{"title":"The effect of pay disparities within top management on conservative reporting","authors":"Ma. Gad, Trang Nguyen, Mariano Scapin","doi":"10.1080/00014788.2022.2056119","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"We study the effect of the pay gap between the chief executive officer (CEO) and the next layer of executives in the top management team (TMT)—a proxy for promotion-based tournament incentives—on conditional conservatism in financial reporting. We find that higher levels of tournament incentives are associated with less conservative financial reports. Our results hold in an instrumental variable (IV) analysis and regressions using alternative measures of both pay gap and accounting conservatism. Furthermore, we find that senior executives’ engagement in tournaments for promotion is affected by their perceived probability of success. Specifically, the negative relationship between the pay gap and conservatism is stronger (weaker) when the CEO is more (less) likely to be replaced. Overall, our results indicate that pay disparities within the TMT play an important role in financial reporting.","PeriodicalId":7054,"journal":{"name":"Accounting and Business Research","volume":"53 1","pages":"478 - 504"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0000,"publicationDate":"2022-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Accounting and Business Research","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00014788.2022.2056119","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"BUSINESS, FINANCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
We study the effect of the pay gap between the chief executive officer (CEO) and the next layer of executives in the top management team (TMT)—a proxy for promotion-based tournament incentives—on conditional conservatism in financial reporting. We find that higher levels of tournament incentives are associated with less conservative financial reports. Our results hold in an instrumental variable (IV) analysis and regressions using alternative measures of both pay gap and accounting conservatism. Furthermore, we find that senior executives’ engagement in tournaments for promotion is affected by their perceived probability of success. Specifically, the negative relationship between the pay gap and conservatism is stronger (weaker) when the CEO is more (less) likely to be replaced. Overall, our results indicate that pay disparities within the TMT play an important role in financial reporting.
期刊介绍:
Accounting and Business Research publishes papers containing a substantial and original contribution to knowledge. Papers may cover any area of accounting, broadly defined and including corporate governance, auditing and taxation. However the focus must be accounting, rather than (corporate) finance or general management. Authors may take a theoretical or an empirical approach, using either quantitative or qualitative methods. They may aim to contribute to developing and understanding the role of accounting in business. Papers should be rigorous but also written in a way that makes them intelligible to a wide range of academics and, where appropriate, practitioners.