THE EFFECT OF EXECUTIVE INCENTIVES ON TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION OF DECLINING ENTERPRISES – THE MODERATING EFFECT OF DECLINE DEGREE AND ORGANISATIONAL SLACK

We examine the effects of different types of executive incentives on technological innovation of declining firms and the moderating effects of the degree of decline and organisational slack on executive incentives and enterprise technological innovation. We also assess the synergetic effects of different types of executive incentives on technological innovation of declining enterprises. We find the following: first, executive compensation incentive, equity incentive and control incentives are beneficial to promote technological innovation in declining enterprises. Second, the degree of decline negatively moderates the relationship between equity incentive and technological innovation. Third, organisational slack positively moderates the relationship between equity incentive and technological innovation, as well as the relationship between control incentives and technological innovation, especially for severely declining enterprises. Fourth, there are synergistic effects between executive control incentive and compensation incentive, control incentives and equity incentive on technological innovation. The contributions are as follows: first, taking declining enterprises as sample, we suggest that to increase the role of compensation incentive and equity incentive in promoting technological innovation in declining enterprises, the control incentives should be strengthened. Second, organisational slack should be fully exploited for severely declining enterprises so that executives should have the motivation and conditions to carry out technological innovation and further help declining enterprises to turnaround successfully.

The Behavioral Agency Model and Innovation Investment: Examining the Combined Effects of CEO and Board Ownership

The Behavioral Agency Model (BAM) offers a behavioral account of executive incentives, according to which the perceived threats to CEO wealth, that is, CEO risk bearing, influence a CEO’s propensity to undertake innovation investments. While examining stock options extensively, the extant BAM research devotes relatively scant attention to other forms of incentives, such as stock ownership, that are conducive to one source of risk bearing, that is, employment risk. Furthermore, with an emphasis placed on the CEO, much BAM research neglects the interactive risk preferences of the CEO and the board. This study refines the BAM and empirically explores the countervailing forces exerted by the CEO and board ownership. It elucidates that while CEO ownership exhibits an inverted U-shaped relationship with innovation investment, board ownership weakens that relationship. An exploratory test on a sample of 108 Italian manufacturing firms provides support for the hypothesized effects. The refined BAM sheds further light on executive incentives through a behavioral lens, by elucidating the role of stock ownership and the interactive risk preferences of the CEO and the board.

CEO compensation, incentive alignment, and carbon transparency

We examine whether chief executive officer compensation aligned with stakeholders’ interests is associated with enhanced corporate carbon transparency. Using an international sample obtained from the CDP, we find that corporate carbon transparency—as measured by both the propensity to voluntarily disclose carbon information and the quality and comprehensiveness of the disclosure—is greater when managers’ compensation contracts are better aligned with stakeholder interests. Further analyses indicate that this positive relationship is stronger in countries or regions with a code law legal system, with an inefficient rule of law, that show strong social norms toward climate change, that feature collectivist societies, and that have a long-term orientation. These findings indicate that the stakeholder agency problem of voluntary carbon disclosure can be addressed through executive incentives that are aligned with stakeholders’ interests.

Does venture capital help to promote open innovation practice? Evidence from China

PurposeThe study aims to empirically study the effect of venture capital on open innovation of China's enterprises.Design/methodology/approachThis paper selects China's A-share listed companies on the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) board and the Growth Enterprise Market from 2014 to 2018 as research samples to empirically study the effect of venture capital on open innovation of China's enterprises.FindingsThe authors find that venture capital can significantly promote open innovation of enterprises. This promoting effect is more significant when the venture capital institutions have profounder industry experience, higher shareholding ratio and are syndicated. Further research finds that venture capital mainly promotes open innovation through three mechanisms: increasing monetary funds, improving absorptive capacity and strengthening executive incentives, and the effect of venture capital on open innovation is significantly different under the conditions of different regions, industries and property rights.Originality/valueThis paper not only reveals the effect of venture capital on enterprises' open innovation and the specific mechanism, but also provides empirical evidence for emerging economies to build a national innovation ecosystem and make use of capital markets to accelerate innovation strategies.

Research on the Effect of Executive Incentive Institutional Innovation on the Cost of Equity—Evidence From Chinese Listed Companies

Executive incentive has long been a hot topic among academics and practitioners. With the continuous development of China's manager market, the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship among executives has exerted a greater influence on corporate performance. Enterprise innovation is an important part of the entrepreneurial spirit. Moreover, China's supply-side reforms and compensation system of the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have been advanced and innovative. Therefore, based on the manager human capital theory and the organizational innovation theory, and using 15,492 firm-year observations from China's Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies for the period 2005–2018, we constructed various models, including the Gorden model, the Growth Rate of Price–Earnings Ratio model (PEG), the Ohlson and Juettner-Nauroth model (OJ), and the Capital Asset Pricing model (CAPM), to measure the cost of equity. We investigated the effect of the institutional innovation of executive incentives on the cost of equity, and the heterogeneous influence of China's special property rights system on the relationship between the two. We found that the innovations of the executive incentive system have a positive governance effect on the cost of equity. In particular, executive compensation incentives significantly reduce a company's equity costs. We also find that the state-owned property rights may weaken the positive effect of institutional innovation of executive incentives. Furthermore, China's executive incentives system and corporate governance mechanism are imperfect; and therefore, institutional innovation is a matter of great urgency and more innovative ideas for the manager market need to be introduced. China's listed companies should give full play to the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship, constantly innovating incentive-based compensation systems of companies, and establishing a scientific and innovative concept of the cost of equity. The findings are robust after controlling for potential endogeneity concerns.

The effect of executive compensation on earnings quality of conglomerates listed in Nigeria

This paper is an empirical analysis of the impact of Executive compensation on earnings quality of listed firms in Nigeria for the period of 2015-2019. The study adopts the multiple regression technique. Data were collected from the annual reports and accounts of sampled firms. The findings reveal that Executive compensation positively and significantly affect the earnings quality of listed Conglomerates in Nigeria, the result implies that firms that pay higher emoluments to its executive are likely to improve the quality of earnings. It is recommended that the listed Conglomerates firms should increase the amount paid as emoluments to their executives as the higher emolument paid and received by executives improve the level of earnings quality and reduces earnings management which may be detrimental to the goal and objectives of the firm. Key words: Compensation, Conglomerates, Executive, Incentives, Performance, Shareholders

Board Expertise and Executive Incentives

We investigate how board expertise affects chief executive officer (CEO) incentives and firm value. The CEO engages in a sequence of tasks: first acquiring information to evaluate a potential project, then reporting his or her assessment of the project to the board, and finally implementing the project if it is adopted. We demonstrate that the CEO receives higher compensation when the board agrees with the CEO on the assessment of the project. Board expertise leads to (weakly) better investment decisions and helps motivate the CEO's evaluation effort; however, it may induce underreporting and reduce the CEO's incentives to properly implement the project. Consequently, if motivating the CEO to evaluate projects is the major concern (e.g., innovative industries), board expertise exhibits an overall positive effect on firm value; however, if motivating the CEO to implement projects is the major concern (e.g., mature industries), board expertise can harm firm value. This paper was accepted by Shiva Rajgopal, accounting.