Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Executive'

Over the past two decades there has been a remarkable expansion in the use of executive coaching as an executive development technique. The increasing prominence of executive coaching has been attributed to the emergence of new organisational cultures and the subtler competencies needed by executives in these faster moving organisations. The widespread popularity of executive coaching has been based largely on anecdotal feedback regarding its effectiveness. The small body of empirical research has been growing but conclusive outcomes are rare. The prominent question for those with the business imperative to implement executive coaching has been what are the ingredients of the process that engender an effective outcome? This investigation has focused on the factors of executive coaching that contribute to effectiveness. A qualitative methodology facilitated an in-depth study of the experiences of the participants of executive coaching with the perceptions of both executives and coaches being sought. Semi-structured interviews and a focus group provided rich, thick descriptions and together with a process of inductive analysis produced findings that confidently identify the key factors that contribute to coaching effectiveness. Six major themes were identified, each comprising a collection of meanings. These themes have been labelled Executive Engagement, Preliminary Assessment and Feedback, Coaching Process, Coach.s Contribution, Trusting Relationship and Support from the Organisation. One theme, Coaching Process, comprises three significant sub-themes, namely, Encouragement and Emotional Support, Challenge and Reflection and Enhancing Executive Performance. The findings of this study add value to the field by identifying factors contributing to coaching effectiveness, and providing for the coaching practitioner a basis for enhancing their practice of executive coaching to better meet the needs of executives and their organisations.

Thesis (MBA (Business Management))--University of Stellenbosch, 2000.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The aim of this study was to investigate the term executive (managerial) derailment. Special reference was given to various research done in the USA at the Centre for Creative Leadership (CCL). Managerial derailment was analysed and the persons most likely to derail identified. Typical indicators for derailment were investigated. The cause for derailment, with special focus on six classical flaws and their intercorrelation, were studied. Preventative measures to combat the phenomenon of derailment were investigated on both individual and organisational levels. Some preventative recommendations were suggested. The state of derailment internationally was studied to ascertain if any time movement occurred. Derailment is still present today, while some of the reasons causing derailment is fading, others increases in strength. Cultural differences between European and North American managers were studied, and no differences were found. This were compared with a survey conducted by the author on 47 modular South African MBA students to determine the state of derailment amongst the respondents. The survey respondents positively confirmed the presence of managerial derailment. Derailment results recorded amongst the pilot group were similar to that documented in literature. Further in-depth study needs to be done to validate the existence of managerial derailment amongst South African managers.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die deel van hierdie studie was om die term bestuursontsporing (managerial derailment) te ondersoek. Spesiale aandag is gegee aan verskeie navorsing gedoen by die Centre for Creative Leadership (CCL) in die VSA. Persone met 'n hoe ontsporingspotensiaal is geidentifiseer tydens die ontleding van die term bestuursontsporing. Tipiese aanwysings vir ontsporing is ondersoek. Ses klassieke oorsake vir ontsporing is nagevors met veral verwysing na interkorrolasies tussen hierdie oorsake. Voorkomende ontsporingsmaatreels met betrekking tot die individu en die organisasie is bestudeer. Veranderinge oor tyd in internasionale bestuursontsporingsnavorsing is ondersoek. Resultate dui, ten spyte van 'n verandering in die redes vir ontsporing, aan dat bestuursontsporing steeds plaasvind. Feitlik geen verskille wat aan kultuur toegeskryf kan word, word in die literatuur vermeld nie. In 'n meningspeiling onder 47 Suid-Afrikaanse modulere MBA studente het die outeur soortgelyke resultate verkry. Bestuursontsporing blyk teenwoordig te wees onder die studiegroep. Die oorsake vir bestuursontsporing van die respondente is bykans dieselfde as wat deur internasionale navorsing aangetoon word. Voordat die gevolgtrekking dat bestuursontsporing teenwoordig is onder Suid-Afrikaanse bestuurders gemaak kan word, word verdere in diepte studie vereis.

In the theoretical part of the thesis focuses on the general definition of the recruitment and selection, mainly the methods, which are used. Furthermore, it defines the area work in public administration with a focus on employment and workers. Also, try to determine the difference between the acquisition employees in the public and private sectors. The work is then engaged in recruitment agencies and HR consulting companies, their history, the legislative definition and the question whether it is advantageous to work with recruitment agencies. Afterwards, the method of work is engaged in executive search, its history, use, and especially how it is itself the recruitment method. The practical part contains specific case of HR consulting company that deals with executive search method. Here is then analyzed in the procedure of recruitment executive search method and success by getting employees the company achieved in 2011. This part of the thesis is based on long-term observations of the author, who was an employee of the staffing and consulting company so he could observe the whole process of executive search methods in practice. Using a questionnaire survey, this work investigates how executive search method is used in the private and public sectors and what are the respondents as the main advantages and disadvantages of the method. At the end of this section for recommendations on how to use executive search method in the public sector, and problems are defined here, why not in the sector executive search method does not use too much.

With the increasing amount, complexity and dynamism of operational and strategic information in electronic and distributed environment, executives are seeking assistance for continuous, self-reactive and self-adaptive activities or approaches of acquiring, synthesising and interpreting information for intelligence with a view to determining the course of action - executive intelligence activities. Executives Information Systems (EIS) were originally emerged as a computer-based tool to help senior executives to manage the search and process of information. EIS was popularised in 1990's but EIS study have not advanced to a great extent in either research or practice since its prevalence in the mid and late 1990's. Conventional EIS studies have established some views and guidelines for EIS design and development, but the guidelines underpinned by preceding research have failed to develop robust yet rational EIS for handling the current executive's information environment. The most common deficiency of traditional EIS is the static and inflexible function with predetermined information needs and processes designed for static performance monitoring and control. The current emergence of the intelligent software agent, as a concept and a technology, with applications, provides prospects and advanced solutions for supporting executive's information processing activities in a more integrated and distributed environment of the Internet. Although software agents offer the prospective to support information processing activities intelligently, executive's desires and perception of agent-based support must be elucidated in order to develop a system that is considered valuable for executives. This research attempts to identify executive criteria of an agent-based EIS for supporting executive intelligence activities. Firstly, four focus groups were conducted to explore and reveal the current state of executive's information environment and information processing behaviour in the light of Internet era, from which to examine the validity of the conventional views of EIS purpose, functions and design guidelines. Initial executive criteria for agent-based EIS design were also identified in the focus group study. Secondly, 25 senior managers were interviewed for deeper insights on value-added attributes and processes of executive criteria for building agent-based EIS. The findings suggest a "usability-adaptability-intelligence" trichotomy of agent-based EIS design model that comprises executive criteria of value-added attributes and processes for building a usable, adaptable and intelligent EIS.

As the world is becoming more globalised, there is pressure to deliver better results using fewer resources. As such, performance of executives is core for the survival of organisations. This thesis is an ethnographic case study of corporate executives in Uganda, and what it takes to get the executives to perform. With a Ugandan culture lens, I examine the determinants and obstacles of executive performance, and I propose a framework for coaching for performance. I used a qualitative research design and case study approach, and gathered data from 69 middle and top corporate executives in 22 organisations, and 10 coaching-practitioners. I employed purposive, snowball and convenience sampling techniques. Semi-structured interviews, client and coach records, and literature reviews informed this study. The thesis also draws on my 18 years of experience as a corporate executive at different levels, 9 as an executive coach, and 4 years of scientific research. The study revealed that: 1) Ugandan executives do perform under the ‘right’ conditions. 2) Performance is mostly dependant on: the leaders’ background, experience, ethos, mind-set, and motivation. 3) The major obstacles to performance are typically poor work ethics, and socio-cultural factors such as: disabling beliefs; executives’ perceptions about self, about their leaders, and about performance; and lack of a sense of urgency. The framework I propose combines a self-assessment tool showing 8 critical pillars of executive performance, and a goal alignment model for igniting intrinsic motivation to perfom. I recommend: A change in focus from performance interventions directed at knowledge and skills building, to those targeting mind-set and attitude change of executives at top and middle management levels; and a deeper consciousness about socio-cultural issues underlying the performance environment. I also recommend areas for further study including: testing the effectiveness and effects of the proposed framework.

Executive pay research has traditionally focused on salary, severance payments and longterm incentives. A systematic rigorous empirical examination of short-term annual bonuses is lacking. To address this omission, this research empirically examines the relationship between short-term bonuses and firm performance (TSR and EPS), in the UK. It also considers the association between form of bonus payment (i.e. cash/shares), and type of performance target (i.e. hard/soft and simple/complex) with bonus and performance. Furthermore, firm size and particular corporate governance factors are included (i.e. NED ratio on remuneration committee, CEO presence on nominations committee, CEO/Chair duality, tenure, and power) to examine their relationship with bonus value. From a sample of 299 firms listed in the FTSE-350 (1,542 executives including 300 CEOs), this study uses two competing theories (i.e. agency and power theory) to provide a fuller explanation of the subtleties of the pay-performance relation. The main findings support the agency view, since bonus is positively and significantly associated with financial performance. As with previous studies on executive bonus pay this association remains weak. By implication, power theory is not supported. However, other findings indicate: (1) although firm size may change, the proportion of bonus pay relative to salary does not vary. This suggests that large and small firms pay out proportionally similar bonuses; (2) cash bonuses are not positively related with the total value of bonus pay, suggesting that they are not any more open to abuse than other methods of compensation, as agency theory would predict; (3) cash bonuses encourage short-term achievement, as predicted by power theory; (4) consistent with agency theory, share-based bonuses are positively related to bonus pay and performance (weak association), suggesting that share-based bonuses (rather than cash bonuses) may be more effective at aligning pay with performance; (5) in line with agency theory, transparency (i.e. hard (external/published) and simple bonus conditions) is positively associated with performance, providing support for the alignment between principals' and agents' interests; (6) detailed bonus scheme characteristics are generally insensitive to performance and are becoming increasingly softer (i.e. more internal/unspecified targets) and complex (i.e. multiple targets). On the power view, these may create opportunities for executives to mask weak performance and extract greater rents; (7) governance factors are insignificant, suggesting that efforts to improve this area may be wasted, since they mainly leave pay-performance sensitivities unaffected. However, based on power theory, weak governance may foster the rise of powerful executives and widen the pay-performance gap. Therefore, it is suggested that close monitoring of executive pay must continue and shareholders should remain vigilant.

TESIS PARA OPTAR AL GRADO DE MAGÍSTER EN ADMINISTRACIÓN
Cristian Lagos Vallejos [Parte I], Patricio Javier Osses Bravo [Parte II]
Según datos oficiales del Servicio Nacional de Capacitación y Empleo (SENCE), la inversión anual en capacitación alcanza los USD $170 millones a nivel nacional, de los cuales USD $103 millones corresponden a la Región Metropolitana. Es una industria altamente competitiva y con bajos niveles de diferenciación entre sus oferentes. Por su parte son los Organismos Técnicos de Capacitación los encargados de impartir la capacitación, la oferta es variada y contiene desde cursos cortos, hasta diplomados y postítulos, quedando fuera la formación técnica y profesional que es propia de los Centros de Formación Técnica, Institutos Profesionales y Universidades. En los estudios realizados por los socios de la compañía, OTEC y relatores han reconocido la necesidad de fortalecer las competencias pedagógicas y en metodologías de enseñanza de los relatores. Estos últimos declaran que en el mercado existen cursos teóricos que entregan información valiosa, sin embargo se focalizan en la teoría y no permiten desarrollar las competencias requeridas para ejercer la relatoría, sobre todo en lo referido a las habilidades blandas. Es por ello que nace Executive Training Center “ETC”, un espacio en el cual el relator podrá desarrollar todas las habilidades requeridas para transformarse en el relator ETC. Todo esto a través de un programa de formación gradual, con un 50% de entrenamiento y un servicio personalizado con el apoyo de un Coach que estará retroalimentando a los alumnos para fortalecer su aprendizaje. La inversión inicial requerida asciende a $MM 150, de los cuales un 60% será financiado con aporte de los socios. El VAN del proyecto evaluado a 5 años supera $MM 100.

This study investigates the relationship between CEO pay and firm performance, the asymmetric nature of pay-performance sensitivity, and the effect of CEO participation on the pay-setting process, for publicly-listed New Zealand firms during 1997 to 2002. The research is conducted using a unique hand-collected panel data set containing information about executive compensation, firm performance, ownership, firm governance and CEO participation in the pay-setting process. The sample covers the six-year period following the introduction of mandatory disclosure requirements that were imposed on executive and director compensation in 1997. An initial descriptive analysis of the data reveals a large pay difference between worker and CEO pay. In addition, pay-performance indexes for the highest and lowest paid CEOs document differences between the change in pay relative to real shareholder returns. An examination of the sensitivity between growth in CEO pay, and contemporaneous and lagged firm performance using a firm fixed-effects model, shows that not only is pay significantly related to firm size and performance but also board size, compensation risk and director share ownership. Models of the relationship between growth in CEO compensation and firm performance indicate the pay-performance sensitivity generated by cash and the change in the value of stock option holdings is reported to be three-times the magnitude of the sensitivity due to salary and bonus payments alone. In addition, growth in CEO compensation is asymmetrically related to changes in firm performance. CEO cash compensation is positively related to increases in firm value only. Total compensation is related to contemporaneous returns and positive lagged returns. Change in CEO wealth is positively related to contemporaneous returns but is more sensitive to losses. However, change in wealth also increases when lagged returns are positive and negative, implying that CEOs are able to extract pay in excess of that which is optimal under the contracting view of executive compensation. Furthermore, firms in which CEOs demonstrate a low level of participation in the pay-setting process earn higher levels of pay, which also grows at significantly greater rates than their high-participation counterparts. In particular, growth in low-participation wealth is more sensitive to positive and negative contemporaneous returns as well as being negatively related to negative lagged excess returns. This finding is opposite to theoretical predictions and can be explained by the tightly held nature of the high-participation firms which typically have fewer directors, are exposed to higher return volatility and have greater director and CEO beneficial share ownership. Consistent with the trickle-down effect, there is a positive relationship between growth in the non-performance related cash compensation awarded to CEOs and the growth in pay earned by their executive directors and employees. In addition, growth in non-CEO executive pay is not related to firm performance when there is an overpayment effect and CEOs exercise a high level of participation in the pay-setting process. Consistent with the contracting view, growth in non-CEO executive pay is positively related to firm performance with no benefits from CEO overpayments when stock option awards are included in the CEO pay contract.

The executive coaching and positive psychology fields are growing; however, minimal research exists regarding the coaching experiences of executive coachees with the various approaches a coach can utilize. The problem addressed in this study was the lack of research on consistent standards regarding how executive coaching should be conducted. The primary purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of executives who have been coached using approaches based on Snyder’s hope theory, Buckingham and Clifton’s theories of strength-based approaches to leadership, and the theories of positive psychology advanced by Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi. The participants in this study were a purposively selected sample of 20 executives. The primary data collection method was semistructured interviews, and the resulting data were recorded and organized into themes guided by the research questions, and was analyzed for overarching themes, validated, and interpreted against Snyder’s hope theory. The findings demonstrated the importance of coaching approaches utilizing all components of hope theory and the importance of the coaching approach being the preference of the executive. These findings can be used by executive coaches to inform coaching approaches that lead to favorable leadership behavioral changes. The potential for social change from this study is that the findings can help guide improvements in leadership in all areas of organizations, including the non-profit sector, that lead to better serving of goals and increasing organizational capacities.

The executive coaching and positive psychology fields are growing; however, minimal research exists regarding the coaching experiences of executive coachees with the various approaches a coach can utilize. The problem addressed in this study was the lack of research on consistent standards regarding how executive coaching should be conducted. The primary purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of executives who have been coached using approaches based on Snyder's hope theory, Buckingham and Clifton's theories of strength-based approaches to leadership, and the theories of positive psychology advanced by Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi. The participants in this study were a purposively selected sample of 20 executives. The primary data collection method was semistructured interviews, and the resulting data were recorded and organized into themes guided by the research questions, and was analyzed for overarching themes, validated, and interpreted against Snyder's hope theory. The findings demonstrated the importance of coaching approaches utilizing all components of hope theory and the importance of the coaching approach being the preference of the executive. These findings can be used by executive coaches to inform coaching approaches that lead to favorable leadership behavioral changes. The potential for social change from this study is that the findings can help guide improvements in leadership in all areas of organizations, including the non-profit sector, that lead to better serving of goals and increasing organizational capacities.

The nonprofit sector has historically faced a multitude of challenges that threaten sustainability. Such continues even today. Nonprofit organizations struggle to respond to changes imposed by external environmental influences. These changes revolve around accountability and resources. With all of this, the sector now faces yet another challenge of a significant executive leadership deficit. During the past ten years to the present, the sector has experienced a mass retirement of baby boomer executives. The nonprofit sector has warned of the leadership deficit. However, nonprofit organizations have failed to urgently respond to the developing leadership void. Nonprofit organizations tend to not address executive leadership needs of the organization until an occurrence of vacancy. While nonprofit organizations are encouraged to utilize successor planning, under utilizing is prevalent. This qualitative research explores nonprofit executive successor planning from a phenomenological approach. The research emphasizes perspectives of twelve nonprofit executives who experienced leadership transition during the years 2008–2012. The research approach is framed by theories of organizational management and human behavior. This research informs the issue of nonprofit successor planning utilization decisions in two areas. One area is the influence of incumbent executives in facilitating successor planning. A second area is consideration of ascribing resource value to the executive position. Such can encourage strategic assessment and planning for future leadership needs. Findings of the research indicate continued under utilization of successor planning characterized by the following: a reality of nonprofit executives facing operational distractions; governing boards avoiding the issue of leadership transition; and nonprofit organizations under utilizing strategic planning.

Thesis (MPhil)--Stellenbosch University, 2015.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this highly competitive market, organisations are placing a strong emphasis on leveraging its organisational learning (OL) activities to achieve a sustained advantage. Organisations are increasingly recognising the value of partnering with external education providers to implement customized executive education programmes that can address their unique business need. Coaching interventions are frequently incorporated in such learning initiatives to enhance the alignment of the learning and development practises with the organisational goals and to increase the level of learning transfer once the program has been completed. The best-practises of coaching interventions remain however several understudied. This study therefore investigated the importance of multi-stakeholder partnerships on the effectiveness of coaching interventions within a customised executive programme. Qualitative data was collected through a series of semi-structured interviews targeting coaches, organisational learning drivers and delegates to obtain multi-source feedback for enhanced validity of perceptions. The findings were subsequently subjected to thematic analysis resulting in the emergence of 7 core themes. The results emphasised the importance of aligning the interpretation of management, organisational learning drivers (OLDs), coaches and delegates regarding the goals of the organisation and the coaching initiative. A recurring theme across the datasets related to the importance of transparent, direct and open communication prior to the commencement of coaching. Furthermore, the advantages of group coaching highlighted in this study were supported by previous literature. Another important contribution of this study pertained to evaluating and sustaining the mental and behavioural shifts delegates experienced during the coaching interventions. This highlighted the importance of soliciting management support, eliciting informal accountability and post-coaching interventions. As a result of combining multi-stakeholder perceptions, the findings of this study may contribute towards developing a best-practice model for coaching interventions in customised executive education (CEE) programmes.

PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIRO
O coaching executivo entrou no mundo corporativo em algum momento no final dos anos 80. As mudanças nas relações de trabalho e no crescimento da competitividade mostraram que a verdadeira vantagem competitiva das organizações residia no seu capital humano. Embora bastante usada no mundo corporativo e sendo uma das ferramentas que mais crescem no processo de desenvolvimento do aprendizado do adulto, a literatura prática do coaching executivo está à frente da pesquisa acadêmica sobre o tema. Esse fato demonstra que, na academia, o estudo sobre o coaching executivo ainda é incipiente quando comparado com outras ferramentas de desenvolvimento de recursos humanos. O presente estudo, por meio do método fenomenográfico, buscou investigar se de fato o coaching executivo gera aprendizado individual. Para tanto, procederam-se revisões da literatura sobre aprendizado bem como sobre o coaching executivo, além de uma pesquisa com executivos de empresas que participaram do processo de coaching executivo. Foram realizadas quinze entrevistas durante os meses de janeiro e fevereiro de 2010. As entrevistas foram transcritas e analisadas. A análise do conteúdo revelou cinco categorias, a saber: fatores indutores, atributos do coach, mudanças comportamentais, tempo de transformação e avaliação da experiência. Os resultados mostram que o coaching executivo de fato gera aprendizado individual.
Executive coaching appeared in the business world at sometime at the end of 1980s. Changes in working relationships and the increase in competion has shown that real competitive advantage of organizations lies in their human capital. Despite being much used in the business world and being one of the tools that has grown most in the process of the development of adult learning, the executive coaching’s literature is more advanced than the academic research in this area. This fact demonstrates that in the academic world, the study of executive coaching is still in his infancy when compared to the other development tools of human resources. The present study, by using the phenomenographic method, investigated whether the executive coaching resulted in individual learning. Consequently was necessary to revise literature about executive coaching as well as about learning. A research of executives dealing with executive coaching was also necessary. Fifteen interviews were carried out between January and February 2010. These interviews were transcribed and analyzed. Five categories could be indentified: causing factors, coaches charactics, behavioural changes, transformation time and evaluation of the experience. The results show that executive coaching really creates individual learning.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Western Sydney, 2006.
A thesis presented to the University of Western Sydney, College of Arts, School of Education, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Includes bibliographies.

This thesis consists of two studies in the area of executive compensation. The first examines the effect of boards of directors’ characteristics on the degree of compensation efficiency with respect to the use of private information. I predict and find that boards’ competence both in information acquisition and in monitoring influence the extent to which boards use private performance measures in CEO compensation. Specifically, smaller and more independent boards with their CEOs as the board chair are more efficient in exploiting private performance measures. Furthermore, the better a board balances its information role with its monitoring role, the more efficient it is in exploiting private performance measures. No asymmetry is found in rewarding and punishing CEOs based on private information. The second study investigates the mechanism to inflate the value of executive stock options after Sarbanes-Oxley Act Section 403 (SOX 403), which requires that executive option grants be reported to the SEC within two business days following the grant day. As this requirement largely restricts backdating of executive option grants, I examine whether firms that previously backdated resort to alternative strategies after SOX. Using firms that were relatively free from backdating before SOX as a control group, I find that in the post-SOX period previous backdating firms exhibit a significantly larger return reversal around option grant dates, suggesting some sort of opportunistic behavior is still going on in these firms. Furthermore, I find that post-SOX option grant filings of previous backdating firms are as timely as those of the non-backdating control group, and that the large return reversals are associated with a pattern consistent with strategic timing of grants and disclosures; that is, a larger proportion of option grants are issued right after bad news (before good news) than right before bad news (after good news). These findings suggest that firms that previously backdated engage in strategic timing as an alternative mechanism to lower the grant-date stock price in the post-SOX period.

The purpose of this paper was to create a primer for a security awareness program to educate senior level executives on the key aspects of cyber security. This is due to the gap area that was discovered in the lack of both executive security awareness programs, and the lack of executives that fully abide by their company's security policies. This, coupled with research showing that executives are highly targeted by attackers, was the impetus behind this project. It was determined that the content of an executive security awareness program should be similar to that of a security awareness program for all other employees, with the differences being in the delivery and time frame of each segment. Due to this, literature was reviewed on the various topics of security awareness. Research revealed the importance of capturing an executive's attention, in order to keep their interest in the program. It was recommended that individuals charged with creating an executive security awareness program begin by having one on one meetings with the executives in their company. These meetings will help assess the time constraints of their company executives as well as their current knowledge of the various security awareness topics. This will help with tailoring the program specifically to their company executives. This primer may be used by any company or organization in the beginning stages of creating their own security awareness program for executives. Keywords: Cybersecurity, Professor Albert Orbinati, Executive Security Awareness, Internet Safety.

Thesis advisor: Philip Strahan
Chapter 1: Executive Compensation and Aspirational Peer Benchmarking Abstract: Using a comprehensive, hand-collected dataset of explicit peer group relationships, I document that small firms engage in upward compensation benchmarking to a much greater degree than large firms do. In contrast to the prior literature studying larger firms, small firms choose aspirational peers that reflect their executives' shifting opportunity sets. For these firms, compensation benchmarking is indicative of future growth and performance, and the rate at which pay adjusts toward peer levels is sensitive to the transferability of managers' human capital. Overall, the data suggest that growing and outperforming small firms strategically use upward benchmarking to adjust pay in an effort to retain managerial talent. Chapter 2: Common Ownership and Relative Performance Evaluation Abstract: Recent research suggests that large institutional shareholders that simultaneously hold positions in naturally competing firms may influence managers to collude and reduce product market competition. This paper finds that common owners do not alter executive incentive schemes in a way that is conducive to collusion. I find that common ownership is positively related to the use of explicit relative performance evaluation (RPE), which rewards executives for outperforming their peers. Additionally, commonly held firms are more likely to benchmark RPE awards against commonly held peers. My results suggest that the managers of commonly held firms lack the financial incentives to collude with product market rivals
Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2018
Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management
Discipline: Finance

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the effect of two specific external, to the principal-agent relationship, influences on executive pay practices in the UK, namely pay consultants and the introduction of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The thesis consists of three essays. In the first essay, I examine the role of pay consultants in UK CEO pay practices. The results illustrate that their role is not consistent with the predictions of the managerial power theory. More specifically, pay consultants do not try to help managers towards the expropriation of shareholders' wealth; on the contrary I show strong indications that pay consultants urge firms towards the adoption of more incentive based CEO compensation. Moreover, I report that economic characteristics (e.g. firm size, complexity of the contract) rather than CEO power explain the firm's choice to hire a compensation consultant. These results are robust to selection bias controls. The results of this essay indicate that pay consultants play a less "sinister" role than what the managerial power theory suggests and that their advice and expertise can assist firms design an optimal executive pay contract. In the second essay, I examine the existence of managerial opportunism at the switch from UK GAAP to IFRS. I find strong indications that the restatements from UK GAAP to IFRS have not been manipulated by managers. I examine the existence of such behaviour under different specifications and for different types of CEOs that one would expect to engage in opportunistic behaviour to maximise the expected personal wealth. The research design that I adopt makes the results less prone to methodological issues common in studies in this area. Positive Accounting Theory literature has established that managerial opportunism seriously affects accounting choice. The results of this essay imply that with respect to IFRS restatements, where managers had strong incentives to manage future earnings, I find no signs of manipulation. This essay thus puts into question the Positive Accounting Theory Paradigm. In the third essay, I examine the effect of IFRS on the use of performance measures for evaluating and rewarding managers. This essay illustrates that firms make less use of accounting based performance measures due to the introduction of IFRS. I explain these results based on the predictions of optimal contacting theory. I claim that IFRS adds unnecessary "noise" to accounting numbers not relevant to the managers' actions. This is mainly due to the adoption of "fair value" accounting, which makes accounting earnings more value relevant and therefore useful for firm valuation purposes; however, "fair value" accounting also makes accounting numbers more volatile and sensitive to market movements. If this increase in volatility is related to events outside the managers' control, this makes the use of accounting based performance measures less useful for evaluating and rewarding managers. The results of this essay imply that IFRS might have made accounting earnings more useful for stock market purposes, e.g. firm valuation, but this has happened at the expense of other purposes that accounting serves, e.g. contracting.

Executive and cognitive functioning was examined in 25 individuals (aged 41-80 yrs) with aphasia following stroke, 7 nonaphasic individuals (aged 39-76 yrs) with frontal lobe injury, and 25 control participants. Clinical and experimental measures were administered using nonverbal instructions. Tests included the Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices, Tower of Hanoi (TOH), Porteus Mazes (PM), Judgment of Line Orientation, Western Aphasia Battery, and a new board test of spatial planning, the Errands Test. The aphasic group performed more poorly than the control group on some tests. Performance by all participants was submitted to a factor analysis, from which two factors emerged. The TOH measures loaded together with PM error score, while the PM test age score loaded with the efficiency, strategy, and error scores from the Errands Test. Poorer performance on the TOH-PM factor was predicted by the extent of brain injury and psychomotor slowing. Poorer performance on the Errands-PM factor was predicted by anterior location of the lesion, poorer visuospatial ability, and psychomotor slowing. The Errands-PM factor correlated with functional communication of the aphasic participants (measured by the ASHA-Functional Assessment of Communication Skills). Level of aphasia severity, auditory comprehension, and ideomotor praxis did not account for performance on the cognitive tests. The study results suggest that aphasic individuals may have additional cognitive impairments, including planning and strategy use, and that these deficits can be measured validly using nonverbal measures. Until the cognitive processes of executive functioning are better defined and assessed, batteries of tests may be necessary to predict patients' weaknesses and strengths.

Diese Dissertation stellt empirische Evidenz zu den Fragen der Verguetung von Fuehrungskraeften. Analyse der Daten der US-Firmen auflistet, finde ich eine umgekehrte U-foermige Beziehung zwischen Management Ownership und Unternehmensperformance, aber diese Beziehung verschwindet, wenn Unternehmensperformance von den letzten Jahr kontrolliert wird. Ich finde auch, dass die Executive Option Awards positiv auf Unternehmensperformance bezogen, während Executive Stock Awards hat keinen statistischen signifikanten Einfluss auf den Unternehmensperformance. Statistische Evidenz zeigt auch, dass die Struktur der Verguetung von Fuehrungskraeften Vertraege zu Unternehmen Eigenschaften und Executive persoenlichen Merkmalen zusammenhaengt.
This dissertation provides empirical evidence on the issues of executive compensation. Analyzing data of U.S. listing firms, I find an inverted U-shaped relation between managerial ownership and firm performance, but this relation vanishes when firm performance from last period is controlled. I also find that executive option awards is positively related to firm performance, while executive stock awards has no statistically significant impact on firm performance. Evidence also indicates that the structure of executive compensation contracts is related with observable and unobservable firm attributes and executive personal characteristics.

Business Administration/Finance
Ph.D.
My dissertation consists of three chapters which explores various aspects of executive incentives. In the first chapter, I examine the relation between executive equity pay and stock returns. By compensating CEOs and CFOs differently, shareholders can create incentive conflicts between the firms’ top two managers that potentially affects shareholder wealth. On the one hand, incentive conflict potentially benefits shareholders by improving information exchange and establishing checks and balances in decisions made jointly by the CEO and CFO but alternatively, can harm shareholders by increasing risk through impeding the decision-making processes. I examine the relation between CEO-CFO incentive conflict and stock returns. The analysis indicates that an investor who routinely buy firms with the least incentive conflict and shorts firms with the greatest incentive conflict between CEO and CFOs will outperform the market by 475 basis points per year. I investigate whether risk, firm performance, or market inefficiency explain the excess returns and provide evidence that shareholders demand higher returns for bearing risk associated with CEO-CFO incentive similarities. Next, I explore the impact of executive incentives on bondholder wealth through looking at bond yields. Firms compensate managers to maximize shareholder value, yet these same incentives affect bondholder risk. I investigate the relation between executive equity pay and the cost of debt. My findings indicate a “u-shaped” relation between bond yields and equity pay. These results are consistent with the notion that bondholders prefer a moderate amount of executive equity pay and above or below that level, bondholders increase yields to protect their interests. Instrumenting equity pay using CEO heritage, I find support for a curvilinear relation. These findings suggest that moderate levels of equity pay mitigate the agency costs between firm shareholders and bondholders. Finally, I study the affect of board gender diversity on CEO and director compensation. Females occupy only about 12% of director positions on corporate boards. I find that boards with more female’s onboard tend to give CEOs larger fractions of equity in their compensation packages while incentivizing directors with lower fractions of equity pay. This evidence is consistent with the notion that female board members are superior monitors yet also possess greater risk-aversion than male board members.
Temple University--Theses

This doctoral thesis is made of three empirical research papers focused on executive compensation topics. The first chapter is a solo paper, while the second and third papers are co-authored with Antonio Parbonetti. The first chapter answers to Bushman and Smith’s (2001) call for research on compensation of executives other than CEOs. Specifically, using a sample of 586 firm-year observations over the period 2000-2009, I investigate the economic determinants and effects on shareholder value of the equity incentives given to the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). The paper shows that, when companies invest more in marketing activities, they also give the CMO more equity incentives. I also find that CMOs’ equity incentives are positively related to shareholder value and that this positive relationship is incremental to that between CEOs’ incentives and firm value. Finally, I document that the positive impact of CMOs’ equity incentives on firm value is not limited to those firms that invest more than the industry average in marketing, suggesting a strategic role for the CMO that is not linked only to the size of the marketing budget. These findings, which help to advance our understanding of the determinants and effects of executive compensation, have considerable practical implications. Specifically, I challenge the mainstream view that the CEO’s compensation captures all first-order effects and that the consequences of the compensation structure of executives other than the CEO are negligible. In fact, I document that the Chief Marketing Officer plays a central role in delivering shareholder value when she is properly incentivized. I also show that companies do not simply rescale the CEO’s incentives when they decide how to incent the CMO, but they take a proactive role in detecting other economic determinants in order to set the appropriate level of incentives. Therefore, findings reported in the paper warn companies not to focus only on setting the CEO’s incentives, while neglecting to incent other key top executives such as the CMO. The second chapter, instead, analyzes how CEO’s equity incentives, risk incentives and career concerns drive the trade-off among earnings game strategies. Accounting literature documented that managers, in order to meet earnings targets, may engage in the numbers game by making choices among three non mutually exclusive strategies. Specifically, executives can alter reported earnings through real or accrual earnings management, and/or guide analysts’ expectations downward in an attempt of avoiding negative earnings surprises. Previous literature showed that stricter regulation (i.e. the passage of the SOX), and firm’s specific characteristics, influence the relative costliness of each earnings game strategy (Cohen et al., 2008; Zang, 2012). Nonetheless, literature fails to recognize that earnings game strategies are decided and executed by the CEO, who is going to consider, in the choice of how meeting/beating targets, also her personal costs and benefits. Using a sample of 4,471 quarterly observations, from 1,088 U.S. firms that are likely to have engaged in the earnings game over the period 2003-20010, I show that CEOs trade off the different earnings game strategies according to their personal benefits and costs. Specifically, I find that CEOs with high equity incentives and high career concerns engage less in real activity manipulations than executives with low incentives, and substitute this earnings game strategy with other alternatives. Additionally, I document that firms using real activity manipulation to meet/beat targets have lower future market performances than firms using accrual earnings management or analysts’ guidance. This result indicates that earnings game strategies that mostly rely on the alteration of real activities, impose very high costs on shareholders. CEOs appear to understand and anticipate this effect and, when their interests are aligned with those of shareholders in terms of equity incentives and career concerns, they avoid to choose real earnings management strategies. Overall, this chapter contributes to a well established research stream such as earnings management, by analyzing the trade-off among earnings game strategies from a new prospective. Finally, the last chapter focuses the attention on CEO’s compensation in the financial industry, which has attracted an increasing interest in recent years. In fact, executive compensation has been blamed of being one of the most fundamental causes of the recent credit crisis, providing CEOs with incentives to take too many big bets that turned out to be extremely costly (Solomon and Paletta, 2009). Specifically, the paper investigates the role of CEO’s equity and risk incentives in boosting securitizations in the financial industry and in motivating executives to reduce the perceived risk while betting on it. Using a sample of US financial institutions over the period 2003-2009, the paper documents that CEOs with high equity incentives have systematically engaged in securitization transactions to a larger extent than CEOs with low incentives. It also shows that CEOs with high equity and risk-related incentives engaged in risky securitization activities and used securitization for transferring risks to outside investors. Finally, the paper shows that executives incentivized on risk provided outside investors with low quality disclosure about losses recorded on securitized loans, thus contributing to increase the opacity of securitization transactions undertaken. Overall, I interpret these results as evidence that CEOs foresaw in securitizations under US GAAP an opportunity for hiding risks while bearing them and generating profits and cash flows because of the risks. In additional analyses, I document that before the collapse of the subprime mortgage market in 2007, financial institutions involved in the securitization of subprime loans largely over performed other banks in terms of market returns and earnings. On the contrary, starting from 2007 subprime securitizers have recorded worse performances than other financial institutions that were not involved in subprime securitization. This indicates that, by securitizing risky loans, CEOs were successful in boosting stock price and earnings, but the risks undertaken turned out to be extremely costly. This paper, therefore, adds to the large stream of research warning about possible side effects of equity compensation, and uncovers a determinant of securitization transactions that has been overlooked by previous literature
Il presente lavoro è costituito da tre articoli accademici, di natura empirica, focalizzati sul tema della remunerazione dei manager. Il primo capitolo è un paper a firma unica, mentre il secondo e terzo paper sono co-autorati con Antonio Parbonetti. Il primo capitolo analizza la remunerazione di manager diversi dall’amministratore delegato (CEO), come suggerito da Bushman and Smith’s (2001). In particolare, utilizzando un campione di 586 osservazioni dal 2000 al 2009, lo studio analizza le determinanti economiche e gli effetti sul valore aziendale degli incentivi azionari forniti al Direttore Marketing (Chief Marketing Officer, CMO). I risultati mostrano che, quando le aziende investono maggiormente in marketing, forniscono al CMO maggiori incentivi azionari. Inoltre, lo studio rivela che gli incentivi azionari forniti al CMO sono positivamente correlati al valore aziendale e che tale effetto è incrementale rispetto a quello dovuto agli incentivi monetari del CEO. Infine, il capitolo rivela che l’impatto positivo sul valore aziendale riconducibile agli incentivi azionari del CMO non è limitato esclusivamente alle aziende con elevati investimenti di marketing. Questo suggerisce che il CMO riveste un ruolo strategico nell’azienda che non è esclusivamente legato all’entità del budget di marketing. I risultati riportati nello studio hanno considerevoli implicazioni pratiche. In particolare, essi sono in contrapposizione con la tradizionale percezione che la remunerazione del CEO catturi tutti gli effetti rilevanti e che, quindi, sia di marginale importanza studiare la struttura di incentivazione di executive diversi dal CEO. Infatti, lo studio documenta che il CMO, quando propriamente incentivato, riveste un ruolo strategico chiave nel creare valore aziendale. Inoltre, i risultati suggeriscono che le aziende, nel determinare gli incentivi dei manager diversi dal CEO, non ridimensionano semplicemente la struttura di remunerazione dell’amministratore delegato, bensì cercano di identificare delle determinanti economiche rilevanti per definire l’appropriato livello di incentivi. Il secondo capitolo, invece, analizza come gli incentivi azionari, gli incentivi al rischio e i career concern del CEO influiscono sul trade-off tra le diverse strategie di earnings management. La letteratura di accounting ha documentato che, al fine di raggiungere determinati obiettivi di performance, i manager possono scegliere di 1) manipolare gli utili contabili utilizzando la flessibilità concessa dai principi contabili (accrual-based earnings management), 2) manipolare le decisioni di investimento dell’azienda (real earnings management), 3) abbassare le aspettative degli analisti per evitare di non raggiungere le loro stime (analysts’ expectation guidance). La letteratura ha mostrato che una regolamentazione più severa, e caratteristiche intrinseche dell’impresa, influenzano il costo delle menzionate strategie di earnings game (Cohen et al., 2008; Zang, 2012). Tuttavia, non si è prestata la dovuta attenzione al fatto che la scelta della strategia di earnings game da utilizzare viene effettuata, in ultima istanza, dal CEO dell’azienda il quale considererà nella scelta anche i propri incentivi. Utilizzando un campione di 4,471 osservazioni dal 2003 al 2010, il secondo capitolo mostra che il CEO sceglie quale strategia di earnings game utilizzare anche in funzione di costi e benefici personali. In particolare, i risultati indicano che i CEO con maggiori incentivi azionari e con più elevati career concern, utilizzano di meno le strategie di real earnings management e le sostituiscono con le altre due alternative. Inoltre, lo studio mostra che le aziende che utilizzano in misura maggiore il real earnings management registrano performance future di mercato significativamente inferiori a quelle aziende che invece utilizzano altre strategie di earnings game. Tale risultato suggerisce che quando i manager manipolano le decisioni di investimento dell’azienda, al solo fine di raggiungere alcuni target di performance, impongono alti costi agli azionisti. I manager sembrano comprendere ed anticipare questo effetto e, quando i loro interessi sono maggiormente allineati con quelli degli azionisti in termini di incentivi azionari e career concern, utilizzano in misura minore le strategie di real earnings management. In conclusione, il secondo capitolo contribuisce ad un filone di ricerca già ben sviluppato andando ad analizzare il trade-off tra le strategie di earnings game da una nuova prospettiva: quella dei manager. Infine, l’ultimo capitolo si focalizza sulla struttura di remunerazione del CEO nel settore finanziario; tematica quest’ultima particolarmente dibattuta negli ultimi anni. Infatti, la struttura di remunerazione degli executive nel settore finanziario è stata accusata di essere una delle principali cause della recente crisi finanziaria, poiché avrebbe fornito ai manager incentivi ad assumere eccessivi rischi (Solomon and Paletta, 2009). In particolare, il capitolo analizza il ruolo degli incentivi azionari e degli incentivi al rischio nel motivare i CEO ad intraprendere operazioni di cartolarizzazione dei mutui, riducendo i rischi percepiti dagli investitori esterni ma, al contempo, scommettendo su di essi. Utilizzando un campione di istituzioni finanziarie statunitensi dal 2003 al 2009, lo studio documenta che i manager con elevati incentivi azionari hanno sistematicamente cartolarizzato una quantità maggiore di mutui. I risultati indicano altresì che i manager con elevati incentivi azionari ed incentivi al rischio, sono stati maggiormente coinvolti in operazioni di cartolarizzazione di mutui subprime, utilizzando in tal modo lo strumento della cartolarizzazione per trasferire i rischi ad investitori esterni. Inoltre, lo studio documenta che i manager incentivati al rischio hanno fornito una disclosure di qualità peggiore agli investitori esterni ed hanno pertanto contribuito ad aumentare le asimmetrie informative. Nel complesso, le analisi svolte suggeriscono che i manager hanno intravisto nelle operazioni di cartolarizzazione dei mutui la possibilità di nascondere i rischi generati ed incrementare i profitti delle proprie istituzioni finanziarie. In analisi aggiuntive, il capitolo mostra che, prima del crollo del mercato dei mutui subprime avvenuto nel 2007, le istituzioni finanziare coinvolte nella cartolarizzazione dei mutui subprime hanno registrato performance significativamente superiori ai propri concorrenti. Tuttavia, una volta che la crisi finanziaria è emersa, tali istituzioni ne hanno subito le conseguenze in misura maggiore. Pertanto, i risultati suggeriscono che, grazie alla cartolarizzazione dei mutui subprime, i manager delle grandi istituzioni finanziarie statunitensi hanno avuto successo nell’incrementare i profitti delle proprie istituzioni; tuttavia ciò è avvenuto assumendo rischi eccessivamente elevati. Il capitolo, pertanto, contribuisce all’ampio dibattito in letteratura riguardo ai potenziali effetti distorsivi causati dalla struttura di remunerazione dei manager

This thesis is an investigation of the practice of executive coaching for conscious leadership. The researcher, an executive coach with many years of practice as educator, chaplain, counselling psychologist, Buddhist meditator and company director, draws on case studies to present a holistic understanding of the coaching relationship. She examines how the coaching relationship enables executive managers not only to achieve their management goals, but also to gain insight, assemble meaning, become conscious and present, and grow as leaders. The key questions for the thesis are: What does the coach do and how is it manifested through the coaching discourse? What are the key processes and variables in the coaching relationship that promote conscious leadership? In order to explore these questions, the researcher draws on literature from human relations praxis, ethics, psychology (including counselling, psychotherapy, positive psychology, educational and organisational psychology), education, theology, Buddhist practice and spirituality, leadership and leadership development, and executive coaching. The research methodology is qualitative and quantitative, drawing on data based on an intensive coaching program designed and delivered by the researcher to managers in two organisations – a retail company and a utility company. A series of group sessions reinforced the individual coaching process. Over 300 hours of one-on-one executive coaching sessions were recorded, with 24 executive managers (12 in each company), who each participated in twelve (or equivalent) fortnightly sessions over a 6-month period. In addition, a test of emotional intelligence was given to each of the managers at the beginning and end of the coaching program, giving a quantitative measure of the changes. The results of the coaching sessions are analysed in terms of the two companies and their participants, exploring the organisational context and outlining the benefits of coaching and the coaching relationship with each of the participants individually and in groups. Then two detailed individual case studies are presented, one client from each of the organisations in the study. The managers in the study learned new management skills and adopted new leadership behaviours, reflecting their growth in emotional intelligence and awareness. They reflected on gaining deep awareness and insight, signifying their move to conscious leadership, and reported practical benefits of coaching in their workplace practices, e.g. improved communication skills and the ability to give and receive genuine feedback. A quantitative analysis of the emotional intelligence pre- and post-test scores confirmed these positive outcomes. Many of the managers reported that the most significant aspect of the coaching was the quality of the relationship between them and the coach, which enabled conscious leadership to develop. Their relationship was deeply influenced by the personal qualities of the coach such as warmth, presence, qualifications, credibility, trustworthiness, openness, commitment, insight, and spiritual awareness. This made the difference between coaching for management goals alone and the development of conscious leadership. The concepts of executive coaching and of conscious leadership are holistic phenomena. The clients experience a profound sense of feeling known, respected, accepted, cared for and valued. In essence, they experience love. What has emerged from the research is that consciousness is the ‘being’ of leadership. The attributes of conscious leadership indicate an integration of the whole person that manifests in the workplace, in their homes with their families, and in their everyday interactions and responses to the world around them. While instrumental management goals may be achieved with qualified coaches, conscious leadership involves psychological integration via in-depth relationship and psychological interventions, these need to be experienced with a qualified practitioner with demonstrable advanced levels of personal integration and consciousness. The findings call for a more rofessional and holistic approach to executive coaching for leadership.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2005.
Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 69-71). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

In a highly competitive and turbulent environment, executives need more efficient ways to analyze their companies, markets and competitors. The aim is to help their organizations become more competitive and, as a result, survive the changes taking place around them. Executive Information Systems (EIS) can help executives access the internal and external data they need to be able to make the right decisions and achieve their organizations' objectives. We need to know the factors what senior executives believe affect their use of executive information systems because EIS, like any other software, are designed to be used directly by users, in this case, senior executives. The objective of this thesis is to uncover which factors senior executives feel affect their use of EIS, compare the factors they propose to those mentioned in other studies to determine their importance, and group the factors which affect or may affect senior executives. The methodology proposed to group these factors together is Concept Mapping. The structure of this thesis is divided into five main sections after the introduction and the discussion on motivations: the conceptual framework, research methodology, analysis and findings, reflection and discussion, references, and annexes. In the conceptual framework section I define senior executives, EIS and Technology Acceptance Model. The first research question was: Is additional qualitative research needed to find more valuable information about the factors? I can confirm that more qualitative research is necessary to uncover more valuable information about the factors (as presented in section 5.i. above). I extracted 15 factors from the initial interviews and 79 factors from the literature review. However, senior executives rated the 15 initial factors taken from interviews higher than the rest of factors. The second research question was: What groups of factors do senior executives believe affect their use of executive information systems? Examining the results of the survey with MDS and cluster analysis, I have presented twelve groups of factors in section 5.ii. The third research question was: How important are these groups of factors for senior executives? I detail the list of clusters ordered by their average ranking in terms of importance and the average score received. The main scientific contribution of this thesis is having completed one small part of research on one of the most tested and studied theories in IT: TAM. This thesis demonstrates the importance that qualitative research has in terms of studying one type of IT and one type of user before carrying out quantitative research. The main methodological contribution is that it is not easy to do research with senior executives, but, as this thesis shows, the Concept Mapping methodology can help facilitate this process. There are other scientific and methodological contributions detailed in the thesis. This is, I believe, my modest contribution to offering senior executives EIS projects which understand them and their needs more and better while also providing researchers new opportunities for research and I would encourage other researchers to study the importance of previous qualitative studies applied to other kinds of users and systems. Another opportunity for research is to use concept maps to develop implementation projects and compare the success of those projects with other projects which didn't use the concept map as a tool to define the project itself

Through a dynamic panel data analysis of a sample of Nordic firms we investigate how executives’ stock and option incentives influence the choice of capital structure. In addition, we look at how equity ownership by a large external shareholder influences the incentives’ effect on capital structure. Our results show that options have a negative effect on debt level, while stock holdings’ influence is more diffuse. We also see that only options have both a statistical and economical significant impact on leverage, and therefore operate as a stronger incentive than stocks. No significant dependency is found between the size of the largest external shareholder and the incentives’ effect on capital structure. Still, we see a weak trend indicating that the effect of equity based incentives is stronger when firms’ largest shareholders are institutional.

This study considers the determination of the ex ante pay-performance relationship. A single-period partial equilibrium model is used to show that the executive income can be expressed as a function of the firm's return expressed in dollar terms. The executive income is jointly determined by the opening firm size and current return, which function as a managerial talent proxy and self-selection mechanism respectively. Comparing to Jensen and Murphy (1990) wealth-based Pay-Performance Sensitivity (PPS), this research presents an income-based PPS. The alternative PPS not only overcomes a misleading misspecification in Jensen and Murphy (1990), but also corrects Rosen's (1992) argument for only including return in the pay performance relationship. This research finds empirically that both the opening firm size and stock return play a significant role in determining executive income. This study provides supplementary evidence to Murphy's (1986) Learning Model. However, shareholder income may not be an ideal performance measure in capturing the multi-period pay-performance relationship.

Persons with Down syndrome and MA matched typically developing children were tested on two measures each of hot and cool executive function (EF). Tasks were selected to be developmentally appropriate for mental ages between 3 and 6 years. Participants with Down syndrome performed at the same level as verbal mental age (VMA, M = 47.53 months) matched typically developing children on the Children's Gambling Task (Kerr & Zelazo, 2001), a delay of gratification task (Thompson, Barresi, & Moore, 1997) the Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS; Frye, Zelazo, & Palfai, 1995), and the Self-Ordered Pointing task (Petrides & Milner, 1982), but showed a disadvantage on the DCCS, a cool EF task, when matched on performance mental age (PMA, M = 58.34 months). These results reflect the complex cognitive profiles of persons with Down syndrome and highlight the need for more precise matching procedures.

A review of modern business literature demonstrates that despite a proliferation of best practice models for managing change, none leads to consistent and sustainable success. In this work, action research within three separate projects leads to a model that facilitates change at a project level. Three main arguments for success are made: individuals and their relationships are more critical to success than technology and structure; an ability to look at problems from a systems point of view provides the key to identify excellent solutions; and making room for individuals to use their uniqueness leads to sustainable change. The final model developed is an innovative, content free support framework for change that guides the change team in creating options and making choices throughout the change process. Its role is to support the application of existing tools and techniques. The framework can lead to consistent and sustainable success because its use ensures congruence with the needs of the individuals and the business.

This thesis investigates three theoretical problems in executive compensation literature. They involve extension of a standard principal-agent model, incorporating taxation into the valuation of executive stock options, and the pricing of executive stock options in the presence of managerial effort. Empirical literature has long addressed the endogeneity of capital structure and executive compensation. Yet few models, which optimally determine executive compensation, explicitly introduce capital structure choice. Chapter 2 proposes a principal-agent model in which the capital structure, compensation and managerial actions are simultaneously determined. Based on our numerical results leverage has two effects on managerial actions. One is to discipline the manager and the other is to replace the incentive effect of compensation. Two such effects exist because volatility is chosen by the manager. The basic model is also extended to include debt-like compensation. Our results show that for a given leverage level, rewarding the manager with debt makes her work harder but take less risk. But debt compensation cannot limit risk neutral shareholders' risk appetite; we hence conclude that only a combination of capital and pay regulation, which restricts both risk-taking of shareholders and incentives of the manager, can significantly reduce the firm's risk. Taxation is an important consideration in the design of executive (and employee) compensation. It directly affects the firm's revenue as well as the executive's after tax income. Once the compensation is granted, taxes also affect the early exercise strategy of the components of the compensation. Chapter 3 explores the executive (and employees) compensation with tax. Specifically, we build a tax-inclusive valuation model. The new feature of the model is an addition of a tax decision, which allows the executive (and employees) to optimally sell stock to maximize after-tax terminal utility. The stock selling decision is very similar to an option exercise decision. The valuation 'model essentially has two embedded options: one option is when to exercise the stock option and the other option is when to sell the stock. This new feature allows different exercise policies for executive stock options under different tax schemes. We apply the model to the US and the UK tax system. The findings suggest that restricted stock is the preferred form of compensation in the US. In the UK, restricted stock is only preferred when the executive has low wealth. We also investigate incentives of a special tax scheme - section 83b election - which gives employees a choice to pay income tax at grant date. This voluntary election allows the executive to accelerate ta.x on restricted stock. Our results suggest that 83b election is not optimal for the manager, who would get double-taxed. And it is not optimal for the issuing firm either, as restricted stock without the election can provide higher incentives at lower cost. The value of executive stock options (ESOs) should depend on the manager's ability to influence firm value. ESOs are granted under the assumption that the executive could make the firm value increase. However, ESOs are always valued with no managerial influence. Chapter 4 examines valuation of ESOs, with the assumption that the manager can influence the firm value via her effort choice. The manager influences stock prices by exerting effort, which increases the firm's stock expected return. Effort leads to a disutility (which can be regarded as effort cost) to the risk-averse, utility-maximizing manager. In addition to the effort choice, the market asset. is also introduced to the manager's investment set. Effort increases the manager's subjective valuation as well as the cost of ESO. The standard principal-agent model is not strictly speaking consistent with general equilibrium models like CAP1vI. Managerial effort is generally not priced under these equilibrium models, because all managers are pricetakers. For this reason, we assume that CAPM does not strictly hold when effort is introduced. Our results show that the manager's value and the cost increase with the correlation, because the manager delays a value destroying early exercise. We also show that the manager's subjective value of the ESO is higher than the cost only when the manager has low wealth, low risk-aversion, and the stock has a low volatility. Under these scenarios, the manager's marginal utility is high and effort has a large impact on the manager's valuation. As a result, the value is higher than the cost. These results suggest that managers of large public firms are less likely to value their ESOs higher than the cost; while managers of small non-public firms are likely to value their ESOs far higher than their cost. The result may explain why ESO is so popular in small startup firms, where ESO is most likely to be valued higher than the cost.

This thesis presents novel utility indifference models to solve versions of problems faced by the executives compensated with periodical option grants in practice. Chapter 2 provides a comprehensive analysis of a single executive stock option (ESO). A closed-form solution to the exercise threshold instantaneously before maturity is obtained, and the leading driver of the slope of the exercise thresholds close to and far from maturity is identified. This Chapter forms the foundation for further investigation of more complex problems in later Chapters. Chapter 3 investigates the optimal exercise of a portfolio of ESOs with different strikes and maturities. This problem is particularly faced by the executives who receive option grants annually and over time cumulate a portfolio of options with different characteristics. We show that the optimal exercise order can switch endogenously, and the timing of this switch can change the exercise thresholds for a particular option and/or all options relative to a stand-alone basis, depending on their strikes and maturities. This makes the value and cost of the option portfolio lower than the sum of the values and costs for each individual option on a standalone basis. Therefore, one of the implications from Chapter 3 is that it can produce a more accurate method for valuing and accounting for a portfolio of ESOs. Furthermore, the empirical literature suggests that the Executive Stock Option Plans (ESOPs) are often into multi-year plans, and thus Chapter 4 considers the problem for an executive who anticipates receiving a new option grant in the future and has taken it into account as part of his portfolio. Since the future options are granted at-the-money, the strike price is stochastic ex ante. We show that the future option with a stochastic strike price can significantly affect the exercise strategy of the executive’s existing options, and thus change the cost of the existing options and the overall portfolio. Therefore, Chapter 4 can provide a method to recognise the cost of multi-year ESOPs. Lastly, another problem arising from granting ESOs periodically is that the executive can purposely time his new option grant in order to maximise the value of his option compensation. Since this issue has been well suggested by the empirical literature, Chapter 5 investigates this problem theoretically in the utility framework. Our model can identify the maximum benefit for the executive of timing his option awards and the cost of this to the firm. Our results are quite consistent with the empirical findings.

Ascending into the executive level of an organization can be considered a crowning achievement in one’s profession. It is usually a position in which those most qualified could ultimately arrive. Yet, some organizations, particularly within the U.S. federal government, claim that coveted executive positions are remaining vacant or are not being filled as readily as has traditionally occurred. Even with programs available for a person to become more qualified for advancement, the positions remain unfilled. The level at which employees traditionally qualify for executive positions is the level at which fewer seem to be applying for those positions. In other words, it appears that potential executive candidates are refusing to advance into executive vacancies, which is often referred to as the progression paradox. An organization unable to promote employee advancement into executive vacancies could potentially inhibit its own progression.

The ideas of position qualification and position refusal are two concepts that have not been studied collectively nor received the level of scrutiny that is perhaps needed to answer the fundamental question: Why are gaps in executive-level positions not being filled as expected? Therefore, the researcher utilized grounded-theory analysis to develop a theory into whether adequately defined capabilities freely and clearly enable employee advancement into executive leadership levels. This study delved into the literature and reviewed several inquiries made into the personal perspectives of employees at various levels throughout a Department of Defense agency regarding constructs that could affect ascension into executive leadership ranks. The researcher then built on the findings from these inquiries to create a model of alignment with an organization’s core purpose. Essentially, this research offers an increased understanding into the mask of ambiguity that inhibits progression and identifies the elements needed to assist qualified employees who are refusing to advance into executive vacancies.

Executive remuneration is about how to pay executive directors for their work. The definition of executive remuneration is from the agency cost developed from agency theory, proposing that shareholders shall pay directors for managing the company since the separation of ownership and management of firms. This thesis proposes that, three levels of elements are needed to understand executive remuneration: 1. The level and structure of executive pay; 2. The intrinsic factors that will influence the level and structure of executive remuneration: capital market, labour market, product market and corporate governance; 3. The regulation provided by government to interfere with executive remuneration issues. It will also be proposed that, there is no objective standard of justifying what is a good executive remuneration design. Pay for performance is currently the most proper principle and goal for remuneration design. There are two research questions to be answered by this thesis, first is should executive remuneration be regulated and, second is what regulation should be made under current situation of executive remuneration. After discussions around the problems of executive remuneration without regulation, the first research question will be answered by suggesting that executive remuneration problems cannot be solved without regulation. This thesis will then focus on the regulations that provided to solve executive remuneration problems. Various regulations from several countries from the company law and corporate governance perspective and their effects in adjusting the level and structure of executive remuneration will be analysed. The UK’s 2013 reform which provides shareholder with a binding vote on executive remuneration will be emphasised to investigate the merits and faults that regulations can bring to executive remuneration. Several suggestions towards remuneration regulation will be made in this thesis from the aspects of shareholder empowerment, board accountability and the design of executive remuneration. Targeted with the concerns left by the UK remuneration reform and other countries, these regulatory suggestions are designed from a normative perspective. They will answer the second research question by proposing that if regulations are designed in a proper way, certain problems of executive remuneration can be solved.