Flexible compensation is a new concept in wage and salary administration which permits the employee to select from the various benefits, and cash, a plan tailored to meet his own needs, limited only by his total compensation and those statutory provisions pertaining to his wages. Within recent years, compensation practitioners have been urged in professional journals to adopt flexible compensation as a way to improve their compensation programs in order to attract, hold, and motivate employees. The purpose of this study is twofold. First, the results of this research will provide empirical data on the current status of flexible compensation for nonexempt employees in the United States. Second, the research will contribute toward the development of a set of comprehensive guidelines for implementing flexible compensation programs.

This study examines the effects of research and development (R&D) reporting method and managerial knowledge of supervisor compensation on R&D project continuation decisions. The current study employs an experiment with a 2x3 between-participants design, manipulating both R&D reporting method (expense vs. capitalize) and knowledge of supervisor compensation (control group with no knowledge vs. knowledge of non-restricted stock compensation vs. knowledge of restricted stock compensation). Using salient short-term incentives to motivate real earnings management, this study demonstrates that capitalization may result in managers foregoing economically efficient R&D investment opportunities. The results indicate that managerial knowledge of supervisor compensation structure has little influence on managers’ R&D project continuation choices. However, when managers capitalizing R&D expenditures had knowledge that their supervisors received non-restricted (short-term) stock compensation their perceived personal responsibility for the decision significantly decreased. Participants who capitalized R&D expenditures and had knowledge that their supervisor received restricted (long-term) stock compensation rated the importance of making a decision to please their supervisor significantly higher than all other participants. Additionally, participants with knowledge that their supervisors restricted stock compensation were significantly more concerned about the likelihood of negative personal repercussions regardless of R&D reporting method. These findings contribute to the management accounting literature by providing new insights on the influence of knowledge of supervisor compensation on managerial decision making as well as additional insights into the factors that contribute to and limit real earnings management. This study also extends the literature on R&D by providing evidence of the potential for real earnings management when R&D expenditures are capitalized in the absence of personal responsibility.

Redundancy payment and other forms of compensation in employment relations The diploma thesis deals with forms of compensation in employment relations in contemporary Czech labour law. Aside from the Introduction and Conclusion, the thesis consists of four chapters. The second chapter discusses the concept of compensations in labour law, and provides an analysis of the functions of labour law compensations, from the perspective of both the employee and employer. An overview of the different types of compensations is provided, including their categorization. Redundancy payment, the primary and most frequent type of labour law compensation in Czech law, forms the content of chapter three. The functions of redundancy payments are explained, and the terms and conditions which give rise to the right of employees to redundancy payment are analyzed. Further, the amounts of redundancy payments under different circumstances are dealt with in detail, including an explanation of the methods of their calculation; the author also focuses on the category of average monthly remuneration and its importance in this relation. Each of the manners of employment termination and their relevance for the right to redundancy payment are discussed, as well as the amounts of redundancy payments pertaining to each type of...

This master's degree thesis refers to legal regulation of the compensation of damage under civil law. The main purpose of my thesis is to analyze and evaluate current Czech legal regulation of the compensation of damage in civil law. The interpretation is based on regulation in the Civil Code, namely Act no. 40/1964. Coll., as amended, whereas deviations arising from commercial and employment compensation regulation are omitted. The paper offers an overview of the opinions of the leading legal experts on fundamental issues of compensation. The interpretation includes analysis of relevant decision-making practice of courts and a comparison with the legislation in projects of European tort law. The thesis also contains an overview of the most significant changes brought by the forthcoming new Civil Code, in case it is adopted. The thesis is composed of nine chapters, each of them dealing with different aspects of the matter. The first chapter is introductory. It is followed by the second chapter named "General characteristics of liability for damage" which includes definition of legal liability, outline of historical development of the legislation in our country, its current and future forms and functions of compensation. Chapter Three focuses on the analysis of general assumptions of the liability, including...

Subject of this master's degree thesis is to delineate basic aspects of legal provisions connected with compensation of damage under Civil law. Main legal document, which regulates compensation of damage in the Czech Republic is Act no. 40/1964, as amended. This Act provides the basic elements of compensation, which include the general conditions of liability, method of compensation, the individual types of damage, etc. This master's degree thesis is dedicated mainly to the compensation of damage, whereas general and special liability is neglected, because it does not relate directly to the assigned topic. This master's degree thesis is divided into three main chapters. The first chapter of this master's degree thesis deals with basic institutes of compensation of damage in general. It includes description of basic function, subjects, lapse and court's moderation right all related to compensation of damage in general. The second chapter deals with basic assumptions of liability for damage such as illegal act or law qualified event causing damage, damage, causation and fault as well as circumstances excluding illegality, kinds of damages or main conditions related to the fault. The third chapter, from my point of view the most important, deals with compensation of damage and in this part is distinguished...

The aim of the present diploma thesis entitled "The Legal Regulation of Expropriation" is to provide a coherent but not really comprehensive survey of the present legal regulation of the possibility of forced deprivation or limitation of property rights or the right corresponding to easement of land and structure. The thesis consists of nine chapters. Chapter One deals with the institute of property right as one of fundamental human rights, the existence of which is indispensable for the expropriation. Chapter Two is focused on the concept of expropriation: the definition of its basic elements, and its distinction from some other similar concepts. Chapter Three gives a brief survey of core legal regulations referring to the problem of expropriation. Further on, specific prerequisites for the expropriation are stated on the basis of the above regulations, beginning with the analysis of the object of expropriation (Chapter Four), through the statutory conditions as they are given in Chapter Five, to individual specific purposes of the expropriation (Chapter Six). In its final parts, the thesis focuses especially on the specifics of the expropriation procedural regulations (Chapter Seven). Chapter Eight is concerned with specific procedures. The conclusion brings in the conditions that may lead to the...

In essay one, my primary objective is to see the sensitivity of foreign exchange rate risk on firm performance in US manufacturing industry and examine if the hedging help reduce the foreign exchange rate risk. I am particularly interested in manufacturing industry because of the nature of business operation of manufacturing firms. Manufacturing firms in US are not only exposed to foreign exchange fluctuation from sales and revenue but also are exposed to foreign exchange rate risk for procurement, placement and investment. I find that the firms with extreme foreign exchange rate risk exposure exhibit lower daily return and firms with very low foreign exchange rate risk exhibit higher daily return using the portfolio approach. I also find that the firms that hedge has lower foreign exchange rate exposure compared to firms that don’t hedge. The coefficient for hedge is negative and statistically significant. In essay two, I investigate the effect of executive compensation on exchange rate risk in US manufacturing industry. There is a large theoretical and empirical interest on executive compensation using agency framework that investigates the conflict of interest between shareholders and corporate executives. That interest has been largely aligned with the use of managerial performance dependent on observable measures of firm performance. Since US manufacturing firm is largely exposed to foreign exchange transactions by design, I investigate if the value of in-the-money unexercised vested executive stock option has any impact on foreign exchange rate exposure. I investigate if the value of in-the-money unexercised unvested executive stock option has any impact on executive stock option. Using pooled OLS, fixed effect panel data and random effect panel data, I find that in all 3 model value of in-the-money unexercised vested executive stock option has negative coefficient and is statistically significant. At the same time in all 3 models the value of in-the-money unexercised unvested executive stock option is positive and is statistically significant.

I analyze the effect of various risks faced by commercial banks on the executive compensation in banking industry. Commercial bank executives are risk averse due to the regulatory pressure in addition to board governance mechanism. Commercial banks face various risks because of the regulatory mechanism and unique asset structure of the firm. So, it is expected that they should associate their own pay and pay-performance sensitivities (PPS) with the risks their banks face. I find that bank executives associate their performance based pay with both idiosyncratic risk and systematic risk. But they associate their fixed pay only with systematic risk. The risk based PPS is also affected by the idiosyncratic risk but not by the systematic risk. Both asset return risk and insolvency risk have significant positive effect on PPS. Bank executives put significantly higher emphasis on the fixed compensation in terms of salary and bonus, and significantly lower emphasis on the performance based compensation. They also put minimum emphasis on the risk based PPS although they put significant emphasis on return based PPS. These indicate the risk-averse nature of the bank executives due to the regulatory pressure in addition to board governance mechanism.

La communauté scientifique s’accorde sur la responsabilité de l’homme dans les menaces actuelles pesant sur la biodiversité. La forte érosion de la biodiversité mondiale pointe les limites biophysiques de renouvellement du capital naturel (espèces, paysages, services écosystémiques…). Postulant que la durabilité d’un système économique passe par le maintien du stock de capital naturel, Costanza et Daly ont introduit les concepts de « durabilité faible » et de « durabilité forte » pour caractériser les biens selon leur niveau de substituabilité (dans le cadre de la durabilité forte, le capital naturel devient non substituable). A leur suite, afin d’adapter le concept de durabilité forte aux problématiques de développement et d’aménagement, Toman suggère en 1994 de distinguer les capitaux naturels critiques présentant des enjeux de préservation forts des capitaux naturels de moindre importance. Il propose d’appliquer une logique de durabilité forte aux premiers pour ne pas les laisser décroître en dessous de seuils donnés dits normes minimales de sauvegarde et, d’utiliser les seconds comme supports du développement, appliquant alors une logique de durabilité faible.Partant les cadres conceptuels de Costanza, Daly et Toman, ma thèse évalue la faisabilité et les arbitrages inhérents à la mise en œuvre de la durabilité forte dans une action publique de préservation de la biodiversité, en l’occurrence, la compensation écologique qui conditionne les opérations d’aménagement à compenser les pertes écologiques qu’ils engendrent. Mon objectif fut de me centrer sur une action publique ayant des assises spatiales afin de mettre en évidence les déterminants individuels permettant sa mise en œuvre et d’évaluer les seuils, notamment spatiaux, nécessitant des arbitrages entre enjeux de développement économique et conservation de la biodiversité.Dans un premier chapitre, je propose et applique empiriquement sur trois régions françaises, une méthode pluridisciplinaire (reprenant des éléments d’écologie) de catégorisation des milieux naturels en fonction de leur niveau de durabilité. La spatialisation empirique de mes catégories fait ressortir la place prédominante de l’agriculture et une forte variabilité des niveaux de durabilité selon la nature biophysique et anthropique des espaces. Dans le second chapitre, j’évalue, à partir des cadres de l’économie comportementale, l’acceptabilité de la compensation écologique par les agriculteurs. Je mets en évidence de fortes disparités dépendantes des types de production et de l’histoire personnelle des agriculteurs. Dans mon dernier chapitre, j’évalue empiriquement les contraintes spatiales inhérentes à l’atteinte d’une durabilité forte à partir d’un modèle théorique d’allocation de l’effort de compensation à l’échelle régionale. Un premier résultat de ma thèse est donc une définition opératoire de la nature ordinaire, adaptée à la mise en œuvre d’une action publique sur l’environnement (en l’occurrence le dispositif de compensation écologique). Je montre que, si l’on cantonne les aménagements à la nature ordinaire, l’objectif de durabilité forte devient atteignable, à condition que l’agriculture soit le pivot du dispositif. Mon second résultat met en lumière les comportements des agriculteurs eu égard aux politiques visant la préservation d’une biodiversité. Il montre, à rebours des résultats standard en économie comportementale, que les agriculteurs réagissent plus favorablement à une biodiversité moins spécifique et que les niveaux d’acceptabilité de la mesure sont hétérogènes selon leur type de production (bio vs conventionnel) et leur histoire personnelle (héritier agricole versus néo-agriculteur). / Non fourni

77 Abstract Economic and Legal Aspects of Corporate Governance with regard to the Impacts of the Financial Crisis in 2007 - 2009 This thesis deals with the impact of the financial crisis that occured from 2007 to 2009 on corporate governance of the United States, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, the OECD and the European Union. Even before the financial crisis, companies like Enron or WorldCom has already shown the need to regulate corporate governance but the responses to those bancrupts have not been sufficient because they could not prevent the financial crisis a few years later. The financial crisis is regarded as well as a crisis of corporate governance and the aim of this work is to analyze this crisis and its solution. The thesis is divided into 8 chapters, where the first chapter briefly gives definitions introduces the issues of corporate governance and the second chapter briefly describes the causes and course of the financial crisis. The next chapters deal with the impact of the crisis on corporate governance where the main topics addressed are compensation, risk management, practices and responsibilities of the board and the role of shareholders. The last chapter is devoted to description of corporate governance and its shift since the financial crisis. Finally, the conclusion summarizes...