Marketing and the British chief executive

British chief executives increasingly recognise the need to make their companies more marketing orientated. But boards of directors are still dominated by a financial outlook and most lack a professional approach to strategy and market innovation. Chief executives need to supplement their generally inadequate base with education and development programmes on strategic marketing and to add non‐executive directors with substantial expertise in marketing.     

The chief purchasing officer: previous background and experience

This paper uses data from the 1988 and 1995 CAPS studies on purchasing’s organisational roles and responsibilities to investigate the percentage of respondents that hired their chief purchasing officer (CPO) from outside the organisation. In doing so, this research compares the attributes of internal and external CPOs in the areas of previous work experience and education, and analyses the impact of CPO origin on the supply function in terms of involvement in major corporate activities, span of control, reporting line, title Rand the use of team-based purchasing techniques. The research findings indicate that one in five companies in this study chose to hire their CPO from outside the organisation and significant differences existed between internal and external CPOs with respect to their previous work experience, number of years in the position, and age. The smaller companies tended to hire CPOs from outside more frequently than the larger companies.     

Product-market competition and executive compensation

This paper examines how product-market competition affects the level and composition of executive compensation. The results of our theoretical and empirical models suggest that the incentive component of an executive's compensation tends to be higher in more competitive markets.     

Corporate spinoffs and executive compensation

This paper investigates the impact of corporate spinoffs on executive compensation. We find no significant association between executive compensation and stock returns prior to spinoffs, but a significant positive association between the two afterwards. We also find evidence that corporate governance generally improves after the spinoff. In addition, the positive association between executive compensation and stock returns is more pronounced for firms with greater improvements in their corporate governance. Overall, our findings support the notion that spinoffs create value by reducing agency costs.     

Complaint management and the role of the chief executive

The aim of this paper is to encourage a new stream of research into complaints and the role of the chief executive officer (CEO). The objectives of this paper were firstly to assess the intensity of dissatisfaction driving customers to complain directly to the CEO and secondly to ascertain if the reasons for complaining to the CEO were different to those of complainants using ‘normal’ channels. A leading financial services company in the UK provided access to its complaint letters and its CEO. Based on analysis of a sample of 100 letters sent to the CEO and 100 standard complaint letters, it was found that customers complaining directly to the CEO have a significantly greater intensity of dissatisfaction. However, unexpectedly, despite the greater positional power of the CEO, the reasons for complaining to the CEO were little different to the reasons for using the ‘normal’ channels. Interestingly most of the complainants to the CEO had multiple reasons for complaint suggesting that complaints to the CEO are motivated by multiple underlying service failures.     

A blueprint to build women chief executive officers globally

The purpose of this article is to offer a blueprint to build women chief executive officers (CEOs) globally. It outlines essential qualities for women CEOs. It explains CEO acumen and offers tools and techniques for women to excel as CEOs. It draws a blueprint for global organizations to build women CEOs. It differentiates between women and men leaders. It emphasizes women can make better leaders than men. It illustrates with inspiring examples of women leaders including Melinda Gates, Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Angela Merkel, Indra Nooyi, Ursula Burns, Meg Whitman, and Sheryl Sandberg. It implores women to seize the opportunities to break the glass ceiling to excel as CEOs. It enlightens the society cannot grow when one sex is denied with opportunities. It calls upon men to empathize with women and extend their hands with a big heart to groom them as CEOs. It advocates gender equality globally. It concludes women leaders must express their ambition in the early stage of their careers and work hard consistently and relentlessly with a focus and vision to excel as CEOs globally.     

Chief executive officer ability and corporate environmental sustainability information disclosure

This study explores the impact of CEO ability on corporate environmental sustainability information disclosure. We take samples from Chinese A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2019 and use the ordinary least squares as a baseline regression model to check the relationship between CEO ability and corporate environmental sustainability information disclosure. Our findings are robust to different corporate environmental sustainability information disclosure measures and CEO ability. We found a positive association between CEO ability and corporate environmental sustainability information disclosure; thus, firms with a more able CEO are more likely to disclose more corporate environmental sustainability information. Our results also found a significant negative interaction coefficient between CEO ability and CEO career concerns. As the CEO grows older, his/her ability decreases; therefore, corporate environmental sustainability information disclosure reduces. Furthermore, we document that a female CEO strengthens the relationship between CEO ability and corporate environmental sustainability information disclosure. The study results are important for understanding corporate environmental responsibility development and implementation, particularly in China.     

Interview: Leadership,global management,and future challenges: An interview with Peter Brabeck‐Letmathe,chief executive officer of Nestlé SA

The interview with Peter Brabeck‐Letmathe, Chief Executive Officer of Nestlé S.A., focuses on three core business concepts: Nestlé's leadership style in today's global environment, the importance of Nestlé's core values, and some future challenges to Nestlé. Nestlé's ideal leaders are dynamic, multicultural, and open‐minded; they continuously seize the opportunities that a changing environment offers. Nestlé's Basic Management and Leadership Principles are the foundation upon which changes are enacted and implemented. Nestlé's organizational structures are tailored to facilitate business in many different product categories. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Top executive compensation,regional institutions and Chinese OFDI

Integrating agency and institutional theories, this paper examines the impact of top-executive compensation and regional institutions on the outward FDI(OFDI) of a sample of Chinese-listed firms. The results show that top-executive cash pay and equity ownership have a positive association with OFDI. Differing from previous studies focusing on cross-country institutional variances, we take variations in within-country institutions into account and find that regional institutions in terms of product markets, factor markets and legal systems play an important role in OFDI and positively moderate the governance role of managerial equity ownership.     

Ethical choices in the design and administration of executive compensation programs

Within the past few years, executives have come under increased scrutiny and criticism for the levels of compensation they receive. At the same time, corporate practices surrounding the design and review of executive compensation programs have received increased attention. While some recent executive misconduct has involved violations of the law, many academics and other corporate critics view the issues involving executive compensation more from an ethical than a legal perspective. Several dimensions of the executive compensation decision process offer significant opportunities for ethical choices. This article identifies the major components of executive compensation and highlights decision points in the design and administration of each component where ethical issues may arise. Proposals to reduce the potential for ethical misconduct are also offered.     

The political determinants of executive compensation: Evidence from an emerging economy

In regulated economies, corporate governance mechanisms such as executive compensation are less driven by market-based forces but more subject to political influence. We study the political determinants of executive compensation for all listed Chinese firms in the context of an exogenous shock that removed market frictions in share-tradability. Under strong political constraints, state ownership reduced the managerial pay levels and increased pay-for-performance sensitivity (to asset-based benchmarks). Board independence and compensation committees do not curb managerial pay, and market-based factors do not have a significant influence. However, these effects reversed following the governance shock (removal of market frictions in share tradability).     

The impact of firm strategy on performance measures used in executive compensation

We investigate the relationship between firm strategy and the use of performance measures in executive compensation. Our analysis shows that there is an increased emphasis on sales in the determination of executive compensation for firms pursuing a cost leadership strategy, which seek to achieve their competitive advantage through low price and high volume. In contrast, there is a decreased emphasis on accounting measures in firms pursuing a differentiation strategy, which require investments in brand recognition and innovative products, investments that are subject to unfavorable accounting treatment. These results indicate that compensation committees link executive rewards to firm strategy.     

Determinants of organizational performance: some implications for top executive leadership in Korean firms

ABSTRACT

Leadership, although commonly assumed to be greatly significant, is not typically studied in terms of structural characteristics accounted for in organizational performance. The effect of top executive leadership is explored here as a key factor that reflects organizational characteristics by offering a new framework and presenting an empirical test of Korean business firms. This research can be possibly made by focusing on the size of the leadership which explicates the difference between structural, resource and contextual variables in organizations. The multivariate regression analysis shows that firm size, leadership, debt and export significantly affect organizational performance, as measured by net income. The mechanism of Korean business firms needs to readjust to the new environment for organizational performance.     

Gender differences in executive compensation: Variation with board gender composition and time

This paper uses EXECUCOMP, COMPUSTAT and Investor's Responsibility Resource Center data to examine gender differences in executive salaries and total compensation from 1996 to 2004. We find that the salaries of female executives are about 5 percent lower than those of male executives, controlling for executive, firm, and board characteristics, and that the gap exists primarily in the lower officer ranks, where women are relatively highly concentrated. The gender difference in salary is larger in firms with more male-dominated boards; perhaps not coincidentally, such firms are also found to have fewer female executives in top managerial positions as well as lower probabilities of having any top female executives at all. The results of Oaxaca wage decompositions suggest that, although the magnitude of the gender difference decreases slightly over the sample period, the share of the gender difference that is due to unobserved factors remains basically steady or even increases. Thus, although women have become better represented in top executive jobs in recent decades, their relative salaries remain below those of men, possibly due in part to governance structures that remain male-dominated.