Corporate Governance Ideology, Human Resource Practices and Senior Staff Salaries

This chapter examines the link between corporate governance ideology and HR (human resource) practices involved in the important and ongoing issue of senior staff salaries. In the spirit of financialization and hyper-individuals, the mainstream corporate governance ideology promotes beliefs about competitive pay and managerial power. These beliefs shape the design and implementation of HR practices by legitimizing the ‘common-sense’ assumption that senior staff members should, primarily, be rewarded for meeting corporate goals. However, our discussion critiques the use of this corporate governance ideology for encouraging myopia and silence amongst remuneration committee members in response to growing inequality. This is exemplified by an inductive analysis of remuneration committee minutes taken from British universities (n = 67). Interestingly, this example also highlighted a marginalized belief about sacrificial leadership that countered this growth under alternative ideology in the spirit of altruism. The chapter recommends the radical proposal that remuneration committees should expand their remit beyond only considering senior staff salaries and promote HR practices that will embed altruism and equality.