affected by social and/or power relationships between boards and their CEOs. In light of the pervasiveness of boards with an increasing proportion of interlocked directors, these findings have implications for the corporate governance and managerial cognition literatures, allowing for a deeper understanding of the importance of the composition of boards in shaping the attentional patterns of CEOs. / 1 / Juan Vicente Romero McCarthy

This thesis analyses several aspects of institutional investor influence in the corporate governance of UK firms. Chapter 1 introduces the thesis, and Chapter 2 provides a literature survey. The main original empirical research findings are presented in Chapters 3 to 5.Chapter 3 explores the key firm characteristics related to institutional investors. We show that institutional shareholdings, particularly those institutions with a large shareholding, are positively related to the proportion of outside directors on the board; with stock returns and with volatility. Institutional shareholdings are negatively related to the shareholdings of inside directors and firm size. Interestingly institutional shareholdings are positively related to CEO age but negatively related to the number of CEO’s years in office. This seems contradictory but it is consistent with institutional investors wanting experienced CEOs but not those individuals who have become entrenched. None of the measures proxying for the Cadbury recommendations for board structure, such as number or proportion of non-executive directors, CEO duality, or outside chair, has a significant relationship with institutional shareholdings. Chapter 4 analyses the relationship between institutional shareholdings and CEO cash-based remuneration. Uniquely to this field of research we also consider the different elements of remuneration separately to account for the timing differences relating to their award and performance criteria. First, we find that the presence of a large institutional shareholding, or high concentration of institutional shareholdings, does significantly reduce the magnitudes of salary and bonuses but they do not reduce the magnitude of benefits. However, the presence of an institutional investor, regardless of the size of their shareholding, has no relationship with the magnitude of any of the remuneration variables. Second, we find that institutional shareholdings significantly increases the positive relationship between bonus remuneration and firm performance, but that they do not have such a noticeable effect on the relationship between salary and benefits and firm performance. Third, we find that the presence of a large institutional shareholding, or high concentration of institutional shareholdings, reduces the rates of increase in salary, benefits and bonuses. Fourth, we find that the past practice of modelling salary and bonuses together can produce misleading results. We suggest that salary and bonuses should be modelled separately because they are payments for different reasons and relate to different periods of firm performance. Chapter 5 explores the influence that institutional investors have over CEO turnover. We show that the likelihood of a CEO being forced from office is negative and significantly related to firm performance and positive and significantly related to the presence of a large institutional shareholding or high concentration of institutional shareholdings. The findings in this thesis are robust to variations in research design. The conclusions are that the internal control mechanisms do work, that institutional investors are not the ‘passive’ investors often portrayed by some practitioners and early academic research and that institutional investors go to some lengths to ensure that their investee firms are properly governed.

Thesis (M.M. (Business Executive Coaching))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Graduate School of Business Administration, 2015. / The study explored the CEO transition process that takes place in the handing over of the organisation from the outgoing CEO to the incoming CEO and how executive coaching can facilitate the transition process. The past two decades have seen a reduction in the tenure of CEOs. In addition the transition period has contracted. This means that the incoming CEO is often faced with many challenges that may have been alleviated in a longer or more structured transition process. As CEO succession has a major impact on the organisation, and is disruptive in itself, executive coaching might present an opportunity to manage the transition and improve the settling in and effectiveness of the incoming CEO and thereby the performance of the organisation. . Friedman and Olk (1995), Garman and Glawe (2004) and Vancil (1987) defined a structured CEO succession and transition process in organisations. The transition process is conceptualised as a settling-in period where the designated CEO and outgoing CEO work together in a dual capacity whereby the organisation would slowly be transferred from one to the other over a period of months or even years (Kakabadse & Kakabadse, 2001). The Chairman plays an influential role in selecting the incoming CEO (Dalton & Dalton, 2007b; Engelbrecht, 2009; Fredrickson, Hambrick, & Baumrin, 1988) and in supporting the incoming CEO in his/her initial appointment period (Kets de Vries, 1987). There are various factors that determine the selection of an insider CEO or outsider CEO based on the performance and future strategy of the organisation (Dalton & Kesner, 1985; Friedman & Olk, 1995; Khurana, 2001; Ocasio, 1999; Zajac, 1990). The selection of the incoming CEO is important as it impacts the market value of the organisation and creates disruption within the organisation (Grusky, 1963). The incoming CEO, whether an insider or outsider CEO appointment, experiences many challenges when taking up the position. These challenges include delivering continuous growth, improved performance and profitability of the organisation (Bower, 2007; Giambatista, Rowe, & Riaz, 2005), managing key relationships with the Chairman, Board of Directors, Shareholders, key customers and suppliers as well as the management of people within the organisation. Other challenges are of a more personal nature, such as self-doubt and balancing work-life (McCormick, 2001; Stajkovic & Luthans, 1998; Stock, Bauer, & Bieling, 2014). Many of these challenges can be attributed to the reduced transition period that an incoming CEO has (Charan, 2005). iv There are various support structures available to the incoming CEO to supporting the incoming CEO in his/her initial appointment period. These include the Chairman, mentors and executive coaching. Various coaching models were considered in supporting the incoming CEO through the transition period and the challenges experienced (Bond & Naughton, 2011; Passmore, 2007; Saporito, 1996). The aim of exploring executive coaching models was to recommend a coaching framework that could be used in the CEO transition process. The research methodology used in the study was qualitative. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken in order to gain insights from the lived experience of CEOs, Chairmen and Board of Directors of organisations (Ponterotto, 2005; Wimpenny & Gass, 2000). Further to this an analysis of the CEO turnover in the Top 40 companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) was undertaken, which served to triangulate the results from the respondent interviews. It was found that there was both planned and unplanned CEO succession in organisations and this impacted the transition process and period that took place between the outgoing CEO and the incoming CEO. Planned CEO succession usually arose from the planned CEO retirements and allowed for a long transition period. An unplanned CEO succession arose from the untimely resignation, retirement or death of the existing CEO. This left the newly appointed CEO taking the position with a very short transition period, if at all. Following from the planned and unplanned CEO succession there was found to be a mismatch between the theory of the CEO succession and transition processes and the practice thereof. This seemed to be more evident from a South African perspective as most of the literature on the subject of CEO succession and transition processes was internationally based with very scant South African literature available on the topic. Executive coaching can provide the structure for the incoming CEO to orientate him/herself to the organisational dynamics, setting the vision and strategy for the organisation as well as the effective execution of that strategy. Further, executive coaching can assist the incoming CEO in the personal challenges of leadership, managing people and stakeholders as well as self-doubt and work-life balance that the newly appointed CEO may experience.

I investigate the relation between CEO equity compensation and employee layoffs. In particular, this study seeks to examine CEO stock-based incentives and managerial opportunism behavior for the sample of CEOs of firms announcing layoffs during 1997-2006. I investigate two issues. First, I measure the extent of CEO stock selling in the year of the announcement of employee layoffs. CEOs may want to avoid negative press coverage regarding their compensation because it may send a negative signal to the market if they reduce the companies' work force and may choose to not sell equity, which is consistent with efficient contracting theory. I find different responses by layoff CEOs toward stock option awards and toward option exercise. Layoff CEOs sell substantial shares after receiving stock options to diversify their portfolio risk, especially during a boom economy and with layoffs constituting a greater percentage of a firm's workforce. They, however, retain substantial amount of shares acquired on the exercise of options to avoid intensive negative press coverage on both layoff and option exercises. Second, I examine CEOs' opportunistic behavior to maximize their stock-based compensation value by controlling the timing of stock option awards surrounding layoff announcements, or by controlling the timing of layoff news announcements. My finding provides evidence that CEOs of firms announcing employee layoffs are more likely to receive stock options in advance of value-enhancing layoff announcements but subsequent to value-destroying layoff announcements. However, my results show that these stock prices start declining after news of CEO stock option awards are disclosed in proxy statements (which are published approximately three months after the end of company fiscal years). This may indicate that the stock market responds negatively to this "your pain, my gain" leadership style, as that corporate executives of firms announcing layoffs may have no ethic of shared sacrifice. Overall, I find that negative press coverage may motivate CEOs of firms announcing layoffs to substantially change their portfolio or ownership. Public scrutiny also limits CEOs' ability of conducting opportunistic behavior regarding manipulation of the timing of option awards and layoff announcements.