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Top Executive Remuneration: A View from Europe*
Author(s) -
Bruce Alistair,
Buck Trevor,
Main Brian G. M.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
journal of management studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.398
H-Index - 184
eISSN - 1467-6486
pISSN - 0022-2380
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-6486.2005.00553.x
Subject(s) - remuneration , executive summary , principal (computer security) , dominance (genetics) , stakeholder , stewardship (theology) , stewardship theory , executive compensation , principal–agent problem , stakeholder theory , extant taxon , focus (optics) , corporate governance , economics , management , political science , computer science , finance , law , politics , chemistry , physics , optics , gene , operating system , evolutionary biology , biology , biochemistry
We argue that the dominance of principal‐agent theory as an approach to investigating executive pay has led to an overly narrow focus which may be unhelpful when considering cross‐country differences and probably also hinders within‐country analysis. The paper discusses the interlinked nature of three available theoretical lenses, namely principal‐agent, executive power, and stewardship/stakeholder theories. It argues that institutional theory can provide a useful overarching framework within which appropriate variants of these approaches can be deployed to better comprehend developments in executive pay. We illustrate our approach with a discussion of executive pay in the UK and in Germany.