 Theories on executive pay. A literature overview and critical assessmentJordan Otten () MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Abstract: Executive pay is a major issue in the corporate governance debate. As well in practice as in theory debate still exists how executive pay levels and structures can be explained. This paper provides an overview of 16 theories that have been used in the literature to explain the phenomenon. The theories can be classified into three types of approaches; 1) the value approach; 2) the agency approach; and 3) the symbolic approach. A critical assessment of the theories shows that the dominant use in the literature of the perfect contracting approach of agency theory neglects: 1) the socially determined symbolic value that executive pay could represent, and 2) the contextual conditions under which executive pay is set. A more conclusive understanding of executive pay would be based on considering executive pay as an outcome of socially constructed corporate governance arrangements in which the actors involved have considerable discretion to influence the outcomes. Incorporating such a view in attempts to explain executive pay provides a more conclusive explanation of the recurrent debate on executive pay in theory and practice. Keywords: Executive compensation; corporate governance; theory overview (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:6969 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC. |
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