This thesis investigates the short and long-term effects of pay dispersion on firm performance in publicly listed Swedish firms. Pay dispersion refers to the difference in compensation between or within organizational levels. There are two contradicting theoretical views of pay dispersions effect on firm performance. While tournament theory suggests that high pay dispersion increase employees’ incentives to exert higher effort, thus increasing firm performance, fairness approaches predicts that high pay dispersion creates feelings of unfairness, thus negatively affecting firm performance. Based on these theories and previous research, Hypothesis 1 predicts a positive short-term effect of pay dispersion on firm performance, and Hypothesis 2 predicts a negative long-term effect of pay dispersion on firm performance. Using a first differences fixed-effects regression including controls for firm characteristics and corporate governance indicators, three measures of pay dispersion are tested on two proxies for firm performance (price to book and return on assets). We conclude after extensive robustness tests that pay dispersion has no effect on firm performance, neither on short nor on long-term. Therefore, both hypotheses are rejected.

La globalidad de la problemática a través de diferentes niveles jerárquicos, funciones y roles del conjunto de empleados lleva al análisis de un conjunto limitado de factores relacionados con la retribución enmarcado en el ámbito de empresas españolas cotizadas y directamente en el papel de la retribución y de las diferencias retributivas a nivel del equipo de alta dirección. Este trabajo estudia factores contextuales que mayor influencia tienen sobre la fijación del nivel retribución del equipo de alta dirección, considerando las características del trabajo de esos mismos –posición jerárquica, discrecionalidad, interdependencia de tareas, e incertidumbre– y cómo dichas características pueden influir en las diferencias salariales entre los propios miembros del equipo de alta dirección. Completado por la verificación del efecto del gobierno corporativo y el papel de los mecanismos de supervisión para controlar a los directivos (el marco de la teoría de la agencia) se enriquece este trabajo sobre el contexto de dispersión retributiva y resultados de la empresa. / The globality of the problem through different hierarchical levels, functions and roles of all employees takes to the analysis of a limited set of factors related to compensation in the context of listed Spanish companies and directly on the role of pay and the pay differences at the top management team. This paper examines the contextual factors of main influence on establishing remuneration levels of top management team, considering the nature of their working activities- hierarchical position, discretion, task interdependence, and uncertainty-and how these characteristics may influence pay differences between the members of the top management team. Completed by the exploration of effects of corporate governance and the role of supervision mechanisms to control managers in the agency theory context this paper is enriched in the topic concerning pay differences and operating results.