A Comprehensive Study on the Effect of XBRL-Adopted Financial Reporting on the Sensitivity of Executive Compensation Performance: A Multi-Dimensional Perspective

XBRL is an extensible business reporting language. XBRL-adopted financial reporting has been increasingly becoming prevalent in the field of financial accounting information. The related research of XBRL adoption is a hot topic, mainly focusing on technical specifications, classification standards, and application effects of XBRL adoption. However, currently few studies have paid attention to the effect of XBRL-adopted financial reporting on corporate governance, particularly on executive compensation management. Moreover, most of the conclusions from these studies are inconsistent. This paper aims to comprehensively explore the effect of XBRL-adopted financial reporting on the sensitivity of executive compensation performance creatively from a multi-dimensional perspective. This perspective includes three dimensions of the XBRL-adopted time period, firm property, and performance, plus the 3-D crossover. The findings show that a law exists for describing the evolution of the effect of XBRL adoption over time, which indicates that the effect of XBRL adoption during an early period is greater than that during a later period. In the firm property dimension, the sensitivity of executive compensation performance of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) is higher than that of non-SOEs after XBRL adoption, and the sensitivity changing rate of SOEs is also greater than that of non-SOEs. In the firm performance dimension, the sensitivity of the executive compensation performance of well-governed firms is higher than that of poorly governed firms after XBRL adoption, but the sensitivity changing rate of well-governed firms is smaller than that of poorly governed firms. Furthermore, in the cross-dimension of time period and firm property, the effect of XBRL adoption on the sensitivity of executive compensation performance in non-SOEs shows a similar law to that in the time-period dimension. However, no obvious law is shown in SOEs. In the cross-dimension of time period and firm performance, the effect of XBRL adoption on the sensitivity of executive compensation performance in well-governed firms also shows a similar law to that in the time-period dimension. However, no obvious law is shown in poorly governed firms. In the cross-dimension of firm property and firm performance, the sensitivity of executive compensation performance is closely correlated to firm performance, and correspondingly, poorly governed non-SOEs show a low sensitivity, which is even significantly lower than those in both the overall poorly governed firms and the overall non-SOEs. The findings can help firms to identify their special properties, performances, and XBRL-adopted time periods to make appropriate decisions to improve the performance of executive compensation management after XBRL adoption.